Getting Started with React Components: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
Tags: react, javascript, framework, frontend
Published: 2023-01-05 16:45:19

---
title: Getting Started with React Components: A Step-by-Step Tutorial
published: true
date: 2023-01-04 15:01:26 UTC
tags: React,JavaScript,Framework,Frontend
canonical_url: https://techdevblog.io/getting-started-with-react-components-a-step-by-step-tutorial-01-2023/
---

 ![Getting Started with React Components: A Step-by-Step Tutorial](https://techdevblog.io/content/images/2023/01/image_9.png)

Hey there! Remember [our previous intro to React](https://techdevblog.io/get-a-head-start-on-your-career-with-react-the-top-10-benefits-of-learning-this-library/)? Are you ready to dive back into the world of [React](https://reactjs.org)? Great! For those of you who just came in, [React](https://reactjs.org) is a powerful and popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces, and it's a must-know tool for any modern web developer. In this tutorial, we'll take a look at the basics of [React](https://reactjs.org) components and get you up and running in no time.

# Introduction

First things first, a reminder about what [React](https://reactjs.org) is and why it's so useful. [React](https://reactjs.org) is a declarative library for building user interfaces. It makes it easy to create interactive and reusable components, and it helps you build scalable and maintainable applications.

One of the key features of [React](https://reactjs.org) is its virtual DOM. The virtual DOM is a lightweight in-memory representation of the actual DOM, and it helps [React](https://reactjs.org) optimize updates to the DOM. When you make a change to a component, [React](https://reactjs.org) will update the virtual DOM and then figure out the most efficient way to update the actual DOM. This makes [React](https://reactjs.org) applications fast and responsive, even when dealing with large amounts of data.

# Setup

Now that you have a basic understanding of what [React](https://reactjs.org) is and why it's useful, let's get started building our first [React](https://reactjs.org) component! To get started, you'll need to have [Node.js](https://nodejs.org) and npm (the Node.js package manager) installed on your machine. If you don't have these tools already installed, you can download and install them from the official website ([https://nodejs.org](https://nodejs.org/)).

Once you have [Node.js](Node.js) and npm installed, you're ready to create a new [React](https://reactjs.org) application. To do this, you'll need to use the create-react-app command-line tool. This tool is a easy way to create a new [React](https://reactjs.org) application with all the necessary configuration and dependencies. To install it, open a terminal window and run the following command:

```
npm install -g create-react-app
```

This will install the create-react-app tool globally on your machine. Once it's installed, you can create a new [React](https://reactjs.org) application by running the following command:

```
create-react-app my-app
```

This will create a new directory called "my-app" with a new [React](https://reactjs.org) application inside. Once the application is created, you can navigate to the directory and start the development server by running the following commands:

```
cd my-app
npm start
```

This will start the development server and open a new browser window with your [React](https://reactjs.org) application. You should see a welcome page with a message saying "Welcome to React".

# Our first component

Congratulations! You've just created a [React](https://reactjs.org) application. Now it's time to start building your application. In [React](https://reactjs.org), everything is a component. A component is a piece of code that represents a part of the UI. To create a new component, you'll need to create a new `HelloWorld.js` JavaScript file and define a new class that extends the `React.Component` class. For example, let's create a new component called `HelloWorld`:

```
import React from 'react';

class HelloWorld extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return <h1>Hello, world!</h1>
  }
}
```

To use your new component in your application, you'll need to import it and then render it in your root component. The root component is the top-level component in your application, and it's usually defined in the `index.js` file in the "src" directory. To use the `HelloWorld` component, you'll need to import it and then render it inside the `App` component:

```
import React from 'react';
import HelloWorld from './HelloWorld';

class App extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div>
        <HelloWorld />
      </div>
    );
  }
}
```

Now, when you refresh the browser, you should see the "Hello, world!" message displayed on the page.

That's the basic idea of how to build a [React](https://reactjs.org) application. There's a lot more to learn, of course, but these are the basics. To learn more about [React](https://reactjs.org), you can check out the official documentation ([https://reactjs.org/docs](https://reactjs.org/docs)) or check out some online tutorials and courses.

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial and that you're excited to start building your own [React](https://reactjs.org) applications. Have fun, and happy coding!