Many people tend to gain a good understanding of React by building on top of it. Unfortunately, majority of the tutorials, lessons, recommendations, and paid courses usually start off using a framework where a lot of stuff have already been added. The effort to simply understand a complex setup as compared to starting React with the bare minimum and slowly adding whatever packages / libraries are needed.
React should start by a simple initialization:
-> Setup React
-> CSS library
-> State management
And then, other packages or libraries can be considered to be added whenever the current needs of the application exceeds what the bare minimum setup has provided.
While in the end the set of packages and configurations performed may tantamount to what a framework already provides easily, the cognitive load starts on a piece that is well understood and grows alongside the evolution of the software product being delivered.
React should start by a simple initialization: -> Setup React -> CSS library -> State management
And then, other packages or libraries can be considered to be added whenever the current needs of the application exceeds what the bare minimum setup has provided.
While in the end the set of packages and configurations performed may tantamount to what a framework already provides easily, the cognitive load starts on a piece that is well understood and grows alongside the evolution of the software product being delivered.