If you want to become a React developer, there is a lot to learn. You can start within a weekend. Yes, in a single weekend, you can learn React and start developing some cool apps!
Here’s how I would approach it.
Friday night
Okay, instead of watching a TV show on Friday night (no judgement, I’ve been there), you can spend the time learning the basics of React. If you’ve never touched React or done anything with it, The big picture is the place to start.
If you’ve played with it, done some tutorials, etc, skip to starting Course.
Take these courses and understand the big idea behind React and how it works.
1. Response: The big picture
This is the introductory level course to take if you’ve never done anything in React, and you want to understand how it all works and how to get started. Click here to take this course
2: Response: The beginning of the work
This course will get you running and creating things. Click here to take this course
total time: 5 hours, 13 minutes
With both of these under your belt, you’ll be able to build actual applications that do something. You will have a great understanding of the React ecosystem. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.
Saturday
Okay, so you’re up bright and early Saturday morning. Grab the wake-up drink of your choice and get started.
3: Back up basics
This course starts to go deep into React. You will learn about things like
- Component
- JSX
- events
- Forms
- Country
If you are only taking one of the courses listed here, make it that one. Click here to take this course
4: Using React Hooks
After completing the basics course, you will have a good foundation for learning about hooks. React Hooks provide a direct API to React concepts you’ll already be familiar with such as props, state, context, judges, and lifecycle events. Click here to take this course
Then, it’s time to run it all:
5: Project: Build a quiz component with React
In this project, you’ll follow our instructions and build a simple quiz component with React 16.x. You’ll create multiple components across different files, pass data as props, and propagate events up and down a chain of components.
This will allow you to apply what you have learned today. Click here to start this project
total time: 8 hours, 36 minutes
Sunday
So you had a whole Saturday and learned a lot. You’ve probably already started building different applications to try things out. You can already build apps at this point, but now it’s time to get serious.
Since there are only so many hours in the day, you should choose between one of the following courses:
Course: Build apps with React and Flux
Get started with React, React Router, and Flux by building a data-driven app that manages Pluralsight course data. This course uses a modern client-side development stack that includes create-react-app, Node, Webpack, Babel, and Bootstrap.
Click here to take this course.
Time: 5 hours, 11 minutes
Or you can focus on Redux:
Course: Build apps with React and Redux
Learn how to use React, Redux, React Router, and modern JavaScript to build an app with React. Use Webpack, Babel, Jest, React Testing Library, Enzyme and more to build a custom React development environment and build a process from the ground up. Click here to take this course.
Time: 6 hours, 39 minutes
Once you’re done with those, you’ve learned to build some serious applications. To wrap it up, I’ll look at one of the following courses:
7: React component design
If you want to know how to style components, this is a great course that covers them in depth. Click here to take this course
8: App security with Auth0
Authentication is a must, and with this course, you’ll be able to connect your apps to Auth0 easily.
Click here to take this course.
So some combination of these puts you right where you need to be to start developing React apps. You won’t be an expert, but you will be able to develop apps. You have already developed quite a bit in the courses.
what a weekend!!
By the end of this weekend, you’ll have gone from knowing React exists to building real React apps. If you can create an app yourself and deploy it you can call yourself a React developer. You will only get better from here.
I would suggest not only taking these courses but experimenting and playing with it as you go. If you’re curious about how a particular feature works or want to experiment, doing it on your computer while you learn is the best way for the concepts to sink in.
So, if you go this route, please let me know in the comments how it went!! I would love to hear your story!!
