If you want to be a React Developer, there's a lot to learn. You can get started in a weekend. Yes, in a single weekend, you can learn React and start developing some cool applications! With structured learning from specialized courses you can hit the ground running.
Here's how I would approach it.
Friday Night
Ok, instead of binge-watching some TV show Friday night (no judgment, I've been there), you could 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 have played around with it, done some tutorials, etc, skip to the Getting Started course.
Take these courses and understand the big idea behind React and how it works.
1. React: The Big Picture
This is the intro 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: React: Getting Started
This course will get you up and running and creating things. Click here to take this course
Total Time: 5 hours, 13 minutes
With these two under your belt, you'll be able to build actual applications that do something. You'll have a great understanding of the React ecosystem. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.
Saturday
Ok, so you're up bright and early Saturday morning. Grab your wake up beverage of choice and get started.
3: React Fundamentals
This course starts to deep into React. You'll learn about things like
- Components
- JSX
- Events
- Forms
- State
If you only take one of the courses listed here, make it this one. Click here to take this course
4: Using React Hooks
After completing the fundamentals course, you'll have a good base for learning about hooks. React Hooks provide a direct API to React concepts you will already know like props, state, context, refs, and lifecycle events. Click here to take this course
Next, it's time to put all this to work:
5: Project: Build a Quiz Component With React
In this project, you'll follow along with our instructions and build a simple quiz component with React 16.x. You'll create several components across different files, pass data as props, and propagate events up and down a chain of components.
This will enable you to apply what you've learned today. Click here to start this project
Total Time: 8 hours, 36 minutes
Sunday
So you had a full day Saturday and learned a ton. You've probably already started to build different applications to experiment with things. You can already build applications at this point, but now it's time to get serious.
Since there are only so many hours in a day, you should choose between one of these courses:
Course: Create Apps with React and Flux
Get started with React, React Router, and Flux by building a data-driven application that manages Pluralsight course data. This course uses a modern client-side development stack, including create-react-app, Node, Webpack, Babel, and Bootstrap.
Click here to take this course.
Time: 5 Hours, 11 Minutes
Or you could focus on Redux:
Course: Create 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 process from the ground up. Click here to take this course.
Time: 6 hours, 39 minutes
Extra Credit
Once you're done with those, you've learned to build some serious applications. To top it off, I'd look at one of these courses:
7: Styling React Components
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: Securing Apps With Auth0
Authentication is a must, and with this course, you'll be able to connect your apps to Auth0 with ease.
Click here to take this course.
So some combination of these puts you right where you need to be to start developing React applications. You won't be an expert, but you'll be able to develop applications. You'll have already developed quite a few in the courses.
What a Weekend!!
By the end of this weekend, you'll go from knowing React exists to building real React applications. If you can create an application on your own and deploy it you can call yourself a React Developer. You'll only improve from here.
I would suggest not only taking these courses but experiment and play around with it as you go. If you're curious how a particular feature works or want to experiment, doing it on your machine as you're learning is the best way for the concepts to sink in.
So, if you follow this path, please let me know in the comments how it went!! I would love to hear your story!!
Top comments (8)
Cool stuff! “Become a React developer in a weekend” seems a little misleading though, right? Do you think any team would really consider someone who took a few weekend courses a developer in that technology?
Tricky question, but I appreciate it! I'm not positioning this as being able to get a job as a React developer as much as becoming a React developer. I have faith if someone followed this plan, they would be at an excellent level for developing apps. They'd be far better off than someone who took a more unstructured route of doing random tutorials.
You would still need experience building and experimenting with React applications to be at a professional level. If someone has prior experience that factors in as well.
That being said, I personally have hired junior developers who've only done courses, tutorials or boot camps. It entirely depends on the role expectations, the person, and their ability to learn. So I wouldn't rule out the idea of someone taking a few weekend courses in React and getting a job.
The intention behind this article is to help someone have a structured way to take that first step to really get rolling as a developer.
I hear you. I know everyone is just trying to make a living. I guess when I see headlines like this I get concerned for the message we’re sending newcomers to the industry.
One of the common complaints I hear from experienced developers is how they are often managed by scrum masters who seem like they only have very basic knowledge. You’ve probably seen the “Become a scrum master for $39!” ads floating around.
I doubt you were intentionally trying to be misleading! And I think writing headlines that tease a benefit or get attention is both fine and necessary these days. There is a fine line between that and misrepresentation, and I guess I just hope as an industry we stop to reflect occasionally on whether we may be contributing to sending mixed messages about what’s needed to be effective.
I think it's implied that in one weekend you can gain enough knowledge to no longer be a stranger to react.
Wow, these move quickly! Because I saw this post late on Friday, I couldn't/can't get through everything suggested like I wanted to, but it's great information and even though I have very little JavaScript knowledge, it was all pretty easy to catch onto. I want to finish off today with the quiz builder, but I'll definitely be back on the site for more information! Thank you for sharing this!
I'm so glad to hear it!!! I hope it's sparked a fire to get you building something cool soon!
The tic-tac-toe tutorial from the docs was enough to get me started. The rest of the docs and one-off Google searches had me, in a week, as familiar with react as a year of Angular. It's quick to pick up if you know JS already
We need more posts like this