
Show HN: Fullstack React: The Complete Book on ReactJS and Friends - jashmenn
https://www.fullstackreact.com
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jashmenn
Co-author here: over the last year we've written a sizable book on Angular 2
and we wrote the book on Angular 1 before that. Now we've turned our attention
to React and the idea is that we're showing how all of the pieces fit
together.

I've been here at HN long enough to know that a few of you might take issue at
our pitch of learning React "The Right Way". Obviously there are many, many
opinions on how to write React apps and there are many good ways to approach
React.

But I think a large part of so-called Javascript fatigue comes from the fear
of being wrong.

Because React is so modular there are tons of different modules for every
idea. "Awesome" lists are egalitarian and often put libraries of vastly
different popularity and stability right next to each other. In most cases the
community has already gathered behind one or two libraries, but it takes a lot
of research to figure out which one (and it's especially hard if you're a
beginner).

What we're offering here is a well-researched, coherent, code-packed resource.
We'll tell you which libraries to use and how to use them and you won't have
to piece together hundreds of blog posts. We've kept our books on Angular up-
to-date for years now and we're planning on doing the same for this React
book.

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afarrell
Your marketing pitch is excellent and hit right at how I would have described
my pain point with my knowledge of React 4 months ago. It still speaks to me
and I feel an urge to give you money.

I have one problem though:

Why do you only introduce unit tests in part 12 out of 13? When I "Imagine how
quickly I can get all of your work done with the right tools and best
practices", it involves me being able to write solid automated tests for
everything. Not only that, but if you introduce the proper way to set up
testing early and carry it through the rest of the book, it helps the student
keep themselves on track. When they get stuck, having a failing test helps
them focus and have a clearer idea of how to move forward.

I strenuously urge you to introduce testing earlier.

~~~
jashmenn
Yes, this is great feedback and we'll definitely introduce testing, to some
degree, earlier than chapter 12.

That chapter will be an in-depth guide to unit testing React generally, but
we'll introduce testing some of the example code in other chapters earlier in
the book.

~~~
afarrell
I think the ideal would be introducing testing toward the beginning (perhaps
after you give them the initial basic mental model) so that someone has a
recommendation for the testing library they should use which will work for the
rest of the book. Then, every so often when you notice that something is hard
to test, have a sidebar to help them along. This does kinda eliminate having a
chapter on it though, unless you have something how to migrate from legacy
frontend code to react/redux (which actually would be pretty valuable, though
it sounds like a tall order to me).

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eecks
I think I will wait until the book is more than 16% complete. I'm not saying
you won't finish it - but I might lose attention before you do.

