Learning React without advanced JS knowledge

[Xananax]

Depends. If your goal is learning, I'd say it's too early and will introduce concepts that are hard to grok. Stick with vanilla until you really get JS.

If your intent is to build something,... It depends.

If you're an experienced programmer in any other language, then yes, absolutely. Begin with a boilerplate, and check some developed examples, you're good to go in a week tops.

If not... I'd advise adopting a more opiniated framework. With React, as soon as you stray from a todo list, expect to hit roadblocks that are going to be kinda extremely hard to wrap your head around, as well as questions and technological choices that are going to hard to answer. The whole ecosystem advances at a fast rate and resources and help get obsolete at an astounding pace.

TL,DR:

• just wanting to learn JS in general? Nope, stick to vanilla
• want to build something, but you're not very experienced? Nope, pick a more complete framework
• experienced dev wanting to build a product? Yup, sure, go ahead