The beginning is half of the whole
This famous saying from Pythagoras gives us the English maxim “Well begun is half done.” Literally, Pythagoras said, “The beginning is half of everything,” which reflects the philosopher’s outlook on life. Pythagoras approached all problems with full intensity, believing that the harder he worked, the better the outcome. ( Taken from here )
Apparently, the main subject of this post is: where should I start learning React?
Let’s examine the possible paths available to us, as thoroughly as possible.
Warm request: if you please know of some other way or means of learning React faster or more efficiently, please do contribute with a comment. Thanks in advance for your time and efforts.
Books
My main impulse / reaction when starting learning anything is to buy as many books as I can find about the certain topic. I do not know why but I have always loved books and my library contains more than a thousand of them, more or less. I also bought all of them with my own money all these years of “bookworming”. Excuse me but I cannot see buying books as an expense, more of like an investment with great future returns. Eventually, I bumped on this site here while in search for a decent book to read about React!
Guess what happened: yes, you almost got it right! In the beginning, I was tempted to buy it at first sight. Then I saw a name in the author’s list that seemed familiar. Wait a sec, I ‘ve seen this guy before! Ohhh, yes!! Tyler McGinnis, sure! You know what? In one of my previous searches I have found out this site and watched one or two of the videos in this free lesson. He is the presenter in this course and you know what else? I never forget a face even after seeing it once. So, even after 20 years have passed I will still remember it. That was the case with him. The thing is I eventually bought this nice book after a sales offer half price! Good deal, I suppose.
Note to remember: I have not finished the book yet. I have just read one chapter and left it aside! But, I will come back pretty soon in reading this. It covers a lot and it is well written. I will write my opinion on this in some future post for sure.
Tutorials
Secondly, going to React’s homepage to find some useful tutorials or “Getting started”. One of the greatest tools ever is this feature in Babel’s own website where you can use Babel REPL to check what ES6 code compiles to. You can see how our simplest example in Why React? compiles to. You will see a
require is not supported in the browser, you need a commonjs environment such as node.js/io.js, browserify/webpack etc
in the bottom. This error can be safely ingored in this environment so do not pay so much attention to it. I think you caught my drift. Here is a list of some useful tutorials to get started with:
- Building Your First React.js App
- React for Beginners
- Thinking in React
- Build with React
- ReactJS For Stupid People
and many many others. Of course, if you know of some tutorial that is super nice you can drop a comment and post a link there. Thanks in advance!
Online courses
Usual suspects like Coursera and Edx have no MOOCS on React. This is possibly due to the fact that the lessons are offered by illustrious Universities following standard well established technologies, not so cutting-edge. You can see this if you try to find lessons on JavaScript. Too few!!! I eventually took classes in uDemy. The classes I took are these:
- Modern React with Redux by Stephen Grider
- Advanced React and Redux by Stephen Grider
- The Complete React Native and Redux Course by Stephen Grider
- Webpack 2: The Complete Developer’s Guide by Stephen Grider
- React.js: Building Production Ready Apps, Start to Finish by 3D BUZZ Programming and Digital Art training
Yeah, I know! I went berserk!! So much money… What the heck? Nevertheless, I intend to finish them all 100%.
The first one I have completed is the first one in the above list and it was real fun to follow and write code along with Stephen. Thanks a lot Stephen! I highly recommend it…
Currently, I am in the middle more or less of the last one in the list by Nelson Laquet. So far, it is awesome and covers many different technologies and it is well structured. Well done Nelson!
Googling just in time
You have the rare opportunity to build something with React for a customer? Or, maybe your own personal project? Good. Google like hell!
Ok, we have all been doing this since the dawn of time. And it has proven to be quite reliable all these years. In fact, it is one, if not the greatest, tool in a developer’s hands!
PS: Something similar to this is when you apply for a job to get some tests/tasks given to you, so you can practice in real-time under real circumstances and with the cloak ticking ruthlessly. You start googling around trying to figure out how things fit together!
In conclusion, I have tried to deal with learning React from every angle, I think and gathered a whole lot of information to process in the near future. I presented only the resources in this article but in the next one I will give you some tips on time management and motivation that I am currently following like a soldier, even better: like a clock! Cheers!
