About the Author

Manuel Bieh has worked as a Freelancer in Frontend-/JavaScript Development since 2012.

Before deciding to enter the life of a freelancer, I had roughly 10 years of experience under my belt — helping companies of different scales with Frontend Development. For a long time, I have identified as more of a generalist rather than a specialist. It will be hard to find a technology I have not at least tried or touched upon in my career. With the exception of JavaScript itself, I have never really thought of myself as a specialist in any field or technology. This changed drastically and suddenly when a friend of mine, who is also a developer, told me about React in 2014. Driven by my curiosity and an opportunity to use it professionally for Zalando, I delved deeper into React.

I have to admit, at the start I found React a little strange — this is not uncommon by the way, especially for people new to React — but the more I explored and researched, the more I tried to expose myself to React, the more my initial skepticism turned into enthusiasm. Ever since, React has been the tool of choice in all of my projects where I deemed it a good fit. During this time, I have learned a ton and I'm still learning every day. I've worked in teams with fewer than 5 people but also in bigger teams of over 30 people and shared my React knowledge with them while, of course, soaking up more knowledge myself.

The complexity of React should not be underestimated, however. It's possible to start out with React and build applications fairly quickly. If you value quality though, there is much to learn to increase code quality, performance and maintenance. Some of this wisdom is not even known to people who have worked with React professionally for quite a while. Hence, I would not describe myself as an expert, despite years of daily and intense exposure to React. Nevertheless, I hope I have amassed a substantial amount of knowledge that I can share with you all in the form of this book, to ease the transition and to provide you with a few tips.