Learning React: A Hands-On Guide to Building Maintainable, High-Performing Web Application User Interfaces Using the React JavaScript Library

by Kirupa Chinnathambi

Learning React A hands-on guide to building maintainable, high-performing web application user interfaces using the React JavaScript library
As far as new web frameworks and libraries go, React is quite the runaway success. It not only deals with the most common problems developers face when building complex apps, it throws in a few additional tricks that make building the visuals for such apps much, much easier.

What React isn't, though, is beginner-friendly and approachable. Until now. In Learning React, author Kirupa Chinnathambi brings his fresh, clear, and very personable writing style to help you understand the fundamentals of React and how to use it to build really performant (and awesome) apps.

Build your first React app Create components to define parts of your UI Combine components into other components to build more complex UIs Use JSX to specify visuals without writing full-fledged JavaScript Deal with maintaining state Work with React's way of styling content Make sense of the mysterious component lifecycle Build multi-page apps using routing and views Optimize your React workflow using tools such as Node, Babel, webpack, and others Contents at a Glance
Chapter 1 Introducing React
Chapter 2 Building Your First React App Chapter 3 Components in React Chapter 4 Styling in React
Chapter 5 Creating Complex Components
Chapter 6 Transferring Properties (Props)
Chapter 7 Meet JSX-Again!
Chapter 8 Dealing with State
Chapter 9 Going from Data to UI
Chapter 10 Working with Events
Chapter 11 The Component Lifecycle
Chapter 12 Accessing DOM Elements
Chapter 13 Creating a Single-Page App Using React Router
Chapter 14 Building a Todo List App
Chapter 15 Setting Up Your React Development Environment
Chapter 16 The End Chapter 17 (Web Edition) Working With External Data Chapter 18 (Web Edition) Creating a Sliding Menu Using React Motion
Register your book at informit.com/register for free access to the Web Edition and two exclusive bonus chapters.

Genres: Programming, Technology, Coding

240 pages, ebook

Published December 27, 2016

Reviews

[Muhammad al-Khwarizmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author has good pedagogy (although his quips are sometimes slightly irritating). The chapter on react-router is out of date as the project has gone through a complete rewrite but otherwise this can be followed through from start to finish with no problems and you will learn a lot. There's also a sort of "cap" project towards the end that ties everything learned—or most of it—together. Also, protip: I followed his steps on setting up the dev environment for a React app and they worked fine but Facebook's official project create-react-app may make things even easier, from what I'm told.

[Chi Tran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent primer for react

The author does a great job of introducing one concept at a time and then ties it all together. The overall tone of the book makes it easy to read cover to cover in one sitting.

[Sina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for very beginners. It gives a good overview of how React works, but not with much detail.

[a · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gotta be one of the best in the wild! This book makes ReactJS look so interesting. Great tutorials!!! I love those golden yellow as well. So many graphics and great use of white space!! There's a web version of this as well, but I think it's missing one chapter from the book where he's talking about refs, but the web has some extras that the book doesn't have, so check the author's site as well!!

I really would like to thank my local library for purchasing this book. Web technology get outdated too fast. I mean, just look at AngularJS... CDN$50 is over my budget for a 200-page book. Anyways, Leveled up! ;D

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great but outdated

[losti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and easy to read. Teaches the fundamentals of React pretty well and after reading this book, you are ready to move on to more advanced material.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the more enjoyable and readable framework introductions I've read.

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

muy buen libro para los principiantes

[Dissoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good beginners book for learning react basics.

[Zhuldyz Namazbayeva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do not recommend this book for people who coded on ReactJs at least once in their life. Good for beginners, but does not contain much details.

[Ksisu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good

[Douglas Groene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great examples, code, and explanations

Spectacular job of keeping things simple by only focusing on one point at a time, choosing great examples, and using readable code with well-crafted, simple explanations. Many authors try to achieve this the lazy way- by omitting large amounts of code and relying on the reader to download it and understand it on her own. By contrast, the Learning React author included all of the code in the book and was not afraid to repeat code when it reinforced his point.

[James Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learning React is an excellent and accessible introduction to the popular JavaScript front-end framework (React is a way of handling the V in the MVC model). The examples are good and the explanations are clear. It's a good book for getting your feet with in React. It assumes some JavaScript knowledge, but you don't have to be a JavaScript expert to dive into React. Best of all, the author is responsive to questions and comments via the book's forum and his Twitter account, so there's plenty of support on your journey.

[Jose Herrera · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author explains very well the basis of the library, essential for a thorough knowledge, however, does not explore many of the most widely used practices such as scaffolding or ES6, although it is important, it is beyond the scope of the book.
But i found the book very well detailed and illustrated, also it has a web edition so if you register the book on a website you can access to exclusive and important content.

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid introduction to React Java Script library. The examples are concise and focus on the concepts at hand. This book is definitely for beginners as the title implies. However, its still worth a read even if you are seasoned programmer that needs to get up to speed on React.

[Shannon Hedges · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know some complain that there's too much hand-holding, but his writing kept me so engaged and, frankly, amused. He's an excellent instructor, clearly a talented developer. I'm grateful for this comprehensive introduction.

[Hasan COMAK · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are critics stating that the book is already outdated. Well, this is the case for most of the technology books. The book is easy to read and gives the basics in a soft manner. Considering you won't spend much time reading it (two days at most), it definitely is worth reading.

[Blake Gates · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books out there on learning ReactJS. Trust me I've tried and failed umpteenth times before this one.

[Andy Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise and clear

[John Wargo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book - very clear and concise introduction to React.

[Ion Prodan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Already outdated :)

[Linsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

very solid book! the jokes often rubbed me the wrong way and I wanted him to just get to the point, but he did always end up getting there. easy to understand, great examples.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

The examples are too simple, and exactly what you can read for free on the Internet.

[Greg Milette]

Concise, well written, and instantly useful

[Mackenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very 101 and out of date

[Keshav Prasad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great starting point for beginners in React. To understand the concepts in the book, you definitely have to code their examples and try something on your own.

[Krishnam Raju · Rating 5 out of 5]

fantabolous book for react js by kirupa chinnathambi <3

[Abelardo Duarte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice book for React beginners, this alone won't be enough though, I had to supplement it with an online course.