Take your React beyond the tutorial

React is here to stay. It solves many problems you may not even know existed. These essays are the good stuff I learned over the years.

Learning from tutorials is easy. You follow some steps, learn a smol lesson, and feel like you got dis ๐Ÿ’ช

Then comes the interview, a real world problem, or a question from the boss. Your mind goes blank. Shit, how does this work again ...

Happens to everyone. Building is harder than recognizing and the real world is a mess! Nothing fits in neat little boxes you learned about in tutorials.

That's where my emails come in โ€“ lessons from experience. Building production software :)

Leave your email and get the React email Series - a series of curated essays on building with React. Borne from experience, seasoned with over 12+ years of hands-on practice building the engineering side of growing SaaS companies.

Latest React articles from Swizec

14 articles from 2021 ยท show all

November 2021

You can use React Query for slow computation, not just API

You can use the ergonomics of React Query for any slow operation and it's wonderful.

Why I'm excited about React 18 โ€“ talk

React 18 is coming soon. I hope ๐Ÿคž Here's a talk I gave exploring its implications and showing off demos with working code.

August 2021

Build simple backends with Gatsby Serverless Functions

Until recently adding a little backend to your Gatsby site meant 2 options: 1. Climbing the AWS learning curve 2. Rewrite with NextJS Now there's an /api directory ๐Ÿ˜ฑ

July 2021

React 18 and the future of async data

Friend, I have glimpsed the future and it is amazing. React 18 is shipping with Suspense and startTransition for deferred component rendering, but not data loading. That's coming in a future 18.x version.

June 2021

Hacking the React AST for fun and profit โ€“ #CodeWithSwiz ep34

This is hold my beer level of hackery. It didn't work but we learned lots in the process.

A better React 18 startTransition demo

Demoing startTransition is hard. Modern computers are too fast ๐Ÿ˜… โ€“ Dan Abramov, a React core team member, helped me fix it up. Here's what I learned

Trying out React 18 Alpha

I read everything about React 18 Alpha, trawled through the work group, and ran some experiments. Here's what you'll wanna know.

A fun security bug with static rendering โ€“ CodeWithSwiz #31

The flash of unlocked content is great fun for any paywall

May 2021

Build privacy-focused blazing fast tweet embeds โ€“ CodeWithSwiz 30

Twitter embeds every tweet on your page as an iframe. Loads 1.2MB of JavaScript, makes 20+ HTTP requests and uses 100+ DOM nodes. ๐Ÿ’ฉ

Twitter embeds without JavaScript, pt1 โ€“ #CodeWithSwiz 29

Continuing our quest for better Lighthouse scores, more reader privacy, and less JavaScript we attacked the next biggest culprit ๐Ÿ‘‰ Twitter.

April 2021

2 quick tips for 250% better Lighthouse scores โ€“ CodeWithSwiz 28

Your site may be fast for users, but Google don't care. Official metrics or bust.

March 2021

Variants โ€“ a quick tip for better React components

Reusable components like to grow boolean props for different situations and complexity soon blows up. Variant props are the perfect solution.

February 2021

A TypeScript trick for reusable hooks

Reusable hooks are all fun and games until TypeScript starts yelling at you about incompatible types.

React Bricks - visual blocks editor for NextJS #CodeWithSwiz 22

Tried a new visual editor for NextJS and CreateReactApp. Got a site up in 20min ๐Ÿค˜