React Interview Guide

React Interview Guide

by Sudheer Jonna, Andrew Baisden
Released November 2023
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781803241517

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Book description

Build your confidence in tackling React job interviews with this comprehensive guide covering a wide range of React ecosystem questions the latest advancements in React

Key Features

  • Boost your interview success by mastering React interview strategies
  • Quickly acquaint yourself with the latest React features
  • Benefit from expert guidance for preparing to tackle any React interview question confidently
  • Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook

Book Description

Are you struggling with React job interviews, feeling hindered by the lack of knowledge or confidence? Look no further than the React Interview Guide. Complete with the latest features of the React library, this comprehensive solution will assist you in taking a definitive step forward in your career as a React developer.

This book systematically covers frequently asked questions and common edge cases encountered in React interviews. It goes beyond React to encompass other essential technologies in the React ecosystem, including routing, CSS, testing, and building Next.js apps. You’ll benefit from invaluable expert guidance, enabling you to address a wide range of React ecosystem questions swiftly as this book prioritizes interview readiness, sparing you the need to dwell excessively on individual topics before technical discussions.

By the end of this book, you’ll be thoroughly equipped to excel in any React interview, giving you an edge over your peers and significantly increasing your chances of securing your dream job.

What you will learn

  • Discover contemporary strategies to make your profile shine in a competitive marketplace
  • Access diverse interview questions, from basic to advanced, to land a React developer job
  • Master React’s latest features, performance optimization, and debugging techniques step by step
  • Grasp techniques and tips to cover crucial skills for the React developer role
  • Understand various frameworks and libraries to prepare to answer any React interview question
  • Build fully fledged React-based applications to ace coding assignments

Who this book is for

This book will aid individuals preparing for React job interviews as well as seasoned developers looking to expand their React knowledge. A basic understanding of fundamental web development concepts and technologies, such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS is necessary to get started.

