A Four Week Intermediate Course to Build Projects with React

Advanced javascript: React is a series of video lessons and tutorials that show students who have a basic javascript background how to build three real-world projects that you can add to your website. You will learn how to make your website more interactive and engaging using javascript & React.

React was created by Facebook. Think about your Facebook timeline: There are a lot of different components there with a lot going on: the timeline updates when there are new status updates, you can “like” or comment on a status update, you can get messages from Messenger, you can search for people, right?

For a long, long time, creating interactive experiences like this in javascript was doable but led to messy code that was difficult to maintain. A common term for this is "spaghetti code" because all the different parts of it intertwine like the pasta on a plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

React gives us a way to organize our code. Our views (i.e. components) are self-contained and, ideally, do just a single thing. This helps us work with other people because when they come look at our code it will be easier for them to understand it. And it makes our code more robust because giving each component just one role to do cuts down on the likelihood of nasty bugs being introduced.


Week 1 - Fundamentals of React.js

In week one, we’ll build a simple React app! We’ll read through a complete React project so that you can begin to answer questions like: When do I choose between javascript vs. React? Why do I even need React? And why is React quickly becoming the most popular JS framework on the Web?

Week 2 - Social Media Card

If you’re building the next Twitter, Instagram, or any social media site that has user profiles then React can help you build your user interface. In this week, we’ll use API data, to populate a user profile page.

Week 3 - Pomodoro Timer

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method used to break down work intervals: 25 minutes of deep work, followed by a 5 minute break. In this week, we’ll build an app to help us focus. The Pomodoro Timer we create will tell us when to work, and when to break.

Week 4 - Product Search

In the final week, you’ll build an app that searches through a list of products. This will be necessary for any app you create where you’d like to parse through lists of users, products, or any data set.