React in Action

by Mark Tielens Thomas

React is a highly-performant tool that implements a one-way data flow model. Reasoning about an interface or application written with React ends up being much easier because it decreases overall complexity for developers working with it.

React in Action introduces front-end developers to the React framework and related tools. Readers will work their way from "raw" React towards JSX, and from basic static components to ones that are dynamic and interactive.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

Genres: Programming, Computer Science, Software, Web, Coding, Technology

300 pages, ebook

Published December 1, 2017

Reviews

[Sina · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 star rating, because you can read this book and just this book and start building a mid-level react application from scratch. It actually provides all you need to start with. Very comprehensive, easy reading and interestingly easy to follow. It contains many challenges ( maybe small projects ) that evaluate your findings through out the book.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

At this point, this book is pretty far out of date. It doesn't cover hooks at any point, which is the main casualty of the publish date. The book is so old at this point that the demo website doesn't even work any longer; the code may work, but the code-base is so large that it's overwhelming and I found that I had zero interest in pulling it down.
The examples would have been far better suited as small, self-contained demonstrations instead of trying to connect to a larger website. At the very least they could have been integrated better. Pages of the book were dedicated entirely to examples which were nearly carbon copies of previous examples.

If you're going to learn React, I'd recommend just reading the React Documentation. It reads easier than you'd think and is much more beginner-friendly.

[Mark Tielens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote this, so I'm a bit biased ;)

[Łukasz Słonina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely not a book for beginners. Very theoretical, project used as an example is very complex, difficult to follow in some places, would be much better to have simpler samples and then case study at the end as summary.

[Ketan Ramteke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book is filled with great insights about React but I would have loved it even more if it followed the writing style of ROBIN WIERUCH.
Sometimes it's really hard to follow the code.
Too much emphasis on theory so it does feel dull and boring at a time.
Definitely worth a read.

[Andrea Grillo]

It is outdated and the example project doesn't work because dependencies are too old or it is not worth make it working. It is bettere reading React documentation.
However, I liked the approach of "reinventing the wheel" to understand how stuff works under the hood. It lacks of modern concepts but it is good to practice basic concepts of components, props and state.