React is everywhere these days and growing fast. I think for this reason, many people are trying to learn how to use this framework. My journey towards learning this framework started with the many small tutorials floating around on the internet. I felt pretty confident after a few and attempted to build a bucket list app with authentication.
Holy smokes did reality knock me flat on the ground. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to implement the minimum functionality and encountered a few walls. It gradually became clear that I needed a better understanding of the fundamentals of how React and Redux worked together.
The first course
After a lot of poking around, I decided on Stephen Grider’s Modern React Redux course on Udemy. Factors that went into this decision included the price ($20 on sale) and my own personal awareness that I learn best with a little bit of structure, at least in the beginning.
I found the course excellent. Stephen has a real knack for describing things in an easy to understand way and the approach of the course, which included the creation of several small projects, was useful in understanding the real-life application of the concepts. I particularly liked how Stephen even strove to taught the user how to troubleshoot common problems while developing with React.
Second app attempt
After finishing the Udemy course I felt much more confident and revisited my bucket list app. The course doesn’t include authentication as a topic but I managed to implement all the functionality that I wanted with a JSON web token authentication system. Success! But slightly buggy. I knew that I needed to learn more.
The second course
I learned so much with Stephen Grider’s first course that I decided to take his second on the topic, Advanced React Redux. This course was on sale again and it included authentication, something that I wanted to understand more deeply. This one was as good as the first, but you could tell some elements were in need of updating, such as the sections dealing with redux-form, the API of which has changed quite a bit over the last year or two.
I’ve added the example Node/React application with authentication to Github for those that are interested.
The present
Nowadays I’ve been increasing my understanding by building little apps and contributing to open source React projects. I’ve been eyeing React Native courses and those at React Training. Stay tuned for more reviews.
How did you learn React? What resources have helped you?