Can I use an opensource boilerplate for react projects?

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So I understand that it is recommended to use codepen for the react projects because it requires no setup and stuff but I also find it somewhat limiting when it comes to real world react development. So I decided to do the react projects on github and use gh-pages for the demo but we all know webpack config is big challenge, so I am procrastinating on that one so I can focus on just understanding react/redux/reselect/saga,and unit tests. I understand the basic webpack setup but not the more advanced stuff like code splitting and setting up servers,etc.

Is it ok to use a boilerplate, or if I go this route, I’m I required to build from scratch?

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I’ve used Yeoman for a few projects. Frankly, I think you’ll spend more time figuring out how the tool’s authors set everything up than it would take to do it from scratch, but as far as I know there are no rules against it.

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I think the main requirements are that your code is publicly viewable and, for the React challenges, that you use React. I ended up coding most of mine outside of Codepen so I could use Webpack and magical hot module replacement, but in the end I just copied my code back into Codepen so that it would still be viewable there.

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Cool, thanks for the replies. I tried to learn all these things at once react, es6, webpack, postcss, redux, redux… and quickly found my brain literally spinning out of control. I think I finally got redux, redux saga down, then came mobx :cry:. I will dedicate a special time for webpack

Thanks again

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It might take a while at first to configure everything if you don’t use a boilerplate. Here is a basic one on my github if you want to check it out: https://github.com/gwenf/react-boilerplate

I like starting with a basic boilerplate as it saves a lot of time and headache. Yeoman and some other boilerplates are pretty complicated to start with so I would just use something simple and slowly add features. If you want to see something with Redux, I can upload one that includes that too.

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I should also say for these FCC React projects you definitely don’t have to use anything above and beyond React and ReactDOM, e.g. Redux, although you can.

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For the first three, you definitely don’t need redux, but I think it’s helpful for the last two.

For the webpack and other set-up if you are doing it offline, I would find a basic boilerplate and use it for all the project, updating it each time.

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Yeah I know Redux is not required but I needed to practice it. I used Redux for the Tic Tac Toe challenge and Redux + Redux saga for the Simon game to manage timing (worked out really well).

I finally got the project demo to work on github pages, woohoo! Now let’s see if I can write tests.