I'm an author at Lynda/Linkedin learning and O'reilly and I'm always looking for feedback on what subjects developers would like to learn more about...so would love to hear what you'd like to see.
You are right. In my courses I go over some of this as I explain what each items are but I agree there could be more of the why. Have you read thinking in react in the docs? It's a good place to start. Definitely the why is something I'm trying to think about when explaining new concepts but thanks for bringing it up as that needs to happen more across all courses.
Ronald Roe
Developer
From my experience, and what I see a number of people struggling with is the overarching concepts of React. I've yet to find a good tutorial or video that covers the theory of how React is meant to work. It's a sticking point that takes a long time to click for people not coming from a conceptually similar library.
What I mean is the stuff that comes long before the Hello World example, like what a component actually is, and why one would want to split their project into components. How and why ES6 classes, imports, etc., are used the way they are in React. How React's life cycle, state, etc., play into deciding how to break down a thing into components.
It's the theory that is missing. Like in high school auto shop where before you ever touch an engine, they explain the physics of how small explosions are converted into rotational motion, if that analogy makes sense.