pos VS TypeScript-Node-Starter

A few years ago, I built the website https://sea-air-towers.herokuapp.com/ whose code is at https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/TypeScript-Node-Starter . It's a site that helps people who annualy rent units in this beachfront vacation condo building find other units in the same building to rent next year (my mom is president of the building and asked me, with my bachelor's in Computer Science, to build the site for her). I built it by forking and then building on top of the TypeScript Node.js starter seed application code at https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript-Node-Starter . I chose this TypeScript seed because I prefer TypeScript over JavaScript due to the types and the JavaScript seed (that the TypeScipt seed which I chose was based on) which is at https://github.com/sahat/hackathon-starter has a ton of stars on GitHub, so I assumed it was a good seed for building a site. The thing is, looking back, I wonder if maybe WordPress would have been a better tool to build this site. Two questions:

I made a CRUD app with frontend and backend JavaScript and TypeScript (JavaScript with types) by modifying https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript-Node-Starter into https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/TypeScript-Node-Starter and then deploying it to Heroku to make the website at https://sea-air-towers.herokuapp.com/ . The database is MongoDB which stores JSON objects in documents, I used the "Start Free" option at https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas/lp/try4 . You can copy off me and edit/modify it.

So MERN (MongoDB, Express, React, Node) is more likely to be used by startups and other relatively new and relatively small companies. Stuff based on Microsoft's .NET are more likely to be used by bigger or older organizations like governments or non-startup businesses. I personally think bigger and older organizations tends to have more jobs and pay a little better on average than small organizations. Startups sometimes offer stock, but a lot of the time startup stock ends up worthless. You can learn both for a more well-rounded understanding and educational purposes. Like here is a project I built with MERN and TypeScript: https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/TypeScript-Node-Starter , the running website is at https://sea-air-towers.herokuapp.com/ , I deployed it to Heroku. It is possible to build the exact same thing with ASP.NET Core, it would probably just take a little longer. Spring Boot is the Java alternative to ASP.NET Core and is also more likely to be used by larger organizations than MERN is.

I think it's fine to have a GitHub pages site for your GitHub profile and have that GitHub pages site link to all the demo app sites you created. I would also pin the code repositories for each of those apps on my GitHub profile and in the code repository put the link to the running app itself. So like for example this is my GitHub: https://github.com/JohnReedLOL . It has five pinned repositories. One of the pinned repositories, https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/TypeScript-Node-Starter , has a description that says "Website I (John Reed) built by modifying TypeScript-Node-Starter seed app. See link to the running site below:" and then there's the link to the site I implemented. You also want to be able to pass a coding test, I personally bought and read "Cracking the Coding Interview" by Gayle McDowell.

I have an older version of this same code with older dependencies at https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/TypeScript-Node-Starter

A portfolio of personal projects ceases to matter when you have years of relevant experience but it can help you get your first few jobs. The code for personal projects is usually hosted on GitHub with a README.md file in your project's repository for documentation. Here's a project I published because I found it useful for print debugging Scala code: https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/pos . Usually if prospective employers look at your personal project they will just briefly look at the README documentation without actually running it (I don't think any employer actually takes the time to run the code in your personal projects). I also have a website I built for my mom's condo at https://sea-air-towers.herokuapp.com/ with the source code at https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/TypeScript-Node-Starter , both of which I previously put on my resume. I like having links to websites I built on my resume because a potential employer can click the link and briefly take a look, which is much more convenient for them than having to execute the code you wrote on their machine, which they don't have the time or interest in doing. For hosting I used Heroku because it's more convenient than AWS and they used to be 100% free for personal projects, but recently Salesforce bought Heroku and ended that policy so the app hosting has been costing $7 per month. You might incur less cost if you take out AWS free tier or free credits although those run out after some number of months.

If you're not sure what you want to do maybe build your own sample site from a "starter" like https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript-Node-Starter (this one uses TypeScript which is JavaScript with types added) or https://github.com/sahat/hackathon-starter (this one uses plain old JavaScript without types). I personally deploy to https://www.heroku.com/ because it's less complicated than deploying to AWS or Google Cloud but more businesses deploy to AWS than Heroku so learning AWS and having the AWS services you use to build and deploy your app as skills on your resume would probably make your resume look better to companies than just saying you know Heroku. If you want to copy off me (don't make and use an exact copy) my sample app deployed to Heroku has its code at https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/TypeScript-Node-Starter and the site is at https://sea-air-towers.herokuapp.com/ (I pay Heroku $7 a month for hosting). It's good to have a link to a sample app and link to the code for your sample app on your resume, just make the README.md file on GitHub look good so people can look at it and know what your app does. I have a software library with a much better looking README.md file at https://github.com/JohnReedLOL/pos