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React Mindset: How New React Developers Should Think

Amir H. Moayeri on September 16, 2024

React, a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces, has revolutionized front-end development by enabling developers to create reusabl...
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Mark Schlacter

Love how this article breaks down the essential mindset for new React developers. Thinking in components, embracing declarative programming, and understanding state and props are key to mastering React. A great guide for anyone starting out!

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Amir H. Moayeri

Welcome to the community and thanks for reading Dear Mark πŸ‘

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Bill Hannah

Nice introduction, but puts an emphasis on prop drilling and local state, and doesn't mention context at all. In your example, you have the logged-in status as local state, which it would never be. That would be determined by a context provider in the app component so you don't need to pass this value as a prop to every component in the tree

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Aaron Reese

True, but it is an article for beginners. Context or State stores are a more advanced concept and getting your head around useEffect is hard enough for newbies.
Maybe a couple of lines about separating Application state (dark theme, is logged in, side menu open etc) from Data state (list of items, form contents failed validation l, data submission pending) would help.

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Kudzai Murimi • Edited

Yes, you're right Aaron!

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Godwin 'Kachi

Moments ago, I read from this platform how complex React had made a simple workflow.

And now, I read about approaches to take to get the best out of React.

Isn't Life beautiful 😍?

It's just feel like react is a two edged sword πŸ—‘οΈ ah

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Godwin 'Kachi

Thanks to all that reacted to this post.

For the context, I'm starting to learn react and would appreciate if I can get an accountability partner here.

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Tomas Herrou

Would be nice (but maybe a hassle at the same time) to talk a bit more about React Server Components, server actions and all the new-releases coming in React 19. The industry is going in the direction of involving the server and the sooner the better to address those different mental models.

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LAWAL ABDULRAFIU KEHINDE

Without a doubt, the mindset is a major determinant whether you’ll write a good React code or not. Thinking in components leads the pack just as you have mentioned. As much as possible break down repetitive features into independent component and employ props to customize for different scenarios.
This is an amazing article.

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Monsur Oyedeji

This is a very concise and significant article. These are very essential in the journey of a React Developer. And, these aren't applicable to only new developers but existing ones, as well, who aren't following the conventional way.
Thanks for the article.

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Rense Bakker

Modern React developers should drop the distinction between state and props. Every piece of data in your app is state. Props is just short for properties that we all know from basic javascript functions (React components are just javascript functions). Props are used to pass state down to child components. React developers should think about data flow in this regard, particularly which components should manage the data and how far it should flow down the tree. Btw uni-directional data flow is just theory of how react works when rendering. In practice there are several ways to pass state up the component tree, for example using React context.

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Fred Lunjevich

This is a great summation of the mindset needed to be a competent React Dev.

What is becoming more important now, is the ability to know how to think in server and client components and composing UI this way.

This is an added layer of complexity that brings with it the need for careful thought about how state is managed (e.g. using query params instead of local state) and the flow of data. I guess that's an entirely different article!

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Amine

Good article, it summarizes the essential mindset of a React developer in concise steps.

Maybe the note about lifting state up might be a bit confusing for newcomers? I'd suggest adding a diagram there to the principle, or explaining briefly what does "lifting state up" mean in one or two lines.

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huzaifa uddin

Love how this article breaks down the essential mindset for new React developers.I work in a react native app development company in uae and personally Thinking in components, embracing declarative programming, and understanding state and props are key to mastering React.

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J XVW

I'm tired of using React JS if the application is too big when I run it and the compilation process takes a long time, besides the complexity of the code which makes my head spin, especially if I want to change the code, there are no more dependency problems which are often depreciated, I throw away React JS so I use C# .Net which is easier.

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Monsur Oyedeji

Yeah, use Vite and enjoy life.

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Abraham

Try React with Vite, the compilation is lightning fast

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Isa Ahamed San

Though Many beginner wont understand these concept but 1.Think in Components can be understand by every beginner. I want to mention about 1 little thing about this section. Think SVG as a component too if you are using RAW SVG file. Pretty sure most of the beginner wont even think of it.

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Ellis

Very good article :)

-- The points 1-5 are really good, and a React developer needs to: become aware of them. Many developers are not.

-- Then 6-7 are just basics/fundamentals which are not optional, one cannot "not use" them for any real React programming. They kinda dilute this post, imho ;o)

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Damian Cyrus • Edited

8 β†’ 1. πŸ˜„
This is also an important mindset, as you already know what the result should be, so write it down and then develop it until the expected result is shown.

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Muhammad Ahsan

A comprehensive overview
I was looking for articles like this for a long time but I hardly found so detailed guide

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Edward ColΓ³n

nice article

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Samuel Benson

perfect thank you

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Denny Wright

Great summary!

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77pintu

Thanks for the great post!!!

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Ashwin V

Thank you

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Obinna

Awesome articleπŸš€.
How would you advice a developer on the topic of testing. Whether it's end-to-end testing or writing unit tests

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Kelvin Macharia

A very good piece. Just getting the hang of React, this resource goes a long way to help me understand basic React principle

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Henrique Emanoel Viana

Hello.
Check out this Full-Stack React framework for Deno. It's really cool:
faster_react

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Henrique Emanoel Viana

Well organized framework.

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Lakshmanan Krishnan

Good Read.

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Wilfred Erdo

Its a refresher to read this kind of article

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KC

How would you tackle coupling vs cohesion problem in React?
Components can be break down but if we overuse, there might disrupt the cohesion level of the code

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Alois SečkÑr

New React devs should flee while they still can, embrace Vue.js and see that everything is equal or better with it.

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Blessing Emejulu

Perfect summary for React course that I took in one month

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Oyerinde Samuel

Nice read

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styylz

Composition Over Inheritance
Can you please explain more clearly, where is inheritance used in function components as you're using function approach to explain declarative approach

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Ashutosh

Currently learning React, needed a brief explanation of what is going on, where to start from. This helped me a lot. Thanks

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Kashif Ullah

appreciated

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Abosi Godwin

A straight to the point article.

I recommend following this guideline to any new React developer.

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Jahid2121

I wish I had these advice when I started, short and right to the point, Thanks brother,

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Devendra Singh

Well written article. I really liked how to part. Terminologies are commonly known but approach is important.

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Mayank

insightful article!

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MKXinrare

Thanks for the article. I especially enjoyed the flow of the content.

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Mohamed Amine Terbah

Here is a Love react for your React post.

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Captain Corgi

Nice topic!
Getting familiar with the ReactJS now

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Kudzai Murimi

Well documented article, keep sharing with the community

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Anmol Baranwal

I mostly use Nextjs for my projects because it's far easier to work there. Most of these ones could be for any framework imo.

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Timothy Omafe

This is really amazing

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Enoch Boison

It all makes sense now that I have some experience, it took me almost a year to transition from vanilla javascript to react. Nice piece!

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Chandra Panta Chhetri

Nice overview of the most important concepts beginners should know!

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Julius β€œTHIS_JULIUS” Razanauskas

Big fan of testing when components are following the SRP, just better code overall :)

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Rahul Chauhan

great

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Thiago Polati

Thank you for this great article.

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SoonA Ryan

I've primarily been a BE developer and delving into FE with React 18 (only now). This has been the most clear and consise explanation I have come across.

Many thanks.

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Abdul Ahad

Wow! great material now I can reference this to my junior students.

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Egbaunu precious

I love this article!

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Tomasz Bernat

I like how this article can be used as guidelines when learning react and help keep focus on important stuff. Thanks a lot for this one!