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.
501 articles from this blog
Explains why Markdown is an essential skill for developers, covering its uses, basic syntax, and benefits for productivity.
A guide outlining a realistic path to becoming a web developer in 2022, covering foundational learning, education options, and job hunting.
A tutorial on implementing a one-to-many database relationship with user authentication using the Masonite framework in Python.
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.
