About the Author
I am a German software and web developer dedicated to learning and teaching JavaScript. After obtaining my Master's Degree in computer science, I gained experience from the startup world where I used JavaScript intensively during both my professional life and spare time. For a few years, I worked closely with an exceptional team of engineers at a company in Berlin, developing large-scale JavaScript applications, which eventually led to a desire to teach others about these topics.
During my time as a developer in Berlin, I regularly wrote articles about web development on my website. I received great feedback from people learning from my articles which allowed me to improve my writing and teaching style. Article after article, I grew my ability to teach others. I find it it fulfilling to see students strive by giving them clear objectives and short feedback loops.
Currently, I am a self-employed developer helping companies in creating their MVPs, conducting workshops and code audits/reviews, and creating large-scale JavaScript applications. You can find more information about me, ways to support me, and how to work with me on my website.
FAQ
How to get updates?
I have two channels where I share updates about my content. You can subscribe to updates by email or follow me on Twitter. Regardless of the channel, my objective is to only share quality content. Once you receive a notification about an update, you can download a new version of the book from my website.
Is the learning material up-to-date?
Programming books are usually outdated soon after their release, but since this book is self-published, I can update it as needed whenever a new version of something related to this book gets released.
Can I get a digital copy of the book if I bought it on Amazon?
If you have bought the book on Amazon, you may have seen that the book is available on my website too. Since I use Amazon as one way to monetize my often free content, I honestly thank you for your support and invite you to sign up for my courses. After creating an account there, write me an email about your purchase with a receipt from Amazon, so that I can unlock the content for you. With an account on my platform, you always have access to the latest version of the book.
Why is the print copy so large in size?
If you have purchased the print version of the book, make sure to take notes in the book. It was my intention to keep the printed book extra-large, for the sake of giving larger code snippets enough space, but also for giving you enough space to work with it.
Why does the book not have many pages?
First of all, the print version of book is large (see above), so there are less pages overall. However, even though most of the sections in this book are concisely written, there are plenty of external resources to get more in-depth knowledge about certain topics. I wanted to give every reader the chance to get through the book without painfully having to read lots of pages, so I extracted optional in-depth and advanced material that can be read online as exercise. So I encourage everyone who wants to learn React to go through the exercises of every section too, however, the book itself should teach you the essentials and more to get started as well.
Why is the book written like a long read tutorial?
If you have read programming books before, you may be surprised by how this book is written and structured. When I started coding myself, there were not many hands-on books about coding out there. However, I've been always a good learner when I got practical step by step instructions which taught me the what, how, and why. By self-publishing this book, I wanted to bring this experience to other developers.
What do I do if I encounter a bug?
If you encounter any bug in the code, you should find a URL to the current GitHub project at the end of each section. Feel free to open a GitHub issue there. Your help is very much appreciated!
How to support the project?
If you find my lessons useful and would like to contribute, seek my website's about page for information about how to offer support. It is also very helpful for my readers to spread the word about how my books helped them, so others might discover it as ways to improve their web development skills. Contributing through any of the provided channels gives me the freedom to create in-depth courses, and to continue offering free material on my website.
What's your motivation behind the book?
I want to teach about this topic consistently. I often find materials online that don't receive updates, or only apply to a small part of a topic. Sometimes people struggle to find consistent and up-to-date resources to learn from. I want to provide this consistent and up-to-date learning experience. Also, I hope I can support the less fortunate with my projects by giving them the content for free or by having other impacts.
Who is this book for?
JavaScript Beginners
JavaScript beginners with knowledge in fundamental JS, CSS, and HTML: If you just started out with web development, and have a basic grasp of JS, CSS, and HTML, this book should give you everything that's needed to learn React. However, if you feel there is a gap in your JavaScript knowledge, don't hesitate to read up on that topic before continuing with the book. You will have lots of references to fundamental JavaScript knowledge in this book though.
