 Hello, testing. Hi everyone. Very good afternoon to you all So today in in the next 10 minutes or so we'll be looking at Answering this the folding question. Oops, not too fast So if you're looking to go into block development, do you need to learn react? which is the JavaScript library that the block editor is written in and the answer to Such a question is always a resounding it depends and in my opinion there are Two approaches to to get into block development. So then the next question would be what is it dependent on? so I would say that It depends on which of the two approaches you will be undertaking. So the first one would be to lean towards using PHP and With this approach, it's quite likely that you will be using a third-party framework like an advanced advanced custom views Which provides you with a pretty neat system to write your blog entirely in in PHP and The most obvious benefit of this is how how quick and easy it can be to get up and running You don't have to worry about things like Tooling and package management that kind of stuff It's also worth noting that Plug-ins like advanced custom views. They are pretty popular in the in the WordPress ecosystem so it's quite likely that you are already familiar with its API and Leveraging its familiarity to do something new is always very appealing especially to seasoned WordPress developers and PHP developers And this is also a very versatile approach. You can create simple to complex blocks and With this approach You will be writing predominantly PHP because of what the framework Provides you can easily write your blog from start to finish entirely in PHP. There's very minimal JavaScript required if at all and let alone react So in this case Back to the question if you are going to go with this approach, is it necessary to learn react? in my opinion, I don't think you need to but This is also based on the assumption that you are using a third-party framework like Advanced custom fields because if you are not then things can get a little bit more complicated But just for simplicity sake, we're just gonna assume that you'll be using a framework and in that case It allows you to write entirely in PHP from start to finish But but the idea of using a third-party Dependency to do something fundamental with WordPress development can be a deal-breaker to many people like a future-proofing incompatibly these are some Valid reasons for many to want to stay away from them and stick to Stick as closely as possible to doing things the WordPress way So what is what is the WordPress way? That brings me to my second approach, which is JavaScript so using JavaScript is it's also known as The official way of the official WordPress way of doing blog development This means that you'll be using API provided by WordPress core which tend to be Which tend to focus more on being performant as well as providing a more superior editing experience and Just like the first approach. This is versatile. You can easily create simple or even complex blocks You're definitely not restricted to a specific degree of complexity It's also worth mentioning though that the term JavaScript and react are probably not very Synonymous with WordPress development at least until a few years ago. So if you have done any Modern JavaScript development, you know that things like tooling configuration even getting your local environment up and running Can sometimes be a small little project by itself And not many of us actually have the luxury of time to go into that So it's for this very reason This approach could be quite a daunting one to start with if you're looking to get into with blog development so With this JavaScript approach as the name suggests, it's going to be very minimal PHP you'll be writing mostly JavaScript As with many other things in WordPress though, you cannot really avoid writing PHP In this case the extent of PHP is probably going to be used for enqueuing scripts and registering your blog on the server side. I also want to point out that If you're writing a dynamic block depends on its complexity, there could be more PHP involved But in this case, if you're just dealing with basic blocks, then It's going to be predominantly JavaScript So back to the question for approach number two. Is it necessary to learn react and the answer is You'll be surprised to see that it depends again. So what is it dependent on this time? I would say for JavaScript development, it's going to it's going to vary depending on the complexity of the block you'll be writing. If it's something simple that requires very minimal settings then You could get away without learning too much react. I would say the blog editor handbook For example, it's a very good resource for you to get started. We have a create blog tutorial there To help you get your first block up and running However, though, if you're getting into pretty more complex blocks, then I would say that it's necessary to learn to learn react because as that complexity of the block increases, you will find yourself Getting into deeper concepts like state management, life cycle, hooks So and you would probably need to understand those to help you with like debugging and also to avoid common Pitfalls with react development like the infamous infinite loop when you use the use of that cook so depends on the complexity of the lock and This is a middle summary of whether to learn or not depends on which approach you're Going to go with so with PHP again assuming that you'll be going with a framework like advanced custom fields then You can use whatever API that the framework provides you to write your blog entirely in PHP. You don't have to worry about single line of react So for JavaScript if you are looking to do simple blocks, I Pointed out that it's not really necessary because I feel that you still need maybe to have a cursory understanding of basic concepts like state Component and the GSX syntax so all those concepts can be covered in if you go through the blog tutorial on the blog editor handbook and Then again, if you're looking to do complex blocks Things that deal with the WordPress data storage the data module working with external external data then You will probably need to learn react and I've also written an article on this very topic So in this article we actually go deeper into both approaches provide more details as well as some Code examples on what constitutes a simple blog as well and a complex blog So feel free to give it a read the link is there and you can scan the QR code as well I think That's it. That's all I have. I would love to Have a conversation with with y'all on this topic, but unfortunately, I don't think we have time for questions And but I'll be hanging around it So if you are if you want to chat feel free to To reach out to me if not you can find me on social media from here All right. Thank you so much