Speroteck Speroteck

Our company diligently keeps up with the latest advancements in technology and updates to existing ones.
As a result, we have decided to offer our developers the opportunity to undergo the Salesforce PWA Kit course.
The course program comprises two stages and spans a duration of two months. The first stage involves comprehensive study of React, reaching a proficiency level necessary for effectively working with this technology. In the second stage, participants directly engage in the study of the PWA Kit. The learning process is self-paced, making use of essential materials sourced from official channels.

We decided to ask our guys who have already completed the course, what challenges and difficulties they faced while learning PWA Kit.

Here are the questions answered:

1. What was difficult while studying the course and what did you succeed in without problems?
2. Which of the stages caused the most difficulties: learning React or the PWA Kit itself? Have you worked on React projects before?
3. Compared to the classic Pipeline / SFCC / SFRA – what are the pros and cons? What is new and useful in the PWA Kit?

Pavlo Navrotskyi (Trainee SFCC Developer):

“It was difficult with the SSR. It’s easier with React, because I’ve already known it before. Which of the stages caused the most difficulties: learning React or the PWA Kit itself? – As I mentioned, I had known React before that, so probably PWA Kit was the difficult one. Because I was not familiar with the SSR and although there seems to be not much to study there. There are some rather complex intricacies, also you have to study OCAPI, SCAPI as it’s all arranged architecturally.

For developers, PWA Kit has loads of benefits.Among the most important ones, I can single out: newer technologies and the absence of division into front and back, only fronts, which should simply know how to use API.

The architecture is strange, with request redirects that can slow down the client application. This technology is still raw, and it is not clear when it will be completely finished and will begin to be widely used in commerce.

But, as a conclusion, I can note that it is always much more interesting and pleasant to work with newer technologies.”

Valentin Kovalenko (Trainee SFCC Developer):

“Regarding the first question, I can say that it was quite difficult to learn React, before my career began, I had started and given up learning React several times due to the lack of understanding of the structure, idea and syntax (literally the is no point in this, when we have our favorite html css and js).

However, after I read the article about Component Driven User Interfaces and coded the first project, I realized the potential of the technology, and in general it became much easier and clearer. In general, I can say that it was relatively easy to get acquainted with the PWA Kit technology, because by that time React and ChakraUI were already familiar to me.

Regarding the second question, the most difficult stage for me was understanding the structure of projects with different types of integration between React/client side, MRT and SFCC Server Side.

It was also difficult to apply the acquired skills to perform tasks from the course, because the architecture of PWA-Kit is very cumbersome, crude and in some cases not logical at this stage. It has room for development in terms of code optimization.

Regarding the question of whether I have worked on React projects before – No, I have not worked and I have not used it. In my own projects I used CSS or Bootstrap, however, after this course, I feel like using ChakraUI and React to simplify and improve the development process.

If we compare PWA-Kit with the classic Pipeline / SFСС / SFRA, I can highlight the following advantages:

• The possibility of using modern frameworks, such as React, ChakraUi, Redux etc. for the development of the client part of the web application.
• Flexible project structure that can be reused in different parts of the application (Component Driven User Interfaces). It saves development time and makes working with code easier.
• PWA Kit is built on the basis of microservices architecture, therefore, compared to SFRA/SCSS, integration of third-party services is much easier.

Among the disadvantages, I can mark:

• The need for a much larger amount of knowledge to fully understand the structure and development possibilities of the future project. Getting new developers to the project will take more time and effort.
• Illiquidity in the market and in projects. Although PWA-Kit is a new and progressive architecture that is slowly entering the market, customers still prefer the old SFRA architecture.”

Ihor Makhonkov (Middle SFCC Developer):

“I started my studies of PWA Kit with React, the basics of which were quite easy. There are a lot of materials and development examples on the web, thanks to which, in principle, I figured out the basics on the fly, without any blocking questions.

I didn’t have so many difficulties, most likely confusion when learning React Redux, probably the main reason here is the lack of practice with this technology.

I can’t compare SFSS/SFRA with PWA Kit yet, as I don’t have real practice of working with this technology, but the impression is pleasant. In the future, having more practice and using this technology, the development of projects should probably be faster and more convenient.”

Vyacheslav Hantyuk (Middle SFCC Developer):

“What was difficult while studying the course and what did you succeed in without problems? – I personally had a hard time with some more front-end things like CHAKRA-UI, etc. And the rest went without problems.

Which of the stages caused the most difficulties: learning React or the PWA Kit itself? Have you worked on React projects before? – In my opinion, React and PWA Kit are equally difficult to learn. And no, I haven’t had a chance to work on React projects before.

Compared to the classic Pipeline / SFSS / SFRA – what are the pros and cons? What is new and useful in the PWA Kit? – The pros is that with the help of React you can make a more modern site design, and this will increase the speed of the site.

The cons is that PWA Kit is still a relatively new system. Besides, there are still many nuances that must be solved out of the box, and accordingly, while it will develop, it will lose to SFRA.
I don’t see the point of comparing with other systems such as Pipeline / SFSS, because they are already outdated.

In general, I would like to work on such a project after the course, because without practice, of course, knowledge gradually fades.”

Ilya Shevchenko (Trainee SFCC Developer):

“The PWA Kit course left only positive feelings, there was practically nothing difficult at all, except for some features of the construction of components, but we easily dealt with all of this as a result.

As for the pros:
PWA Kit uses fresh JS, so it was a pleasure to use. React is also quite self-explanatory and not cumbersome.

The cons are:
I can’t particularly single out anything yet, because I didn’t have enough experience working on the project. I’ve met React before, but I didn’t work with it myself, it turned out to be quite convenient.”

Maxim Reznikov (Trainee SFCC Developer):

“It was difficult from the very beginning, when I was just reading the manual. And when I started watching the video, it became much easier. Most of all, difficulties arise when you repeat a simple action, and it still does not work. Therefore, attention is very important in general.

React was surprisingly quite simple. Although, due to the fact that before that I had essentially done two home projects of a different type, it was still a bit unusual. I haven’t worked on React before.

PWA Kit turned out to be more difficult, but this is due to novelty and comparison with the same classic SFCC/SFRA.

What are the pros and cons? – Isml is essentially the same props with classes and templates, but with additional features.

Pros of PWA Kit:

• Speed. The same search Einstein works faster. Moving most things to the API will simplify the app.
• Context. A feature that allows you to transfer data directly from the top element of the hierarchy to the bottom.
• Backtracking from ajax to jsx frequently changes add-on. Fewer requests, easier to develop.
• Flexibility of caching rules. You can choose: either you load data from the server first, and then from the cache, or vice versa. In general, there is more emphasis on caching and the fact that the application can work offline with uploaded material.
• The versatility of the created application, you will not have to port the site to different platforms, there is one.

Cons of PWA Kit:

• In my opinion, many questions will arise with the connection to the Business Manager and the SFRA feature.
• Lack of a large list of BMU implementations, which will either have to be re-implemented by yourself (content slots and there was a whole list in the video somewhere), or you will have to search/create your own library. Although over time these two problems will be solved.
• Cartridges. In my opinion, the cartridge architecture was more convenient from an architectural point of view. There is a hierarchy of cartridges, there are features at different levels. Yes, it has its shortcomings, but the overall architecture is visually more understandable. Again, this comes down to time and experience.”

#Speroteck Dream Team