Resources For Learning (& Improving) React.js
Since it’s creation nearly ten years ago by Jordan Waller, then Software Engineer at Facebook, React.js has become one of the most popular and important tools in a web developer’s arsenal.
It’s use of the Virtual DOM and components to provide a truly fast, efficient and modular design makes sure it is one of the most popular frameworks for JavaScript, the most popular language. It is easy-to-use and relatively easy to master.
This article isn’t going to explain what or how to us React and it’s not explicitly going to teach you anything. Instead, here are a list of extremely useful links and documents that will help you to learn from scratch, improve or solidify an idea in React. Whether you want to learn how to use what everyone in the developer community is talking about, or whether you need to study something in particular before a big interview — you should find all you need as you scroll down.
Where to start:
React Scrimba Course
https://scrimba.com/learn/learnreact
If you’re not familiar with Scrimba, you should definitely change that now. Scrimba is an educational website that mixes lectures with coding exercises so that you can code along as you learn. It’s proprietary technology allows you to pause the video and code directly onto the same sandbox as the instructor and see how that code runs in real time. It is an incredibly useful tool for those who learn best by playing around with code to see it’s outputs and results.
This very informative (and free!) 4-hour course by Bob Ziroll, explains the basics of React right up through more advanced topics. The ability to dip in and out allows your to self-pace your progress to make sure you get the most out of it.
If this is your first intro to React, I guarantee you will have a decent understanding by the end of this course.
Where to follow:
React Docs
https://reactjs.org/docs/getting-started.html
Okay, this seems both obvious and yet underwhelming but the React Docs really are that good. From their in-depth glossaries of key concepts to strong tutorials on beginner and more advanced topics, the React Docs cover everything you would need to know about React. As an intermediate learner, if you read through these — especially any topics you aren’t fully comfortable with — you will feel so much stronger. And if you’re a beginner, reading these alongside the Scrimba will eliminate any gaps in your knowledge.
Where to finish:
React Interview Questions Prep
https://github.com/sudheerj/reactjs-interview-questions
Finally, once you are very familiar with the theory aspect from reading the docs, and the coding side from taking the Scrimba course you’re ready to start thinking about how to put that in practice. One of the best ways to do this is read this thoroughly exhaustive guide to common React Interview Questions
There are literally hundreds of questions in here, ranging from basic but necessary concepts like ‘What is the Virtual Dom?’ to more complex issues like Redux.
Most importantly, each and every question comes with an answer filled with code examples and diagrams to aid learning. Sudheerj has gone above and beyond here and — much like with the docs — going through these either one by one or focusing on areas you’re less comfortable with, should mean there are absolutely no gaps in your knowledge and you’ll be sure to impress the interviewer.
There are hundreds of other ways to learn React, whether it’s blogs, videos or other tools and these are just a few. Please feel free to post other useful finds in the comments so others can use them too!
