Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of the lucky ones to win the React.js conf ticket lottery which means I didn’t get a chance to rub shoulders with some of the most brilliant minds
in Javascript.
I’m not bitter or anything. Jimmy Buffet once said, “I can go to movies and see it all there just the way that it used to be…”
Thanks to the all this modern technology life is even better than it used to be.
Now I can just go to YouTube and watch all of React.js conf 2015
while sitting here in my underwear. I don’t recommend going to the movies and doing that.
The very fact that the conference sold out in seconds says something about the popularity of React.js.
In case you’re like me and also missed out you can get all the videos from
the React.js Conf YouTube play list.
If you don’t have all day to watch them all here are the highlights that I think are worth spending 25 minutes (each) watching. You know you have
time. Just stop checking Facebook in the bathroom and pull up these little snippets of wisdom instead.
React.js Native
The big news, React.js has gone native. You can build compiled applications for iOS and Android using React.js. It’s all part of a “Learn once write everywhere”
philosophy being adopted at Facebook. In case you are tired of learning every new language and platform that comes along this will be a welcome relief.
If you want to see a bit of code Ryan Florence (@ryanflorence)
posted a gist of a checklist app and
here’s 30 seconds of him changing text in the demo movie app.
Relay
Relay looks like it will solve world peace. At the very least I’ll probably do a lot less swearing at my computer once this is open source. There’s no
code yet but Greg Hurrell (@wincent) put together
a gist that answers all your basic Relay questions. Relay will impact your Flux and Router code.
Immutable Data
No longer the stuff of stuffy academics, immutable data can have a real life inside your application and make you more productive.
Check out the open source immutable.js code and learn more from
Lee Byron(@leeb). If you want more Om, David Nolan
(@swannodette) and immutable data
here’s a YouTube playlist.
Fixed Data Table
I like presentations that are backed by code – especially open source code that you can use in your application right now.
Jason Bonta (jbonta) did a great job
explaining how they built a data table in React.js that can handle an insane amount of data without making your browser cry.
- Here’s the open source repo for Fixed Data Table.
- Here’s a review/intro of the fixed data table from reactbook.org.
React.js Router
Complex client side application must have a router. Urls are important. Don’t break the web and don’t piss off your users.
Michael Jackson (@mjackson) and Ryan Florence (@ryanflorence) and the
community have done a great job producing a much needed piece of the React.js application infrastructure. I think the React Router is more important in what
it represents than in what it does. All the big pieces of React – React itself, flux, the data table, Relay, React Native, etc have come from Facebook. That’s
great because it means the code has been battle tested with millions of users. However, the router reprents buy in from the open source community. There are
developers not at Facebook willing to spend their time and brain cycles building a piece of software and a community. Community is key to the learn turn
sustainability of any open source project.
react-intl
At some point you will be asked to make your application work in a language other than English. On that day you are going to be greatful for
format.js
React.js Code
We are developers. We speak code. It’s nice to see concrete examples. Ryan Florence (@ryanflorence) demonstrates
everything from performance to magic to accessibility to building an isomorphic application.
If you want to add accessiblity to your React.js application (and you should) you can check out the tool that Ryan showed off here
react-a11y.
Interestingness from Twitter
During the conference I saw a few tweets show up with #reactjsconf that looked interesting:
- Michael Chan’s beautiful and awesome conference notes. (@chantastic)
- React.js Fundamentals from Egghead.io is worth watching if you are new to React.js
- Here’s a React.js, Webpack.js in Rails tutorial
- Flux over socket.io
Other React.js Goodness
In React 0.13.0 you no longer need to use React.createClass instead you can use ES6 classes today
. This news does kill mixins, but we love ES6 so I don’t really care that much.
One more presentation, not given at React.js conf that is just really good which you should watch
Steven Luscher(@steveluscher) “Decomplexifying Code with React”.