Learning React JS

2020-02-03

My career as a UI Developer has mostly been styling pages using CSS.

Making web applications look good cross-browser while being mobile-friendly is hard. CSS is a huge topic that many technical authors have written books about.

One of my favorites is: The Book of CSS3, 2nd Edition: A Developer's Guide to the Future of Web Design

To be able to build the kind of interactive applications I dream about, I need something more than CSS.

So I've been learning React for the last month. Here's the resources I'm using:

Resources

• React JS
• JavaScript for React Developers
• React Crash Course 2019
• The React Handbook
• The React Cheatsheet for 2020  

Learning Milestones

• ES6+ aka ECMAScript2015
• What is a React component?
• ReactDOM rendering
• Class vs functional components
• JSX
• State
• Event handling
• Asynchronous setState
• Props
• Refs  

My goal is to learn enough to add interactive projects to my portfolio. Here are a few ideas I'm considering.

React Projects

• Use Gatsby.js (built on React) to create a portfolio with a blog.
• To-Do list
• Social Media App like Twitter
• E-Commerce App
• Media App
• Messaging App  

Learning React is going to take time and practice. But so far I'm enjoying the journey.