“Why you should learn Redux as a new React developer.”
As a new React developer, it was suggested to me to learn Redux alongside my React journey, and I am insanely glad that I obliged. I’m going to show a few diagrams made possible by Stephen Grider of Udemy to explain my thought process and why this approach worked for me.
First of all, learning React can be a daunting process in its own right, especially as a newer developer. Learning Redux at the same time can exponentially increase the difficulty of your experience. So why would we want to do this? The diagram above is a perfect example. Redux can be extremely confusing at first, and chances are you will not understand it at all. You will spend A LOT of time trying to understand all of the boiler plate code and all of the ins and outs, as it may seem like a totally new process and flow for you. But, in my experience and many others, eventually things will “click” for you, and once they do, you will feel almost superhuman and able to make large scale projects in a much easier fashion.
This is what a React project would feel like without Redux. Learning React as a new developer starts off with an initial challenge, but you will notice that as your project grows and gets bigger over time, the difficulty of the project skyrockets. I PROMISE you that you would much prefer the initial challenge of learning Redux at the same time, because if you decide not to and your project ends up being larger than expected, the challenge of finishing the project without Redux will be MUCH harder than if you chose the former.
The above diagram demonstrates the growing complexity of starting an app with Redux. You will notice that, yes, it starts off a bit more challenging than you would expect/prefer. But as you go and your project grows, It actually doesn’t get more complex or difficult by much at all. I cannot stress this enough. So once again, I say challenge yourself and stretch yourself initially when you are learning React. Learn Redux at the same time. Your brain, stress level, anxiety, and app that you didn’t realize would be that big at first will thank you in the ‘long run’. This process has been proven to work not just for me, but for many other developers out there.