Top 5 Skills You Must Know Before You Learn ReactJS

The website running on ReactJS looks beautiful and most of the beginners in development get attracted to ReactJS (developed by Facebook) as well but a common mistake that a lot of developers and experienced people make is jumping directly into ReactJS (or some other library and framework) without knowing the prerequisites. If you will directly go to the React you will face a lot of problems while learning this library and in interviews as well.
We are going to discuss some prerequisites and some basic concepts that you should know before you jump to the React.

1. HTML AND CSS

Every front-end developer starts their journey with HTML and CSS. So before you start learning to react you should have a good command of writing HTML and CSS. You should know how to write semantic HTML tags, how to write CSS selectors, how to use classes, how to implement a CSS reset, box model, how to reset to border-box, flexbox, how to write responsive web applications including media queries, and how to build a frontend application using HTML and CSS.

2.JSX (JavaScript XML) & Babel

In React you will work with JSX that looks like HTML and you can consider it like HTML-flavored JavaScript. It is the easiest way to add HTML code inside JavaScript or you can say it is the extension of the JavaScript language syntax. You should have a complete understanding of what is JSX before you start learning React.

3.Fundamentals of JavaScript and ES6

JavaScript is one of the most confusing languages for developers and it ignores small errors that can create a problem in your project if you won’t notice it earlier. So make sure that you first clear your basic concept about JavaScript and then you move to the advanced version of ECMAScript5 and ECMAScript6. Some of the topics are given below but make sure that you explore as much as you can and build some projects as well for in-depth knowledge in JavaScript.

4. Package Manager (Node + Npm)

When you will be working with ReactJS you’ll have to install many, smaller software packages. Package in JavaScript contains all the files needed for a module and modules are the JavaScript libraries that can be included in the Node project. Packages contain two things…package.json files + js files. To install these packages you need a good installer that can help you to download and install software packages easily without worrying about the dependencies. Here NPM (Node package manager) plays a role and helps you to install and keep track of javascript software. You can use NodeJS or Yarn to manage these software packages. You can install NPM by installing Node.js. When you install Node.js, NPM will install automatically.

5. Git and CLI (Command Line Interface)

Git (version control) is another must-have skill a developer should have to store their project on GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab (Code hosting platform). It helps developers to work and collaborate with each other and it allows them to track and host different versions of project files. You should have good knowledge that how Git and these code hosting platforms work. Developers use the command of Git to track the version of your files, so learn how to use all the commands such as push, pull, add, commit, etc. Also learn about merging, branching, handling merging conflicts, etc. Everything in React you will be doing with the help of CLI (Command-line interface)