Learning React, Again
I’m going to start this off with a very controversial statement. Ready? React is awesome. Not taken back? That’s because React JS is awesome. It remains the most popular front-end framework and shows no signs of giving that up that title. It’s a powerful tool that, in the hands of those who are comfortable, can render (lol) beautiful interactive user-interfaces.
It was first designed by Jordan Walke in 2011 and it’s open source release came a couple years later in 2013. Since then it has continued to improve with new releases in 2017 and 2019 (a new release was announced on August 10th of this year but it unfortunately has no new features). It’s reach was further expanded when React Native was released in 2015 as a framework for mobile development. All in all it has become necessary to learn if you want to learn web development.
I attended Flatiron School’s software engineering bootcamp earlier this year. React was the last stretch of the mental marathon before our final projects. It was an intense 3 weeks, but by the end of it I knew React like that back of my hand. Wait, no, that was a lie. I knew React, I could do some pretty cool and impressive stuff, but I didn’t really know react, you know? It’s similar to learning spoken languages (Some argue that programming languages are equal to spoken languages. Alvaro Videla provides an amazing argument against that concept, but if you feel like falling down the rabbit hole good luck.) in that you could probably figure things out, read a menu, maybe hold a short convo, but do you couldn’t describe in great detail all the events of your life, and which of those would be more impressive? I would argue the latter.
React is massive, as in there is so much you can do depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, so many libraries to choose from for what you need, and a multitude of ways to achieve a similar goal. There are best practices, and those can be challenging to master when given so many options. With this in mind I decided maybe I should learn React? Again? Yes, the answer was quite clear. It’s easy to miss small details when learning something quickly, and those small details can be critical as your app expands or you try to implement new features.
I chose to take an online course taught by the one and only Mosh Hamedani (his courses are phenomenal for everyone from beginners to experts who want to take a head-first dive into a new language or framework, and the price point is equally phenomenal). After a the first few lessons those lights left dim from jamming the complexity of React into my brain in 3 short weeks started to get brighter. “So THAT’S why you x or y” I found myself saying. I felt like a chef with newly sharpened knives, ready to get back on the line and make some new dishes (apps if you were expecting the pun).
Ultimately what I discovered is it’s ok to go back and learn something again. You’re not putting yourself behind by not trying to move further forward as fast as possible. In all actuality you might be putting yourself ahead by being better at what really matters, and that is the fundamentals. Go ahead learn something again. You’re going to do great things!
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