hey folks 👋,
this article is result of me learning reactjs in public on twitter and posting what am i learning every day and posting my perspective on learning certain topics in reactjs.
this article is compilation of why you should learn a new framework or specifically reactjs. so, follow me on Navdeep if you want to learn along with me on this journey.
🤔Why i started to learn Reactjs.
Truth is i never liked these fancy frameworks like angularjs and reactjs before.
But when i was working on my recent Project Tipster(mind the name) what i realized that as complexity and features of project growed vanillajs couldn't keep up with.
controlling dynamics of application became really hard with time and i was stucked for hours in a basic feature like to change certain component of page without entire page refresh.
i am not saying that you can't do that with native javascript but it gets trickier and hard as your application grows.
so i had to check out some fancy framework and to be true i'm very happy with it. reactjs has solved so many problem of mine that migrating entire project to new framework(reactjs) is worth it.
i am gonna be explaining when to use reactjs or any framework and what is right procedure to learn it.
🟠What is ReactJs?
reactjs is UI(user interface) frame work for JavaScript.
reactjs is designed keeping in mind so, that developers can design UI/UX rich web application without banging their head with native javascript(aka vanillajs).
Note: i'm not saying that vanillajs is bad for designing such application but there is some more thinking into that which i have explained below in this article.
🟢Why Reactjs?
as i explained above why i choose reactjs is perfect reason to switch to reactjs. but here are some addition advantage of learning Reactjs.
Real reasons:
- it is one of the fastest growing modern framework with developers and community support all over the
world.
- one of the hottest tech stack in demand from small enterprise to the big enterprise.
- it gives you control over all the dynamics of your website just like you do in function or object oriented programming.
- ln compliance with modern web feature such as reconciliation, dynamic page reload, unmounting non used data so page load time are considerably improved.
fancy reason that every one likes.
- react make it very simple to make interactive views or UI for every states(explaining in later part of this series) of your application.
- component based which basically means that you can control every aspect of your page like divs, forms etc. in a very controlled way just like in any standard programming language.
- you can create different component of same page as different library and load them as per your need saving lot of reload time.
- you can even do server side rendering with reactjs by using next.js.
🔵When to use Reactjs or any framework.
🚗Dynamics
In this fast pacing world tech is evolving so fast that sometime something looking very promising become obsolete in no time. all these framework will come and go you have to stick to your foundation using these modern framework as tools to enhance your productivty and tools and sticking with basics can help you in the dynamics of tech world.
☣Myths
some time new developers when they hear hot topics like angularjs, reactjs, nextjs start to think that so jump directly to these modern frame and should not hassle with poor old vanillajs.
this is not the right way of learning Reactjs. reactjs is written over the top of javascript and you can not learn reactjs or any modern framework in very productive way without knowing what is going under the hood.
if you are new in web development i would suggest making your foundation strong by learning javascript first and knowing what basic gist of javascript is and why you need new framework.
may be someday you want to make your own framework😎
👍Purpose
as said above only reason to learn or implement these framework is knowing the purpose for what specific things you are missing in vanillajs and how these framework can help you.
reactjs is designed in keeping mind to make the user interface and interactivity of your application quick and easily controllable but if you don't know why it his hard to achieve this in javascript these things will be senseless to you and you will not be able to fully utilize and sync with framework.
so know your purpose and then choose the right framework suitable for you.
🔴Path to learn Reactjs or any framework.
Basics HTML/CSS
you will be working with these bad boys a lot even if your doing server side rending in next.js they are there too. so learn the basics of HTML/CSS
JavaScript Foundation
important topics to learn before moving to reactjs are:
- javascript fandamentals
- working with api's
- Arrow Functions
- import and export statements
- ES6 classes
- Modern Operators
- Higher-Order functions
finding your problem
- start making a project in vanillajs and analyse all the problems you encounter
- search for framework or modern tool that best fits your need.
- start implementing those same feature in Reactjs(or any framework) wilalongside learning the React.
- you will feel the ease of using reactjs and will also learn when not to use these frameworks.
by this path you will learn at very efficient rate and applying those concept practically at same time will boost your confidence majorly.
This part was introduction part and little boring one but these are my honest thought about Reactjs and other frameworks, But believe from the next part saucy things will come as we start learning about fuctional component, class components , jsx(Muted baby of javascript and xml) fun will begin.