When react.js is too much?

JavaScript
1

I’m hoping I don’t get dinged as this being too subjective. I’m a novice at Javascript, (know the basics of properties, functions, loops, DOM manipulation, basic error checking), but I’m being challenged in my job to learn react.js. Can anyone tell me some tips on when you might not know enough JS to learn react.js? Is this questions even too subjective to ask? I haven’t dove into react.js completely yet, but I just want to know what some of the signs might be when I might need to back petal and review quickly. make sense?

2

Don’t worry, this isn’t Stack Overflow :wink:

Well, I would say there are several things that are important or useful to know in order to learn React:

  • ES6 syntax - many projects, examples and tutorials use the newer JS syntax, and it’s popular within the React community, so familiarize yourself with things like arrow functions, the spread operator, let/const etc.
  • Array functions - map(), forEach(), filter(), and reduce() are useful for working with data within components, so make sure you’re familiar with them.
  • How this works - you’ll need to understand how the value of this is determined within a function, and some different techniques for binding it (making sure it refers to what you want) in order to work with event handlers and other component methods.

Shameless PlugTM: We have some introductory articles on React over on SitePoint’s JavaScript channel that you might find useful, such as Getting Started with React and JSX.

4 Likes
3

Just picking up on @fretburner’s point on ES6, the Wes Bos ‘ES6 for Everyone’ is a really good primer on the subject.

4

Sounds good. I’m always afraid of being dinged for some crazy rule about what not to post in forums! I never know if what I am asking is subjective till I asked it, wish Stack OverFlow weren’t nazis!!

5

SO isn’t for opinion questions. It’s for hard questions with definitive answers that you can prove.

It serves it’s purpose, but I do agree with your opinion mostly. If you ever have to hit a few topics, like Java, there are some insanely strict moderators on there that just go above and beyond into total ridiculousness.

6

So here’s my opinion. ;-) I think the official docs are actually a very good introduction – they don’t just toss the API at you after the first quick Hello World example, but gradually introduce and explain the concepts. They do assume a certain command of the language though. So my suggestion would be to just read the docs and code along a bit, and if you encounter concepts you just can’t make sense of, that might be a sign to take a step back… or to do the tutorial. :-)

1 Like
7

This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.