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Ask HN: Best courses to learn React Native for a back end dev

17 points by rexarex ↗ HN
Hi there, I am working on an app for a side project and I am building out the backend and doing some design with someone doing the frontend but I'm interested in jumping in and writing some of the front-end as well.

I am going to take a course on Udemy most likely, but I already know a lot about back-end Python, Golang, and AWS and Infra so don't need a total beginner course.

Does anyone have a good up to date course they can recommend that uses Expo? I know this technology changes pretty rapidly in the front-end so if anyone has any good recent experience I would appreciate a suggestion or two :)

11 comments

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schwartzworld
The new React docs are amazing and most of what they contain applies to React Native.
71a54xd
What about react in general? So many bad resources seem to be the only thing I can find these days.
p4ul
I have personally found Josh Comeau's "Joy of React" course to be absolutely exceptional!!
andirk
All I can find is a website made by crypto bros. Do you have a link to the courses?
iamcreasy
From the website:

From January 23rd to January 31st, this course was available to preorder as part of an “Early Access” program.

Unfortunately, that window has now closed, and the course is no longer available. I plan on spending the next few months building out the rest of the course, iterating based on feedback from the folks who enrolled in “Early Access”.

You'll be able to register for the course when it's completed. I'm hoping that this will happen by June or July, though I can't make any promises.

jawmes8
I recently picked up react native, though I had a good amount of experience with React already and much of it is similar. Except for working with the file system and tooling.

One good boilerplate I’d recommend having a look at is https://github.com/infinitered/ignite not a course but possibly a good resource to learn from.

aigoochamna
I started learning React a few days ago (for Next.js). It's not Native, but it's similar I guess. What has been working for me?

Read the React docs (do the tic tac toe project work, go through all of their fundamental/learning docs). Then build some small things.

lucasknight
I'd definitely start by taking a look at the React Navigation documentation. It's a library that provides a lot of tools for native navigation and page routing. In my opinion, this is the most important library (apart from React and React Native) to learn to have the skills to be an entire React Native app.

From the React Navigation docs they suggest taking a look at these resources to get the fundemantals sorted:

1. React Native Express - teaches all the basics of React Native 2. Main Concepts of React - Allows you to understand how React works 3. React Hooks - Provides specific reference towards using hooks in React (they're addictively useful)

[1]: https://www.reactnative.express [2]: https://react.dev/learn/thinking-in-react [3]: https://react.dev/reference/react

fakeElonMusk
egghead.io has some good stuff, like this - https://egghead.io/courses/modern-redux-with-redux-toolkit-r.... Not super current but does a great job of going over concepts including in depth jest testing. Dan Abramov is a major contributor to egghead.

I would not recommend using expo. It's a huge stack of dependencies that will create conflicts when upgrading or using other packages (already problematic with pure RN). Maybe it's better now, but when I started with RN 4 years ago the Android issues were constant. Just use RN ejected, and you can still bring in expo packages as needed.