Table of contents

  1. React Interview Guide
  2. Contributors
  3. About the authors
  4. About the reviewers
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Download the example code files
    5. Conventions used
    6. Get in touch
    7. Share Your Thoughts
    8. Download a free PDF copy of this book
  6. Part 1: Getting Ready for Interviews
  7. Chapter 1: Bracing Yourself for Interview Preparation
    1. Preparing your resume and cover letter
      1. Differentiating between a resume and a cover letter
      2. The significance of having an excellent resume and cover letter
      3. Exploring types of resumes
      4. Key elements of a good resume
      5. Key elements of a good cover letter
      6. Examining job descriptions
      7. Identifying key skills and accomplishments
      8. Common resume mistakes to avoid
      9. Researching the company
      10. Common cover letter mistakes to avoid
    2. Building your GitHub profile or website portfolio
      1. Benefits of building a GitHub profile or website portfolio for finding work
      2. How to make your GitHub profile or website portfolio stand out from the rest
      3. What kind of content you should include in your portfolio
      4. Examples of innovative portfolio pieces and how they can help you land a job
      5. Pros and cons of using a third-party portfolio building website versus DIY
    3. Finding jobs to apply for
      1. Understanding your career goals and targeting specific job postings
      2. Utilizing job boards to search for relevant opportunities
      3. Networking offline and online
      4. Researching companies and learning about their current job openings
      5. Using online resources such as Indeed to research salaries and more
    4. Understanding the role of meetups and referrals
      1. What meetups are and why they are important for job seekers
      2. Tips on how to find the right meetup group for you
      3. Benefits of attending meetups
      4. How to get the most out of a meetup
      5. The importance of referrals in getting a job
      6. Tips on how to get referrals
    5. Exploring interview tips
      1. Preparing for a potential technical interview
      2. Researching the company
      3. Practicing your questions and answers
      4. Dressing appropriately
      5. Being confident
      6. Following up after the interview
    6. Summary
  8. Part 2: Mastering the Core React Technical Interview
  9. Chapter 2: Understanding ReactJS Fundamentals and Its Features
    1. Prerequisites to ReactJS
    2. Introduction to ReactJS
      1. What is React?
      2. What are the reasons for choosing React for programming?
      3. What are the major features of React?
    3. Understanding JSX
      1. What is JSX?
      2. Why can’t browsers understand JSX?
      3. What are the advantages of JSX?
    4. Building views with elements and components
      1. What are components?
      2. What are the different ways to create components?
      3. What is the difference between an element and a component?
      4. What are pure components?
      5. What is a higher-order component?
      6. What are fragments and where do you use them?
    5. Controlling component data using props and state
      1. What are props in React?
      2. Can you describe state in React?
      3. What are the main differences between props and state?
      4. How does React batch multiple state updates?
      5. Can you prevent automatic batching?
      6. How do you update objects inside the state?
      7. How do you update nested state objects?
    6. Understanding the importance of key props
      1. What is a key prop and what is the purpose of it?
    7. Learning about event handling
      1. What are synthetic events?
      2. How do you differentiate between React event handling and HTML event handling?
      3. How do you bind event handlers in class components?
    8. Understanding virtual DOM
      1. What is virtual DOM?
      2. How does virtual DOM work?
      3. What is Shadow DOM?
      4. What is the difference between Real DOM, virtual DOM, and Shadow DOM?
      5. What is React Fiber?
    9. Data flow and communication in React applications
      1. Can you describe unidirectional data flow in React?
      2. What are the advantages of unidirectional data flow?
    10. How do you access DOM?
      1. What are refs? How do you create refs?
      2. What is the main purpose of refs?
      3. How do you compare refs with state?
      4. What are forward refs?
    11. Managing state globally using the context API
      1. What is prop drilling?
      2. Can you describe context?
      3. What is the purpose of context?
    12. Understanding the server-side rendering technique
      1. What is server-side rendering?
      2. What is the main difference between server-side rendering and client-side rendering?
      3. When do you need to use server-side rendering?
    13. Summary
  10. Chapter 3: Hooks: Bring State and Other Features into Function Components
    1. Introduction to Hooks and their purpose
      1. What are Hooks?
      2. What is the motivation behind Hooks?
      3. Can you describe the rules of Hook usage?
      4. Can I use Hooks inside class components?
    2. Local state management using Hooks
      1. What is the useState Hook?
      2. Is it always recommended to use an updater function?
      3. What is a useReducer Hook? How do you use it?
      4. When should you use the useReducer Hook over the useState Hook?
    3. Global state management using Hooks
      1. How do you override context for a specific part of the component tree?
      2. What would the context value be for no matching provider?
    4. Performing side effects in React applications
      1. How do reactive dependencies impact the logic inside the useEffect Hook?
      2. How often are setup and cleanup functions invoked inside the useEffect Hook?
      3. When should you remove an object or a function from dependencies?
