Are you starting as a developer? Easy peasy guide to React.

One cold morning, I remember I was too sleepy and decided to grab a coffee. In that moment, I was working at a company in Budapest as a frontend developer, just a normal javascript dev, but as I was filling my cup, one of my coworkers was saying about this new technology called ‘REACT’. And how it would change the way we do web development.

I’ve always been the type of developer, that as soon as something new comes out, I want to know everything about it, so I went back to my desk and started doing my own searching. Afterwards, went to some senior developers to clear my mind from any doubts as the terms with React were a little complex in that time for me.

For this article, I will share with you, ’10 things you should know about React’ that can help you get a better understanding, don’t hesitate it takes time for everyone, trust me.

1. React was created by Facebook, as a way to fix a ‘notification’ bug they had, but that’s another story. What they really wanted was to encourage to write HTML and CSS in your Javascript instead. This might sound crazy, but trust me a component-based paradigm is the best thing ever. Why? Its reusable and performance improves.
2. Never forget. React is a library, not a framework. The difference is that you can have full control on the way you want to implement it, in this case, component based ideology.
3. React lets you create interactive UIs declared inside components. Lets imagine a component as a function that accepts properties and outputs the declared interface. You can nest those components and reuse them as much as you want, making your app smaller and higher on performance.
4. React works by a ‘Virtual Dom’. The difference with other js tech, is that React doesn’t need a dirty checking to find the changes, instead it creates a exact copy of all the document every time there is a change on the state then rendering the newer copy version.
5. You will need to learn this important things: Get yourself a cool JS book (Eloquent Javascript is a good start), learn about ES6, JSX, how objects work and most important, have a positive attitude, programming is all about practice and dedication.
6. It’s all about ‘STATE’ and you will use it everywhere and it can be confusing. I read once that you you need to think of it as water, ice and vapor. It’s the same object but it has different states depending the conditions. But in React, the state changes depending on how we want to interact with objects.
7. A lot of react developers use Flux/Redux as the app grows bigger, mainly used for sharing data between components in a very elegant way. The main pattern is: Unidirectional data flow.
8. There is something called: ‘Smart/Dumb’ Components, the dumb ones are usually used when just building a part of the interface without managing any data (Functional components) meanwhile the smart ones handle logic and data (Class based components).
9. Each component has a lifecycle, which represents each stage in the components life. Knowing how to use them properly will help you maintain proper data flow and handle events in your application.
10. React community is super friendly and you can find great developer tools.React is well covered in terms of design and debugging tools, not to mention is really easy to test.

So “Do I enjoy working with React?” Of Course I do and the best part is that I’ve always loved technologies that help me work smarter and challenge me to make things better. To be honest, understanding React is not as easy if you don’t have js basics or es6 knowledge, but trust me, its total worth to learn it if you are really into web development, especially interested in developing bigger apps.

Never forget that a great developer is made by practice, discipline and constant curiosity.

Your react friend, Alejandra.