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Become a React Developer in a Weekend

Jeremy Morgan on February 07, 2020

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 st...
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Jayme Edwards 🍃💻

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?

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Jeremy Morgan Pluralsight • Edited

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.

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Jayme Edwards 🍃💻 • Edited

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.

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Seanmclem

I think it's implied that in one weekend you can gain enough knowledge to no longer be a stranger to react.

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Jonesey712

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!

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Jeremy Morgan Pluralsight

I'm so glad to hear it!!! I hope it's sparked a fire to get you building something cool soon!

 
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Seanmclem

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

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Boris Petrov

We need more posts like this