      4. What is the useLayoutEffect Hook? How does it work?
    5. Optimizing the application performance
      1. What is memoization? How can it be implemented in React?
      2. Can you describe the useMemo() Hook?
      3. What are the possible use cases of the useMemo() Hook?
      4. What are common mistakes with the usage of useMemo? How do you rectify them?
      5. When should you use the useCallback Hook instead of the useMemo Hook?
    6. Accessing DOM nodes using ref Hooks
      1. How do you avoid recreating the Ref contents?
      2. Is it possible to access a ref in the render method?
      3. How do you expose a subset of methods from a ref instance?
    7. Learning about popular third-party Hooks
      1. What is the useImmer Hook? What is its purpose?
    8. Building your own Hooks
      1. What are custom Hooks? How do you create them?
      2. What are the benefits of custom Hooks?
      3. Should you still consider using render props and HOCs?
      4. Do you recommend moving effects into custom Hooks?
    9. Troubleshooting and debugging Hooks
      1. How do you debug custom Hooks?
    10. Summary
  11. Chapter 4: Handling Routing and Internationalization
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Navigating screens and an introduction to React Router
      1. What is the purpose of the React Router library?
      2. How does navigating between screens work in React Router?
    3. Routes, types of routes, and links
      1. What types of routes can we use?
      2. How do you create a route and a link?
    4. Adding routes
    5. Accessing URL parameters
    6. Nesting routes
    7. Dynamic routes
    8. Error pages
    9. Internationalization and localization
      1. What is internationalization?
      2. What is localization?
    10. Adding translations and formatted messages
      1. What are translations?
      2. What are formatted messages?
    11. Passing arguments and placeholders
      1. How do we pass arguments?
      2. How do we use placeholders?
    12. Summary
  12. Chapter 5: Advanced Concepts of ReactJS
    1. Exploring portals
      1. What are portals? How do you create them?
      2. What are the common use cases of portals?
      3. How does event bubbling work inside portals?
      4. What accessibility precautions are taken care of in portals?
    2. Understanding error boundaries
      1. What are error boundaries?
      2. Is it possible to create an error boundary as a function component?
      3. When do error boundaries not work?
    3. Managing asynchronous actions with the Suspense API
      1. What is the Suspense API? How do you use it?
      2. Can I use the suspense component for any kind of data fetching?
      3. How do you prevent unnecessary fallbacks during an update?
    4. Optimizing rendering performance using concurrent rendering
      1. How do you enable concurrent rendering in React?
    5. Debugging React applications with the Profiler API
      1. How do you measure rendering performance?
    6. Strict mode
      1. How do you enable strict mode?
      2. Can you describe the list of development-only checks enabled by strict mode?
      3. What functions are called twice in the double rendering process of strict mode?
    7. Static type checking
      1. What are the benefits of static type checking?
      2. How do you implement static type checking in React applications?
    8. React in mobile environments and its features
      1. What is React Native?
      2. What are the differences between React and React Native?
      3. Can you describe the React Native architecture based on the threading model?
      4. How do you perform navigations in React Native?
      5. What are the benefits of the new architecture?
      6. What is view flattening?
    9. Summary
  13. Part 3: Going Beyond React and Advanced Topics
  14. Chapter 6: Redux: The Best State Management Solution
    1. Understanding the Flux pattern and Redux
      1. What is the Flux pattern? Can you explain the data flow?
      2. What are the advantages of Flux?
      3. How do you differentiate Flux from MVC?
      4. What is Redux?
      5. What are the differences between Flux and Redux?
      6. When do you need to use Redux?
    2. Core principles of Redux, components, and APIs
      1. What are the core principles of Redux?
      2. How does Redux work? What are the main components of Redux?
      3. Can I use Redux with non-React UI libraries?
      4. What are the rules followed by reducers?
      5. What is the difference between the mapStateToProps() and mapDispatchToProps() methods?
      6. What is a store enhancer?
    3. Redux middleware – Saga and Thunk
      1. What is Redux middleware? How do you create middleware?
      2. How do you handle asynchronous tasks in Redux?
      3. What are the use cases of Redux Thunk?
      4. What is Redux Saga?
      5. How do you choose between Redux Saga and Redux Thunk?
    4. Standardizing Redux logic using RTK
      1. What is RTK?
      2. What are the problems solved by RTK?
      3. What is RTK Query? How do you use it?
    5. Debugging applications using Redux DevTools
      1. What is Redux DevTools?
      2. What are the major features of Redux DevTools?
    6. Summary
  15. Chapter 7: Different Approaches to Apply CSS in ReactJS
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Different ways to apply CSS
      1. How do we import external style sheets?
      2. How do we use inline styles?
      3. How do we use Atomic CSS?
    3. Exploring processors and CSS Modules
      1. What are CSS processors?
      2. How do we use CSS processors?
      3. What are CSS Modules?
      4. How do we use CSS Modules?
    4. CSS-in-JS approach and styled-components and its usage
      1. What is CSS-in-JS?
      2. What are styled-components and how are they used in React projects?
    5. How to use styled components in React applications
