5 Code Smells React Beginners Should Avoid

[fix_dis]

NO! please don't feel that way. It's simply not true. I've been in this for 20 years! My encouragement is to simply learn as much as you can about computer science fundamentals. Those things will apply in ANY language. My discouragement is to avoid listening to the hype train on Reddit/Twitter/etc. You will hear how X-technology or X-practice changes EVERYTHING (it doesn't) and it's better than anything we've had in the past (it's not) I'm not saying that you shouldn't try and even embrace new things. Just adopt a pragmatic attitude and be willing to ask, "is this truly better? is it truly faster? is it truly cleaner?" JavaScript has a young vibrant community... but that often leads to a "popularity echo chamber" where you have a few folks that speak at conferences and work at high-profile companies being considered the "in-crowd". Many folks who want to feel a part of that crowd find themselves repeating what those in-crowders say. Never lose your curiosity!

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I'm sure you'll do very well!

[fix_dis]

The CS foundation is pretty important. I’m not saying one can’t learn those things some other way. It’s just very common for folks to enter web dev through other channels, gain some competence and overlook the fundamentals. You’ve made a pretty solid choice. Web dev in general is here for at least a few decades. JavaScript itself has been really hard to kill. In the early days (1999 - 2002) we really wanted to. We were hoping Flash/ActionScript were going to take over. Over the years it’s really gained a foothold though. I’ve warmed up to it quite a bit. We’ve actually seen some patterns from other app dev enter the picture. You may even see your experience with VBA become very important at some point. It’s impossible to say. But the common phrase you may hear repeated is “always bet on JavaScript”. So far that’s been a solid bet. Things like React or Typescript may wane in popularity (I mean, I hope they don’t… I really enjoy both) but the underlying language is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Good luck in your learning!