Roy Derks is the author of React Projects, we got the chance to sit down and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What are your specialist tech areas?
Roy: React, GraphQL, TypeScript
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Roy: I started programming when I was 14 years old and wanted to start a new business. I love watching movies and buying new DVDs for every movie I wanted to see was too expensive. Therefore I wanted to create a platform people can use to trade DVDs with other users. I spend weeks trying out existing technologies, but in the end decided to try and build something from scratch, using tutorials that I found online. That learning experience should be easier, and that’s why I wanted to create a book that helps people learn programming in a pragmatic way.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Roy: I’ve been using React and React Native for the past five years and know (almost) everything about the technology. The experience I gained from using the technologies helped me create the projects for this book.
Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Roy: React and React Native are already around for over 5 years, and will remain important web technologies for at least the coming 5 years. Companies big and small all over the world have build their applications using React. Especially in combination with GraphQL as API technology the future is bright.
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Roy: You can build a portfolio of projects as every chapter is a new project. This will help you get a broad understanding of building applications with React and React Native, and think about the differences.
Q: What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away with from the book?
Roy: React is a great technology and has great possibilities. You can create websites, mobile apps and even Virtual Reality projects using React.
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
Roy: Twitter is my favorite tech community. For both new and experienced developers Twitter is the best place to get inspiration, learn new things and connect with people. I’ve met so many great people on Twitter over the last years, and looking forward to connect there with all the readers of the book too!
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Roy: I use daily.dev to find new articles around the topics I’m interested in. Daily.dev is a Chrome plugin that opens on every new tab you’re opening in the browser, filled with articles from different blogs.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Roy: It makes sense to create a path that you want to follow, in example complete the code for a chapter on week 1 and write the chapter in week 2. Make sure you have a global view on the concept for every chapter, so you know how you can build the code and structure the chapter.
Q. What is the one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Roy: When starting to write anything, you need to have motivation to finish it. There will be ups and downs, and sometimes a chapter might take longer to complete than expected. Find the motivation to get you through these moments.
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, please share.
Roy: You can find me on: https://twitter.com/gethackteam
You can find Roy’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
