I have tried on multiple occasions to get started with react and every time the large amount of setup prevents me from getting anywhere useful. After looking over the docs I am somewhat hopeful that this might bridge the gap.
Also, I keep a big list of links to high-quality tutorials, articles, and resources for React and related topics, at https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links . It's a great starting point for anyone trying to learn the ecosystem.
If you (or anyone else) is interested, I'd be happy to give you the chapters as I finish them, and would love to hear any feedback you have about it. Just send me an email (in my profile).
>The intention is to provide a basic boilerplate setup that doesnt inundate the new user with complexity, and stays out of the way of the more comfortable who just want an ES6/React environment to bang out an idea. It's ready to set up on your plain old web server, or your Firebase or Github site, or for building the front-end for your Wordpress API, with a minimum of fuss and configuration.
There are flavours that get you a simple router, a firebase backend, and Virtual Reality bindings, if you need those.
We are working on breaking down everything inside our app for people who are starting off can get a jumping start, but than read through everything that's inside the app to understand better what's happening underneath the hood (such as, what's in the webpack config).