[chocolatemario]

If you don't know about references, I feel like you shouldn't be touching react. React is quite easy to pickup if you have an understanding of JavaScript and the Dom. The tooling surrounding react is an entirely different story.

[BigJono]

To be fair, beginners should stay far away from most of the tooling around React. In-fact a lot of veterans should too. Most people only use stuff like Redux or Immutable out of habit rather than necessity, or as a crutch to constrain themselves away from bad habits that they shouldn't have picked up in the first place.