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Ask HN: Resources for learning advanced JavaScript and React

109 points by CCing ↗ HN
What are the best resources for learn advanced js/es6/react ?

Something similar to "Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby"

Right now I'm a junior/mid js developer, but I want improve my skills/code/tests etc...

Any help is welcome.

44 comments

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MattyMc
Commenting to follow this thread. And if I may add a question: Are there such things as javascript tutoring services?
Top19
Kyle Simpson and the "You Don't Know JS" series. Can't speak highly enough about them.

Also he has a good recent book on Functional Programming, which if you plan on tackling Redux later will be helpful.

I got the physical editions because that's how I prefer books (easier to note / annotate), but all the books mentioned here are available free online / on Simpson's Github.

CCing
Already read them...very useful but I was wondering if there was something similar for react.
aecorredor
Stephen grider's udemy courses on react (all 3-4 of them are great). Totally recommended.
coreymaass
I'm working my way through these and love them. I'd bought books and followed tutorials so I'd completed 3-4 "hello world" apps. With Stephen's videos, I thought, "oh, great, another hello world" but the way he explains things, sudden I understand what it all actually meant instead of just bashing together code and hoping it worked.
SolarUpNote
https://egghead.io has excellent ES6 React, Redux tutorial videos, and step by step code examples.
davedx
Worth noting this is the site Dan Abramov, creator of Redux and React maintainer, posts his tutorials on.
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FarhadG
I just spoke @ JSChannel 2017 & published a book on this very topic (https://github.com/FarhadG/ui-react). It has reached the weekly best seller's list, so I hope it can be of some use for your goals.
chrisa
I have a free advanced (and beginner) daily email course to help you learn React: https://nanohop.com/react-daily-emails/

The idea is to get a small dose of React every day.

I'm also always looking for what else to include in the course - so I'd love to hear what you find most difficult, or what you think is lacking from current learning resources.

rwieruch
The Road to learn React [0] is an open source book that gets continuously improved because it was self-published and the community contributes as well. You will build a React.js application along the way and transition smoothly from JavaScript ES5 to JavaScript ES6. It teaches the fundamentals of React without any tooling or Redux. Afterward, you are ready to go to build your own React applications. I would love to get your feedback on the book! :)

Otherwise, I can recommend to checkout this repository [1] by Mark Erikson to find out more about React and its ecosystem. I am sure you will find plenty of starter tutorials to get into learning React.

- [0] https://www.robinwieruch.de/the-road-to-learn-react/

- [1] https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links

ajitgoel
I strongly recommend "the Road to react" book to learn react.
acemarke
Gotcha covered.

I keep a big list of links to high-quality tutorials and articles on React, Redux, and related topics, at https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links . Specifically intended to be a great starting point for anyone trying to learn the ecosystem, as well as a solid source of good info on more advanced topics. It includes links for learning core Javascript (ES5), modern Javascript (ES6+), React, Redux, and much more.

In addition, my "Practical Redux" tutorial series ( http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/practical-redux) shows how to use a variety of intermediate to advanced React and Redux techniques in the context of a sample app, and my "Idiomatic Redux" series (http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/idiomatic-redux ) discusses important aspects of good Redux usage, including why common patterns exist.

Finally, the Reactiflux chat channels on Discord are a great place to hang out, ask questions, and learn. The invite link is at https://www.reactiflux.com .

debaserab2
I know these are great resources, but I don't think redux should be taught with react. Most of the React projects I've seen using Redux didn't need it - all they needed was for their developers to have a deeper understanding of how React handles state.

Learn React first. When you have complex data management problems, consider learning Redux, but master Reacts own state management first.

acemarke
Trust me, I agree. In fact, my standard copy-paste "advice on learning React" includes:

> Definitely don't over-complicate the learning process by trying to learn many different things at once. Some people will say you should use a "boilerplate" to learn React, and they're wrong - boilerplate projects almost always come with too many pieces configured, and are confusing for beginners.

