I’ve decided to switch my focus away from Ruby and see if I can get my head around React.js. I will try and keep to a monthly post cycle and see if I can explain what I have learnt along with some useful links and resources i’ve found on the way.

My goal at the end of this is to release an app which takes data from the popular sports tracker Strava using their API. The closer I get to creating the app the more detail I will reveal about the idea.

I haven’t learnt enough yet to write a full blog post so i’ll just let you know the setup I currently have, the tools I am using and the material I’ve been suggested to read and watch.

My favourite text editor at the moment is Atom created by the team at Github. They have some great packages and themes that let you customise your workspace. Here is my current Atom configuration.

I’ve been pointed in the direction of egghead.io/ by my work collegues who are currently using React. I have to be honest, I didn’t totally connect with the presenter as it is quite fast paced but I can see they have some great material on there. I also stumbled across a great youtube channel called learncode and he has a really good playlist on React that I plan to work my way through first. I will need to brush up on my Javascript theory so I will be reading “The Principles of Object-Orientated Javascript” by Nicholas C.Zakas on my train journeys to work.

Hopefully by this time next month I will be able to explain some of the things I have learnt.