Sharpening My React Hooks Knowledge With ChatGPT

I’m a product engineer at Honeycomb. While my work spans the stack, I’m currently focused on deepening my frontend expertise.

To support this, I’ve been using ChatGPT as a study assistant. It’s helped me break down complex topics with clear explanations, real-world examples, and—critically—interactive practice. The most effective formats I’ve found:

• Multiple choice and true/false questions for quick reinforcement
• Short answer prompts to force deeper recall
• "Spot the bug" challenges, where I diagnose issues in code snippets (my favorite)

A deep dive into React Hooks

React Hooks were introduced in React 16.8 (2019) and have since become a foundational part of the ecosystem. They let you manage state, side effects, context, and more from within functional components, making class components mostly obsolete for everyday use.

To explore hooks more deeply, I gave ChatGPT some context:

I’m a Senior Full-stack Engineer at Honeycomb.io and I want to learn more about React Hooks. What are the most common Hooks?

I already had a solid understanding of useState, so I focused on useEffect next.

Cool. I have a good grasp on useState, but I want to learn more about useEffect. Specifically, how to use the dependency array.

I see. But how do I know what to include in the dependency array?

Ok, and what’s the difference between using an empty array [] versus omitting it entirely?

Got it. Now give me a real-world example. When would I actually use useEffect?

Once I felt like I understood it, I asked ChatGPT to quiz me:

Give me 10 multiple choice and true/false questions on useEffect so I can reinforce my learning.

Tips for learning with ChatGPT

Here’s what’s made this style of self-study work well for me:

• Set context clearly. Tell ChatGPT your experience level, what you know, and what you want to learn.
• Be explicit about format. I prefer one question at a time, no hints, no explanations unless I ask.
• Stay flexible. You can pause, go deeper on a topic, or change focus mid-session.
• Track weak spots. Ask ChatGPT to remember the areas you’re struggling with so you can revisit them later.

What’s next?

Next up, try a similar deep dive into JavaScript promises:

I want to get better at working with promises. Start by giving me an overview of how to create new promises, then guide me through practicing .then/.catch, async/await, try/catch, promise chaining, Promise.all, and Promise.race.

Or, not sure where to start?

Give me a general knowledge React quiz so I can identify areas where I need to improve. 

There is really no end to ways to improve your skills. Want to get better at code reviews?

Give me an example pull request. Tell me how many issues there are so I can try identify them all. Make sure I follow https://conventionalcomments.org.

Struggling with documentation sprawl on an upcoming project?

I’m going to upload a bunch of technical documentation. Give me a tl;dr.

Final thoughts

This kind of self-guided, conversational learning isn’t a silver bullet, but it is a powerful tool. It’s helped me move faster from understanding concepts in theory to applying them in practice. If you're trying to level up in a focused way and traditional tutorials aren't cutting it, this might be the structured-yet-flexible approach you've been looking for.