I Used Gemini Code Assist to Create a React ToDo App With Zero React Knowledge

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It feels like Christmas morning every day with the constant stream of new AI tools to explore.

I am not a front-end engineer myself, but React has been on my learning radar for a while. I’ve used Generative AI for coding in familiar languages and frameworks, but never for something completely new. So, before I immersed myself in a new course, I decided to have some fun and put Gemini Code Assist to the test by building a simple ToDo List app without any prior React knowledge.

Released in April 2024 as part of Google Cloud Next’24, Gemini Code assist is based on the Gemini 1.5 Pro Model, and is also yours to try out.

I fired up Google Cloud Shell editor and got started. Super simple and laid back prompting. Prompt 1:

Could you help me build a React js ToDo list application that uses tailwind css?

Tailwind.css wasn’t necessary, but I thought that using this framework from the start could help me easily scale my css later on if I am to ever use my application.

And Gemini Code Assist got right down to the job. And by some witchcraft, realized that I am here to learn. First, it gave me the command to create the react app, followed by…