First Steps with React

React is a JavaScript library used to create complex user interfaces for the web, native applications, and virtual reality. React allows developers to create large applications that use data and can change over time without reloading the page. In this quick introductory course, you'll learn everything you need to know to get started with React. You'll discover a painless way to set up a React project and then you'll use React to build a working star rating UI component (i.e., the classic rating system where users rate things on a scale of one to x stars). Along the way, you'll see how React treats components as functions (functions that simply return UI elements); you'll learn how to create components and nest them inside other components (and why that's useful); you'll explore "state" (one of React's most import concepts) and how it relates to the way components display data that changes over time; and you'll finish up by learning how to manage complex state data with React's setState and array mapping tools.

• Learn everything you need to get started with React today
• Discover the tool that lets you set up your React projects in a hassle-free manner
• Explore and understand the underlying concepts that make React unique
• Gain hands-on experience building React UI components

Alex Banks and Eve Porcello are coauthors of Learning React (O'Reilly Media) and cofounders of Moon Highway, a curriculum development company based in Northern California. Alex is a software developer and trainer who developed applications for the Chicago Marathon, MSN, Yahoo!, and the U.S. Department of Energy. Eve is a software developer and trainer who has worked on software projects for 1-800-Dentist and Microsoft.