19. Set up a local React environment with Create React App

This lesson tells you how to go through the process of setting up a local environment on your computer. I found it a bit long-winded and confusing at times as the instructions of what you had to do were not exactly made clear.

To run React locally, you basically need to have the following installed on your machine:

• Node JS

• Node Package Manager (NPM)

• Node Version Manager (NVM)

I struggled a bit with the NVM section and didn't really get why you needed it until I watched this excellent video from DevCafe which explained the why, and also the installation process, very well.

Once you have the three elements above installed, to spin up a new React project, you simply have to navigate to your root project folder (where you usually have all your projects) and type in the following commands

npx create-react-app folder-name
cd folder-name
npm start

If all goes well, you should see a new browser tab open and with the default React project webpage running in the browser, it should look something like this:

Anyway, without further ado, this was my video journal and review of this module of the course: