Introduction to React.js
Explore the fundamentals of React.js, understanding how it solves challenges in building complex apps with changing data. Learn about JSX and component-based architecture to prepare for building your own weather app.
We'll cover the following...
Why React.js?
React, to quote Facebook themselves, was built to solve one problem: “building large applications with data that changes over time”. (that’s why Instagram and Facebook are built with it)
With React, it’s simple to express how your app should look at any given point in time. It will figure out which parts need to update when the data changes for you, and will only render those.
It also popularised building apps with encapsulated, reusable and composable components. It’s a different way of thinking and of going about building webapps, but once you’re used to it you can never go back!
What we’ll build
This is the app we’ll be building in this tutorial series (yes, this is a live example! Click around and explore):
In this first chapter of the tutorial we’ll go through the React basics, before starting to build the above app in chapter two. If you feel comfortable with React and JSX feel free to skip ahead but I highly recommend going through this chapter to make sure you know React!