> Instead, the best advice is to focus on learning React itself first. Once you have a good understanding of how React works, you will better appreciate why a state management library like Redux can be useful, and you can learn about other tools later.

That said, my rough estimates are that around 55-60% of React apps are using Redux, and it's also frequently used with Angular, Ember, and Vue, albeit sometimes in different forms (ngrx/store, vuex, etc). So, while I totally agree that most people should not try to learn Redux right away, it _is_ a very relevant topic to cover.

z3t4
If you want to get good at JavaScript, do learn about closures and lexical scope. Example assignment: Make a function that loads a list of images and then show the average width of the images. Then make three versions of the function, one that loads the images in serial, one that loads the images in parallel and one that loads max three images at a time.
erkmene
React-Redux complements React in some great ways. It has been my state storage of choice from the beginning. IMO, it would be better to start react with it rather than changing habits later. The go-to tutorial series is here: https://egghead.io/courses/getting-started-with-redux

And definitely use typescript if you value good code quality (and your sanity). The advanced type system and compile time type checking is really a boon to the JS ecosystem. https://www.typescriptlang.org

You'd like to get comfortable with the latest tools that compile, transpile and pack the code for you (you might be familiar with that already.) Here might be a good start: https://medium.com/@fay_jai/getting-started-with-reactjs-typ...

Have fun!

CCing
Typescript works fine even with all the libs written in js/es6 from npm ?
erkmene
Most popular libraries these days either include their own typescript definitions, or the definitions are available vie @types (it is as easy as npm install --save-dev @types/library-name)

If on the off chance that no typings are available, you just write a simple namespace declaration (usually a one liner) and start using the library right away, albeit without smart code sensing / completion. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22842389/how-to-import-a...

yamalight
Shameless plug: I did a free open source video series called "Building products with javascript" [1] that covers building CRUD webapp using javascript (including es6+), node, express, react, redux, rxjs and all that kind of stuff. Will be happy to answer any questions :)

[1] https://github.com/yamalight/building-products-with-js

hliyan
If you truly want to grok JavaScript, I can recommend no better tutorial than this: https://johnresig.com/apps/learn/

It is how I finally grokked JS and it is the same tutorial that I put all new additions to my team through...

spenuke
I'm always surprised that reading source code is such a rare occurrence or suggestion in this world. If you consider yourself even in the vicinity of "advanced", I think you're capable of learning great stuff by looking at anything on github. Something big, but well organized. Lo-dash, Node, Mocha, etc.

Of course you won't understand everything on first read. But you will learn really good things if you know how to look at something confusing and identify what it is you don't understand; then you can go find didactic materials to fill in the gaps.

This is an amazing way to learn. You get to see how some of the most used, or cutting-edge tools are implemented (for free!). You learn about the tools themselves and thus gain expertise in them. And, you gain the meta-skill of working in unfamiliar territory, which I think is a fundamental key to being considered "advanced".

corporateslave3
I question the utility of this.

I don't break apart an engine to figure out how to use it, I read the manual about inputs and outputs.

spenuke
Totally fine, so long as you know that makes you an "advanced user".

I can't imagine you'll find a sane place to work where senior people are only capable of learning something after consuming a tutorial or a manual. The nature of the work is to drill down one layer below what you're working on. Do you need to know how to smelt steel in order to be a good car mechanic? No, of course not, but it sure helps to have taken an engine apart. And if you're trying to build the next, better engine, it's really great to see the internals (and the commented motivations!) of previous implementations.

carlmungz
I'm improving my JS skills by learning how to read and understand the source code of mithril.js.org (I'm doing write ups at: https://gist.github.com/CarlMungazi).

It's what we use internally at work so it made sense for me to actually understand how it uses JS to tackle all the problems a framework is supposed to solve. I've only been doing it a short while but I've learnt a ton already.

I casually glanced at the source for Ember and React over the weekend and I could understand much better what was going on because I had a reference point based upon the source as opposed to just knowing the APIs.