      1. How do we use styled components?
    6. Summary
  16. Chapter 8: Testing and Debugging the React Application
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Introducing React testing helpers
      1. What is testing in software development?
      2. How do we do testing in React applications?
      3. How do you set up a test environment for a React application?
      4. How do you choose a testing framework or library?
      5. What are the fundamentals of React Testing Library?
    3. Testing our software
      1. How do we write tests for components, props, and events?
    4. Managing data in our applications
      1. How do we mock data for tests?
      2. Why should we use mock data in tests?
    5. Code execution using events and timers
      1. What are events?
      2. What are timers?
    6. Using React DevTools for debugging and analysis
    7. Summary
  17. Chapter 9: Rapid Development with Next.js, Gatsby, and Remix Frameworks
    1. Using React as a full stack framework
      1. What is Next.js?
      2. What is Gatsby?
      3. What is Remix?
    2. Static site generation
      1. Why should you care about SSG?
      2. What are the advantages of using a static site generator?
      3. Why are speed and performance so good in static websites?
    3. Server-side rendering
      1. What is SSR and why is it important?
      2. How does SSR work? The fundamentals of SSR page loading
      3. What are the advantages of SSR?
      4. What are the disadvantages of SSR?
    4. Adding page metadata
      1. What is page metadata and why is it important for SEO?
      2. What types of page metadata can be used for SSG?
    5. SEO best practices
    6. Summary
  18. Part 4: Hands-On with Programming Tasks
  19. Chapter 10: Cracking Any Real-World Programming Task
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Preparing your development environment
      1. Why do you need a good development environment?
      2. What is the difference between an IDE and a text editor/code editor?
      3. How do you set up a React development environment?
    3. Choosing the right scaffolding tools or templates
      1. What is scaffolding in programming?
      2. How do you determine which project factors to take into account when creating a project?
    4. Deciding on the application architecture
      1. What do we need to think about when choosing an application architecture?
    5. Testing your code
      1. Why should you use version control while testing your code?
      2. Which testing and change-tracking tools you should utilize for your code base?
    6. Creating a Git repository with a README and sharing it
      1. Why is creating a code repository with good documentation crucial?
      2. How do you create a Git repository?
    7. Summary
  20. Chapter 11: Building an App Based on React, Redux, Styled Components, and the Firebase Backend
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Scaffolding and configuring the project
    3. Introducing Firebase services and configuring the application
      1. What are the main features of Firebase?
      2. How do you set up and configure Firebase for authentication and data storage?
      3. Where do you put Firebase configuration securely in the project?
    4. Implementing Firebase Authentication and its backend
      1. How do you implement Firebase authentication for sign-in, sign-up, and sign-out scenarios?
      2. How do you implement cloud store data operations? Can you explain data operations with any collection?
    5. Building the Redux components for state management
      1. How do you work with multiple reducers in a Redux application?
    6. Building the presentation layer
      1. How do you implement a custom button using styled-components?
      2. Implementing business-specific UI components
      3. Implementing application pages using UI components
    7. Supporting internationalization
      1. How do you achieve internationalization through an imperative API?
    8. Implementing testing using the Vitest framework
    9. Creating a Git repository with README documentation
    10. Deploying the application for public access
    11. Summary
  21. Chapter 12: Building an App Based on the Next.js Toolkit, Authentication, SWR, GraphQL, and Deployment
    1. Technical requirements
    2. Quick introduction to REST APIs
      1. What tools can we use for testing our APIs?
      2. Which features are available in a REST API?
      3. What is the difference between requests and responses when making requests to a REST API?
      4. Why is authentication important when using a REST API?
      5. How can we use error handling when integrating with a REST API?
      6. What is the difference between a REST API and GraphQL?
      7. How do we fetch data using REST APIs and GraphQL?
    3. Planning the application architecture including authentication, SWR, GraphQL, and deployment
      1. Why are serverless frameworks such as Next.js a brilliant choice for building modern applications?
      2. What authentication is available in Next.js applications?
      3. How does SWR allow fast data retrieval?
      4. How can GraphQL integration optimize our data fetching?
      5. How do we deploy our Next.js applications online?
      6. What strategies can we use for scaling and maintaining our application architecture as it grows?
    4. Working on our coffee restaurant project
      1. Building the business logic
      2. Configuration files setup
      3. Building the app
      4. Building the presentation layer
      5. Implementing testing
      6. Creating a Git repository with README documentation
      7. Deploying the application for public access
    5. Summary
  22. Index
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Product information

  • Title: React Interview Guide
  • Author(s): Sudheer Jonna, Andrew Baisden
  • Release date: November 2023
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781803241517