Learning React
I've been avoiding it since 2019, but I cannot run away anymore: I'm learning React.
My favourite frontend framework is still Vue, and I doubt that's going to change. But if anyone can make me enjoy React, that's Josh W. Comeau's The Joy of React.
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This task is a bit of a hyperbole, like the one where I learned CSS, because technically I already know React. In fact, I used it fulltime for close to a year at a previous job. But the truth is that I still don't like it 😅. Or to be more exact, I still don't like it as much as Vue.
But! I do like it more than Angular, and I worked with Angular fulltime for almost 5 years at my last job. So I can certainly work with tools that are not my favorite (In fact, I don't even think tools are that important). And I'm certainly looking forward to taking another one of Josh's courses :D.
Maybe you're wondering, why now? Well, there are a couple of reasons why I've decided to finally take React seriously.
The first one is that I recently started using it in my side-projects, and I've had a much better experience than I had 6 years ago. There are still plenty of things I dislike about React, like JSX's conditionals and loops, className, useCallback, and all the idiosyncracies with hooks (just to name a few). But this time, I've felt a real improvement around tooling. I don't know if that's because LLMs are more attuned to React, or shadcn is that much better than the Vue port (probably both). But I can sincerely say that things have been a lot easier than using Vue. Even though React isn’t great at anything except being popular, it seems like the ecosystem really plays a critical role.
And the second one is, of course, the job market. About 8 months ago, I started job seeking again, and I could see that React is more dominant than ever. I did get a job using Vue, but that hasn't ultimately worked out and I'm changing jobs in a couple of weeks. Can you guess which framework I'll be using at my new job?
Anyways, even if it doesn't seem like it, I'm actually looking forward to diving into React. I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this task, because I feel like I already have a pretty good grasp. But there are a couple of things I haven't played with, like Server Components or Next.js. So at the very least, I'll make sure to share my first impressions with those.