JavaScript Veterans
JavaScript veterans coming from jQuery: If you have used JavaScript with jQuery, MooTools, and Dojo extensively back in the days, the new JavaScript era may seem overwhelming for someone getting back on track with it. However, most of the fundamental knowledge didn't change, it's still JavaScript and HTML under the hood, so this book should give you the right start into React.
JavaScript Enthusiasts
JavaScript enthusiasts with knowledge in other modern SPA frameworks: If you are coming from Angular or Vue, there may be lots of differences in how to write applications with React, however, all these frameworks share the same fundamentals of JavaScript and HTML. After a mindset shift to get comfortable with React, you should be doing just fine adopting React.
Non-JavaScript Developers
If you are coming from another programming language, you should be more familiar than others with the different aspects of programming. After picking up the fundamentals of JavaScript and HTML, you should have a good time learning React with me.
Designers and UI/UX Enthusiasts
If your main profession is in design, user interaction, or user experience, don't hesitate to pick up this book. You may be already quite familiar with HTML and CSS which is a plus. After going through some more JavaScript fundamentals, you should be good to get through this book. These days UI/UX is moving closer to the implementation details which are often taken care of with React. It would be your perfect asset to know how things work in code.
Team Leads, Product Owners, or Product Managers
If you are a team lead, product owner or product manager of your development department, this book should give you a good breakdown of all the essential parts of a React application. Every section explains one React concept/pattern/technique to add another feature or to improve the overall architecture. It's a well-rounded reference guide for React.
How to read the book?
Most programming books are high-level and go into very much technical detail, but they lack the ability to get their readers into coding. That's why this book may be different from the books that you are used to read in this domain, because it attempts to teach aspiring developer actual programming. Hence I try to keep a good balance between being pragmatic, by giving you all the tools to get the job done, while still being detail-oriented, by giving you as much information as needed to understand these tools and how they are used in practice.
Every section in this book introduces you to a new topic. For the fast pace learners who do not want to go into much detail, it's possible to read from section to section. However, if learners want to dive deeper into certain topics, they can read more by following the footnotes. I want to offer you a way to get a great overview of the topic at hand while still enabling you to dig deeper if you want to. After reading the book either way, you should be able to code what you have learned in a pragmatic way.
Take Notes
If you have a print version of the book, do not hesitate to underline paragraphs, to write notes, or to annotate code snippets. That's why it has such a large size in the first place. If you don't have a print version, keep a notebook on the side for your learnings. Taking notes fortifies what you have learned and you can always come back to them. With every new learning, you will get a better understanding of the big picture and how the smaller pieces fit together, so it's a great exercise on the side to write down your learnings on a piece of paper.
Code Code Code
Every section introduces you to a new topic in a pragmatic way. For this reason just reading through the section does not suffice to become a developer, because there is lots of things going on in one section alone. So you shouldn't rush from section to section, but instead I recommend you to have a computer by your side which allows you to code along the way.
Do not just copy paste code, instead type it yourself. Do not be satisfied when you just used the code from the book, instead experiment with it. See what breaks the code and how to fix it. See how certain changes affect the result. And see how you can extend or even improve the code by adding a few lines to it. That's what coding is all about after all. It does not help you to rush through the book if you haven't written a line of code once. So get your hands dirty and do more coding than reading!
Anticipate
There will be many coding problems presented in this book. Often I will give you the option to solve things yourself before reading about the solution in the next paragraph or code snippet. However, it breaks the flow of reading repeating myself, so I keep these encouragements to a minimum. Instead I am hoping for your eagerness here to jump ahead. Try to solve things before I get the chance to present you the solution. Only by trying, failing, and solving a problem you will become a better developer.
Take Breaks
Since every section introduces you to a new topic, it happens fast that you forget the learnings from the previous section. In addition to coding along with every section, I recommend you to take breaks between the sections which allow learnings to sink in. Read the section, code along the way, do the exercise afterwards, code even a bit more if you like, and then rest. Think about your learnings while taking a walk outside or speak with someone about what you have learned even though this other person is not into coding. After all, taking breaks is always essential if you want to learn something new.