Ask HN: Do I need to learn React before applying for a new job?

[mitul_45]

I have been working on AngularJS at my current company for last two years. While in the background, React took over the world!

Now wherever I am applying, react-redux is kind of a must. Do I need to learn them before starting the applications?

How do you, in general, keep yourself up-to-date with latest technologies out there?

[acemarke]

Not sure I'd you say "need" to learn them, but given the popularity of React and other similar component-based UI libraries, understanding the concepts is probably a good thing.

If you do want to learn React, I keep a big list of links to high-quality tutorials and articles on React, Redux, and related topics, at https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links . Specifically intended to be a great starting point for anyone trying to learn the ecosystem, as well as a solid source of good info on more advanced topics.

[mitul_45]

Thanks for sharing! This looks as a great starting point. Will surely take a look.

[acemarke]

Sure. I'll also toss out the rest of my standard advice for learning React:

The article "A Study Plan to Cure Javascript Fatigue" ( https://medium.freecodecamp.com/a-study-plan-to-cure-javascr... ) is a great place to start. It gives an excellent series of steps for tackling modern Javascript concepts one piece at a time: Javascript, React, ES6, and state management.

On that note, definitely don't over-complicate the learning process by trying to learn many different things at once. Some people will say you should use a "boilerplate" to learn React, and they're wrong - boilerplate projects almost always come with too many pieces configured, and are confusing for beginners.

Instead, the best advice is to focus on learning React itself first. Once you have a good understanding of how React works, you will better appreciate why a state management library like Redux can be useful, and you can learn about other tools later.

You should start out by reading through the official React docs and tutorial at https://facebook.github.io/react/, and I'd encourage you to use the official Create-React-App tool ( https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app ) for setting up projects. It creates a project with a solid build setup, with no configuration needed on your part. There's an excellent post called "Simple React Development in 2017" ( https://hackernoon.com/simple-react-development-in-2017-113b... ) that gives some more specific instructions on the actual steps to follow.

Besides my links list that I mentioned in my first comment, I also published an "Intro to React (and Redux)" presentation at http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2017/02/presentation-react-... , which is a good overview of the basic concepts for both React and Redux.

Finally, the Reactiflux chat channels on Discord are a great place to hang out, ask questions, and learn. The invite link is at https://www.reactiflux.com .