What does it take to succeed in this dive?

You gotta get your hands dirty! Look, if you really want to master React, you must do a lot of practice. Practice, practice, practice! And then some more practice! No one can become a mechanic by simply watching 10,000 hours of videos or reading 500 books, right?  Sure, you might master the theory, but to be able to call yourself a mechanic and get some paying gigs, you have got to get those hands dirty by actually fixing and building cars! 

Well, the same goes for learning React. If you really want to be good, you have to write code, and lot’s of it. Don’t just watch the tutor coding and copy their code. Instead, pause the videos and try to write the code by yourself, from memory. If you get stuck, watch the video and try again. Don’t get in the habit of transcribing--you will only be fooling yourself into believing that you have learned the material, when the reality is you have probably learned very little, if anything at all.





Useful tips:

  • Use spaced learning and repetition - watch tutorials for a set time period (the Pomodoro technique can be really useful here) - take a short break, then try to apply what you learned by creating something from scratch, even if it’s just a simple component.

  • Get creative, build some small apps without looking at someone else’s code.

  • Learn to read the documentation.

  • When stuck don’t be afraid to Google and if Google can’t help you, ask others who are pursuing the same dive -- the Break Diving community will always be here to give you some help when you need it.

  • When you have learned the basics, challenge yourself to build a complex project from scratch.


Bottom line, if you want to become a React developer, do this:


  1. Start developing your own projects from day one

  2. Spend at least 30 minutes a day learning new topics in React

  3. Be part of a community that will encourage you and helps you when you get stuck. Hint: Join Break Diving

  4. Keep up to date with the latest versions of React


Do these things regularly, and within 6 months, you can almost certainly be well on the road to becoming an expert in React. The question is: will you actually do these things? Ahh, that is the question. We hope you will!