Alex Merced — Developer and technical writer sharing in-depth insights on data engineering, Apache Iceberg, data lakehouse architectures, Python tooling, and modern analytics platforms, with a strong focus on practical, hands-on learning.
418 articles from this blog
A tutorial on implementing JWT authentication in an Express.js API, with examples using both MongoDB and PostgreSQL databases.
A tutorial on implementing a simple, custom global state management solution in React using Context API and hooks.
A technical guide to modeling one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships in MongoDB using the Mongoose ODM in Node.js.
A technical guide explaining how to implement authentication and authorization in any backend language or framework, covering user models, signup/login routes, and session vs JWT auth.
A tutorial on building a habit tracker using GraphQL, Hasura for the backend API, and React for the frontend.
A guide to essential developer team workflows covering Git branching strategies, Agile methodologies, and CI/CD practices for effective collaboration.
A technical comparison of React Router 5, React Router 6, and React Location, covering installation, setup, and common routing tasks.
A comprehensive cheatsheet for using popular templating engines (LiquidJS, EJS, Mustache, Pug, Handlebars) in Express.js applications.
A guide to starting a quick HTTP server from the command line using Python, Ruby, Node, and PHP as alternatives to the VSCode liveserver extension.
A tutorial on setting up and using the Neo4j Graph Database with Node.js, including connections, models, and basic CRUD operations.
A step-by-step tutorial on building a full-stack TypeScript Todo application using Next.js and MongoDB, from setup to deployment.
Explores pattern matching in JavaScript using the alexmerced-patternmatcher library, comparing it to traditional conditionals.
A step-by-step guide to deploying a web application on a VPS using Nginx, covering server setup, service creation, and SSL configuration.
A guide to making AJAX/HTTP requests in frontend JavaScript, covering APIs, Promises, and tools like jQuery, Fetch, and Axios.
A step-by-step tutorial on implementing basic user authentication in a Node.js/Express app using MongoDB and JSON Web Tokens (JWT).
Explores the trend of using Alpine.js and HTMX to add reactivity and interactivity to server-side rendered HTML with minimal JavaScript.
A tutorial comparing three methods for making API requests in React: using fetch/axios, the merced-react-hooks library, and react-request.
A quick reference cheatsheet for DOM manipulation using plain vanilla JavaScript and jQuery, covering selection, node creation, events, and loading scripts.
An introductory guide to database fundamentals, covering data design, relationships, and types of databases for application development.
A tutorial on building a basic CRUD API using only Node.js core modules, covering RESTful conventions and implementation without external frameworks.
