Inside the Code: A Developer’s Guide to My Node.js Blog

This blog isn’t powered by WordPress, Ghost, or any third-party CMS. I built it using Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and EJS all from scratch.

Here’s a peek under the hood at how it works.

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🛠️ Tech Stack Overview

• Node.js + Express for the server and routing
• MongoDB (with Mongoose) for storing blog posts
• EJS for rendering dynamic templates
• Static assets in /public for CSS, JS, and images

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📁 Project Structure

├── server.js
├── routes/
│   └── articles.js
├── views/
│   └── articles/
│       ├── index.ejs
│       └── show.ejs
├── models/
│   └── article.js
├── public/
│   └── scripts/
│       └── NumberFormatter.js

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🔁 The Main Flow

1. Home Route (/)

In server.js:

app.get('/', async (req, res) => {
  const articles = await Article.find().sort({ createdAt: 'desc' });
  res.render('articles/index', {
    articles,
    formatWithAbbreviation
  });
});

• Fetches all articles from MongoDB
• Sorts them by creation date (newest first)
• Passes them into an EJS template along with a number formatter

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2. Article Routes (/articles)

In routes/articles.js, I handle:

• New post creation
• Editing
• Deletion
• Viewing individual posts

EJS templates handle the views, and Mongoose manages the database logic.

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🧮 Formatting Numbers Smartly

I wrote a tiny utility: NumberFormatter.js.

// Example usage
formatWithAbbreviation(12400); // "12.4K"

This keeps the blog clean and modern, especially for stats like views or likes.

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🎨 Static Assets

app.use('/public', express.static('./public'));

All my CSS, JS, and media live in /public, and Express serves them directly.

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🔐 Dev-Friendly Extras

• Method Override to allow PUT/DELETE in HTML forms
• Environment variables for database config
• Middleware for parsing form data

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🧠 Final Thoughts

This blog isn’t just a writing platform—it’s a playground for learning full-stack web development. I control every part of the stack, from server logic to templating and deployment.

If you’re thinking of building your own blog from scratch, I say go for it. It’s the best way to truly understand how the web works.