The MERN stack is a solution composed of four main components:
- MongoDB: A database that uses a document-oriented data model.
- ExpressJS: A web application framework for building web applications and APIs.
- ReactJS: A declarative, component-based, and isomorphic JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
- Node.js: A cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine allows developers to build diverse tools, servers, and applications.
These fundamental components that comprise the MERN stack are open source, and are thus maintained and developed by a great community of developers. What ties these components together is a common language, JavaScript.
The recipes in this chapter will mainly focus on setting up a development environment to work with a MERN stack.
You are free to use the code editor or IDE of your choice. However, I would suggest you give Visual Studio Code a try if you have trouble deciding which IDE to use.
