Description
Book Synopsis Kirupa Chinnathambi has spent most of his life trying to teach others to love web development as much as he does.
In 1999, before blogging was even a word, he started posting tutorials on kirupa.com. In the years since then, he has written hundreds of articles, penned a few books (none as good as this one, of course!), and recorded a bunch of videos you can find on YouTube. When he isn't writing or talking about web development, he spends his waking hours helping make the web more awesome as a Program Manager at Microsoft. In his nonwaking hours, he is probably sleepingor writing about himself in the third person.
You can find him on Twitter (twitter.com/kirupa), Facebook (facebook.com/kirupa), or email (kirupa@kirupa.com). Feel free to contact him anytime.
Trade ReviewAmazon Reviews of the First Edition
This is the best book to get up and running with React.JS I found this book to be an amazing introductory text to learning React. Leveraging creativity interspersed with a bit of humor, the author took complex topics and made it more easily understood. Even when the difficulty ramped up, Kirupa made the dry and mundane almost non-existent. I can't recall once wishing for the book to end. That's tough to do - definitely more art than science. If you're looking for a solid, working understanding of getting up & running with React - this is the book. (January 20, 2017)
Great book from start to finish I rarely review books. I don't even remember the last time I reviewed a book. I may have never reviewed a book in my life. In any event, I felt obligated to review this book because it was so well written. I've ready many programming books on many languages and this one is the only one to keep my attention all the way to the end. Every chapter builds upon the previous one. It starts out elementary and then works its way through more complex ideas. I understand JavaScript but this book explained to me how React works. The author is a born teacher and I appreciate his efforts! Thank you. (June 8, 2017)
Absolutely amazing Absolutely blown away with how good of a book this is. I've been trying different tutorials, along with a couple of paid video courses. The video courses were fairly good, but they started off with complex projects and built them from the ground up. While it was cool to see how a complex app is actually built with React, there is no replacement for how Kirupa has figured out how to explain everything so simply. One difference here is that he starts with the very minimal things you need to know, explains those, and then expands to something a little more complex in the next chapter. This, combined with some humor, is just perfect. I've read a lot of IT and development books over the years, and I think this may be the best one I've read. I'm only around halfway done with the book, but wow, again, I'm blown away. I don't generally write reviews much, but I had to on this one. You're a natural teacher man, and thank you for this one! Seriously, thank you. If I could give this one more than 5 stars, I absolutely would. (February 17, 2017)
Well Written I cannot comment enough on the readability of this text. Seasoned and rookie web developers should have no problem understanding the subject matter. (March 21, 2017)
Makes sense of difficult concepts, and is a fun, easy read This is actually the only tech book I have ever read cover-to-cover. The author is a natural teacher. I tried a different react book and a bunch of online tutorials, and the concepts just didn't "click" for me. But after reading this, I understand it alot better. If you're starting at square one with react, this is square one. Side note: it's also very nicely designed. Shouldn't matter that much for a tech book, but then again we ARE talking about the view layer here! (January 21, 2017)
Absolutely love this book Absolutely love this book! I have read other books and I've even taken a video course on React and this is the first time the author actually clearly explains the benefits of React. The other texts assumed the reader knows and jumps right in. I am a big reader and this is by far the best information on learning React that I've found. (January 25, 2018)
Great examples, code, and explanations Spectacular job of keeping things simple by only focusing on one point at a time, choosing great examples, and using readable code with well-crafted, simple explanations. Many authors try to achieve this the lazy way- by omitting large amounts of code and relying on the reader to download it and understand it on her own. By contrast, the Learning React author included all of the code in the book and was not afraid to repeat code when it reinforced his point. (May 8, 2018)
Excellent primer for React The author does a great job of introducing one concept at a time and then ties it all together. The overall tone of the book makes it easy to read cover to cover in one sitting. (January 31, 2017)
Great book for beginners Great book so far. I'm about 25% in and it's already paid off in my React class. Love the friendly writing style, the easy-to-understand code snippets, and the well written explanations. Great job.(January 26, 2018)
Skip the command line and learn how to build React apps first I'm learning React (after learning many other languages over the years). This is the single best book I've read to get started with a new language! The author has a terrific sense of humor and a logical progression from front to back. What had been the bane of my existence for React - dealing with setup of Node.js using the command line interface and the many issues I had getting done - he eliminated and put toward the end of the book. I actually got to enjoy going through the book, and try it all out before dealing with the command line. Talk about getting off to a good start! I still have a lot to learn, but I feel confident that I can learn what I need to know. (March 23, 2018)
A really great way to learn the fundamentals of ReactJS A really great way to learn the fundamentals of ReactJS. This books really breaks it down barney style and teaches you how to write react with JSX; which is the easiest way to learn the JS library. Buy this book if you are willing to learn the JS library. (September 14, 2017)
Table of Contents1 Introducing React
Old-School Multipage Design
New-School Single-Page Apps
Meet React
Automatic UI State Management
Lightning-Fast DOM Manipulation
APIs to Create Truly Composable UIs
Visuals Defined Entirely in JavaScript
Just the V in an MVC Architecture
2 Building Your First React App
Dealing with JSX
Getting Your React On
Displaying Your Name
It’s All Still Familiar
Changing the Destination
Styling It Up!
