One Coding Language To Rule Them All!

In my previous article, I talked about learning JavaScript as one of your first programming languages. If you are reading this with absolutely no coding background, you might want to check it out first!

Long story short, this article is about React and all the amazing things you can do with it. Sounds goods? Alright thank you and see you next time!

Just kidding! Let’s get started!

WHY React?

React is a bit like LEGO on steroids for coding. It lets you create components (building block) that you can reuse anywhere in your code.

It allows you to apply JavaScript functions to structure your HTML and CSS in a very simple way.

These components are either be stateless (basically static) or stateful (can be dynamically changed).

This means you end up with cleaner and tidier code for your apps or websites.

Yes, I said Apps OR Websites!

Alright alright… I know I said ONE language in the title because they are extremely similar in the way they works.

They? Who’s they?

React and React Native! You can use the former for web apps (used by Netflix, Facebook and Yahoo) and the latter for mobile apps.

WHAT can you do with it?

You can use React to build web apps and React Native to build both iOS and Android apps at the same time!

Let me explain…

React Native is called “Native” for a reason. You use ONE code source that you can mount in both iOS and Android native languages (you basically code it once and it works on both operating systems!).

Not only will your app be faster than if it was coded used a hybrid language (HTML) but it will save you tons of time!

And React? Well, you can use it to build dynamic web apps with reusable component either mad by yourself or others.

You can use websites like Material UI (Google style), Bit or many others to find ready to use components for your projects!

HOW to learn it?

What I am going to suggest will probably sound very boring… but it’s not!

I really suggest you read the Documentation (it took me about 1.5 hours in total including re-reading some parts to better understand them). It is very well made and easy to follow.

You can also look for introductory videos on YouTube such as this one or this one if you have more time.

If you want a more “hands on” approach you can also follow this tutorial made by the React official team.

WHEN to learn which?

Good question young padawan!

I’d suggest you learn React first and THEN jump into React Native.

React will be easier as it is mainly reusing existing HTML tags such as <div> or <h1> whereas React Native uses <View> or <Text> (not that difficult to understand but it can put some people off at first).

Now let’s go and show us what you can build using this marvelous technology!

Originally published at creazymakers.com on May 19, 2018.