React Native Tutorial — The Net Ninja

Shaun Pelling's React Native playlist is the one people actually mean when they recommend the Net Ninja for mobile work. It's a long-running series of short lessons — most well under ten minutes — with a companion repository on GitHub so you can check your code against his at any point in the series.

Pelling's method barely changes across his channel and that consistency is the appeal. He introduces one idea per video, types the code live, explains as he goes, and doesn't fill time. If you've followed his React or Vue series, you already know exactly what the pacing feels like.

What it covers

The series works through the standard React Native ground: setting up with Expo, the core components, styling and flexbox layout, handling user input, lists, navigation between screens, and passing data around an app. It builds toward a working project rather than a set of disconnected demos, which is the right structure for video.

The dating problem

This is the thing to check before you start. React Native and Expo have changed their setup story repeatedly — the Expo CLI commands, the router, the project template and the SDK versions have all moved. A playlist recorded against an older SDK will have you typing commands that either don't exist or now do something different, and the failure usually happens in video one or two, which is the worst possible place for a beginner to get stuck. Read the video dates and the repo's commit history before you follow any install instruction.

Who it's for

People who want to be shown rather than told, and who like being able to stop after eight minutes with something finished. It pairs well with the official Expo tutorial — do Expo's first for current tooling, then use this for the longer explanations. Skip it if you prefer written material you can search and skim; video is a poor format for looking things up later. Skip it too if you want depth on architecture, testing or performance, which short-format YouTube series almost never reach.

Our take

Excellent teaching, aged packaging. Pelling is one of the clearest free instructors working and the GitHub repo saves you real time. But a YouTube playlist can't be patched, and React Native punishes stale setup instructions harder than most frameworks. Use it for the concepts, get your commands from the Expo docs, and don't be surprised when the first two videos need translating.