3 Components in React
Quick Review of Functions
Changing How We Deal with UI
Meet the React Component
Creating a Hello, World! Component
Specifying Properties
First Part: Updating the Component Definition
Second Part: Modifying the Component Call
Dealing with Children
4 Styling in React
Displaying Some Vowels
Styling React Content Using CSS
Understand the Generated HTML
Just Style It Already!
Styling Content the React Way
Creating a Style Object
Actually Styling Our Content
Making the Background Color Customizable
5 Creating Complex Components
From Visuals to Components
Identifying the Major Visual Elements
Identifying the Components
Creating the Components
The Card Component
The Square Component
The Label Component
Passing Properties, Again!
Why Component Composability Rocks
6 Transferring Properties
Problem Overview
Detailed Look at the Problem
Meet the Spread Operator
A Better Way to Transfer Properties
7 Meet JSX...Again!
What Happens with JSX?
JSX Quirks to Remember
Evaluating Expressions
Returning Multiple Elements
You Can’t Specify CSS Inline Comments
Capitalization, HTML Elements, and Components
Your JSX Can Be Anywhere
8 Dealing with State in React
Using State
Our Starting Point
Getting Our Counter On
Setting the Initial State Value
Starting Our Timer and Setting State
Rendering the State Change
Optional: The Full Code
9 Going from Data to UI in React
The Example
Your JSX Can Be Anywhere, Part II
Dealing with Arrays
10 Events in React
Listening and Reacting to Events
Starting Point
Making the Button Click Do Something
Event Properties
Meet Synthetic Events
Doing Stuff with Event Properties
More Eventing Shenanigans
You Can’t Directly Listen to Events on Components
Listening to Regular DOM Events
The Meaning of this Inside the Event Handler
React...Why? Why?
Browser Compatibility
Improved Performance
11 The Component Lifecycle
Meet the Lifecycle Methods
See the Lifecycle Methods in Action
The Initial Rendering Phase
Getting the Default Props
Getting the Default State
componentWillMount
render
componentDidMount
The Updating Phase
Dealing with State Changes
shouldComponentUpdate
componentWillUpdate
render
componentDidUpdate
Dealing with Prop Changes
The Unmounting Phase
12 Accessing DOM Elements in React
The Colorizer Example
Meet Refs
Using Portals
13 Setting Up Your React Dev Environment Easily
Meet Create React
Making Sense of What Happened
Creating Our HelloWorld App
Creating a Production Build
14 Working with External Data in React
Web Request 101
It’s React Time!
Getting Started
Getting the IP Address
Kicking the Visuals Up a Notch
15 Building an Awesome Todo List App in React
Getting Started
Creating the Initial UI
Building the Rest of the App
Adding Items
Displaying the Items
Styling our App
Removing Items
Animation! Animation! Animation!
16 Creating a Sliding Menu in React
How the Sliding Menu Works
Setting Up the Sliding Menu
Getting Started
Showing and Hiding the Menu
Creating the Button
Creating the Menu
17 Avoiding Unnecessary Renders in React
About the render Method
Optimizing render Calls
Getting an Example Going
Seeing the render Calls
Overriding a Component Update
Using PureComponent
18 Creating a Single-Page App in React Using React Router
The Example
Getting Started
Building Our Single-Page App
Displaying the Initial Frame
Creating Our Content Pages
Using React Router
It’s the Little Things
Fixing Our Routing
Adding Some CSS
Highlighting the Active Link
19 Introduction to Redux
What Is Redux?
Building a Simple App Using Redux
It’s Redux Time
Lights! Camera! Action!
Our Reducer
Store Stuff
20 Using Redux with React
Managing React State with Redux
How Redux and React Overlap
Getting Started
Building the App
