react-intro

What is React?

A Javascript UI framework based on declarative views
Generate page with nested function calls that take data as input and produce HTML as output

Older UI frameworks built DOM trees imperatively
- HTML initially be created on the server
- Data stored on the HTML elements as attributes
A lot of re-rendering (performance penalty)
Tied tightly to browsers (in a world with a growing variety of devices)

DOM nodes are no longer a source of data
Declarative view rendering and composition removes the need to understand DOM state when updating views
View implementation details are easier to modularize
It's faster: React only re-renders those parts of the view that need to be updated

- The download above should install two commands: node and npm
- npm may require some extra configuration to set permissions properly
A code editor
create-react-app command-line tool: npm install --global create-react-app

Command-line tool that creates a React application with a standard structure and dependencies
create-react-app robodex: creates the app in the folder robodex
package.json: information on what dependencies your application has as well as some simple commands
README.md: documentation on React and create-react-app
- Replace this with a description of your application
node_modules: dependency files
src: application source files
public: the build target path

npm start: serves the application in a development environment
- Code changes are automatically refreshed in the browser
npm build: builds the application for deployment and copies the files to the public folder
npm test: runs the application's tests
npm eject: ejects the build configuration
- Don't do this!
- (for advanced users only) Don't do this yet

Last updated 5 years ago

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Create React App

Command-line tool that creates a React application with a standard structure and dependencies

create-react-app robodex: creates the app in the folder robodex

package.json: information on what dependencies your application has as well as some simple commands

README.md: documentation on React and create-react-app

node_modules: dependency files

src: application source files

public: the build target path

Create React App Commands

npm start: serves the application in a development environment

npm build: builds the application for deployment and copies the files to the public folder

npm test: runs the application's tests

npm eject: ejects the build configuration