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Discussion on: React Beginner Question Thread ⚛

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aswathm78 profile image
Aswath KNM

I'm a beginner in JS world . So What are the concepts that I should know to learn and use react easily .

Many of my friends said react is not actually a beginner friendly one . So they asked me to try angular or polymer etc...

Is that so ?

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ryanrundle1 profile image
Ryan Rundle

Agree with Dan (not that you need me to). React is more like Javascript than Angular (I've used both) and most other frameworks, it really does embrace Javascript. I also feel like React embraces functional programming which is a good way to build good habits.

I dove into React as a beginner and found it much more beginner-friendly than most other frameworks or libraries. Beginner friendly doesn't mean it does a lot of the lifting for you like other frameworks that might do more 'under the hood' (although it does quite a bit).

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naren profile image
Naren Arya • Edited

React is a very lean library that one can easily learn. As a developer worked with Angular JS and Angular>2 before, I felt react is less opinionated, fun and, easy to learn. The react's component based development is far more well thought than the AngularJS's two way data binding & controllers. Angular >2 is a very opinionated framework that takes a long time to master.

Beginners who try React for the first time easily gets scared by the diverse tutorials out there. They use things like JSX, ES6, Webpack, Redux which annoys beginners and creates a pseudo humongous learning curve. Instead, you(a beginner) can straight forward include react.js and react-dom.js in your HTML and start creating components(like Angular JS).

Read this book, if you have a chance:
shop.oreilly.com/product/063692004...

It teaches you react from plain JavaScript's view. After reading this, read the official docs and everything makes sense to you.
reactjs.org/docs/hello-world.html

For more tutorials on React, visit this.
github.com/markerikson/react-redux...

Note:
First, learn JavaScript well. If you are good at JS, understanding a library is an easy thing. Reverse may not be true.

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dan_abramov profile image
Dan Abramov

I think it’s very subjective. I know a lot of people who learned JavaScript through learning React. I think the main difference is that React embraces JavaScript instead of trying to hide it from you. So you need to get comfortable with the language. The upside is you don’t just learn a library, but actually learn the language you’re working with 🙂

I don’t think you need to know much to get started. To feel comfortable you’ll want to understand JS syntax and concepts (functions, classes, binding).

Really, the only sure way to know is to start going though our docs (reactjs.org/docs/hello-world.html) and/or the tutorial (reactjs.org/tutorial/tutorial.html). Try it and see!