4 min read · Jun 5, 2020
I don’t want to discourage anybody but unfortunately learning is a process that requires patience. But there are always a number of ways to do something. Some ways require more patience and some require less. I believe the way I followed to learn React JS is efficient and it is worth sharing. So here is the road I followed to learn React
One day, a friend of mine approached me and told me about his startup idea with the intention to take me on board as his web developer. At that point I did not know anything about web development except basic HTML/CSS and JavaScript which I learnt 4 years before. I was interested in working with him so I went home and googled, “Learn web development”.
During the requirement gathering, it became apparent to me that I have to learn some JavaScript library for front-end. There were a few options but I decided to choose React JS because I found some features of it are similar to Google Flutter (A framework by google to create apps for IOS and Android). I thought it would be easy but when I saw some code in different tutorials, the JavaScript used was a little different and it became apparent to me that JavaScript has evolved a lot since when I learnt it. Long story short I needed to learn ES6 and Node JS before moving on to React JS
I did not want to learn JavaScript from start all over again. It was because I already learnt it once and it also has some similarity with dart programing language which I knew at that time. I had to save time so here is what I did.
I watched a single one hours long crash course on ES6 from freecodecamp.com and things because clear to me. Now it was time to learn about Node JS
The video I used:
Since Node JS is a framework to make JavaScript work outside of browser, I just wanted to install it and use it in spite of wasting my time learning its technicalities. To avoid this waste of time I followed the same way. I watched a one hours long crash course video.
The video I used:
Now its time to learn React JS
To learn React JS, I followed the tutorials and documentation on the official React JS website. The documentation of React is very well written and I would always recommend to learn React through its documentation.
At the point, it was important to me that I should save time, so I learnt the basics of the React JS only to get myself going. In the following there are some concepts that I learnt
- React Class and Function components
- React Component & Props
- React Component State & Lifecycle
I would say if you want to learn this JavaScript library, start from these concepts. But it is always better to follow the documentation on the official React JS website.
After learning the basics, luckily thought came into my mind to put my learning into practice. I decided to create a small “Todo List” app. In two days I worked for about 20 hours and I was successful in creating the app but this is not important. The important thing is what this project has taught me.
I used the word “luckily” in the first paragraph because I believed that working on the small project will cause me to waste my time since I wanted to jump on my friend’s startup project as fast as I could. My attitude was to learn all the things first and then implement the learning at once on the big project. But I am glad to say that I was wrong because this small project has made me nothing but fast.
During these two days of the development, I learnt the most about React JS as compared to past 13 days of learning.
In these two days, I made mistakes in my code and in just two days I learnt the following
- Managing Component State
- Simple event handling in components
- Communication between components using props
- Using CSS with React JS Components
- Fetching data from an API
- Doing Asynchronous operations
These things made me avoid some loopholes while developing the startup app.
The most important thing to in order to learn fast, not only the React JS but also other frameworks, libraries or even other skills is “practice”. Whatever you learn make sure you practice it before learning more. There are always some hidden loopholes in which you have to fall once, in order to learn about them and that always require you to implement your learning.
The solution to the problem of learning slow is: Project based learning. So learn, implement, make mistakes and improve.
I learnt React JS in 15 days. On my way, I had to learn JavaScript ES6 and Node JS. I also did a small project for practice. The conclusion I derived from these 15 days is that the fastest way to learn React JS is to practice it in a project.
