Ultimate React Course Lecture Notes

Introduction

• Instructor: Marsha Madani, software engineer with over 20 years of experience.
• Course Scope: From basics to advanced React concepts.
• Outcome: Build fast, scalable React apps; no prior React knowledge required.
• Project: Build a production-grade app for discovering video games with features like dark/light mode, search, filters, sorting, and more.

Prerequisites

• Required Knowledge: HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
• Tools: Use of TypeScript for static typing.
• Environment Setup: Node.js (version 16 or higher), Visual Studio Code (VS Code) with Prettier extension.

What is React?

• Nature: JavaScript library for building dynamic, interactive UIs.
• Origin: Created at Facebook in 2011.
• Utility: Helps manage complex DOM updates efficiently.
• Component-Based: Allows for reusable and modular code.

Setting Up Development Environment

• Node Version: Check with node -v.
• VS Code and Prettier for Code Formatting: Install and configure.
• Creating a React App: Use Vite for a fast setup.
  • Example command: npm create vite@latest.

Building a React Component

• Structure: Use function-based components.
• JSX: JavaScript syntax extension for describing UI.
• Dynamic Content: Use JavaScript expressions within JSX for dynamic rendering.

React and the Virtual DOM

• Concept: React uses a virtual DOM for efficient updates.
• Libraries: Utilizes react-dom for web rendering.
• Platform Agnostic: Can be used for web, mobile, desktop.

Library vs Framework

• React as a Library: Focused on UI, requires additional tools for routing, state management, etc.
• Modularity: Allows selection of additional tools for specific needs.

Creating a List Group Component

• Bootstrap Integration: Install and import Bootstrap for styling.
• Rendering Lists: Use JSX and the map() function to render dynamic lists.
• Handling Events: Use the onClick attribute for event handling.

State Management

• Hook: Use useState to manage state within components.
• Mutability: State is mutable; Props are immutable.

Passing Data with Props

• Props as Inputs: Define component inputs using interfaces in TypeScript.
• Children Prop: Used for passing children elements to a component.

Conditional Rendering

• Ternary Operator and Logical AND: Used for displaying UI conditionally.

Handling Component Updates

• onSelectItem: Notify parent components of changes using function props.

Debugging with React Dev Tools

• Installation: Browser extension for inspecting React components.
• Features: View component hierarchy, props, and inspect source code.

Exercises

• Bootstrap Button Component: Create and handle button events.
• Alert Component with Close Functionality: Use props and state to toggle visibility.

Conclusion

• Further Learning: The complete course provides more in-depth content, exercises, and projects.
• Course Offerings: Includes best practices, exercises, and a money-back guarantee.
• Encouragement: Link to full course for further study.