Setting Up a React Workflow

This title might be a bit awkward, but really, I am going to go over a bit of React since it is a vast topic that deserves a separate book, and there are plenty of very good ones on the market. I listed the reasons for choosing React in the first place, back when we were analyzing our stack in Chapter 1, Web Development and the FARM Stack, so we will not go over it again. Instead, I will try to make a concise and short introduction to React, while pinpointing what I feel are the most important topics and features that you should be aware of in order to be proficient as soon as possible.

In this chapter, we’re going to create a very simple React app, or better – the frontend of an app – through which we will showcase the main features and the most salient concepts that will make working with React worth your while. We will begin with the prerequisites and tools (such as Node.js, some Visual Studio Code extensions, and more). We will...