I agree with your comment, but disagree that all of the concepts you listed need be understood completely when just getting started. Once the flow is recognized (which in my experience teaching others rarely takes more than a single pairing session) there's basically nothing left but a few functions that pass data in a circle. Everything else that you described comes later, and that later doesn't take long.
It's very important that people understand _how_ and _why_ the flux pattern is valuable before they start using Redux, especially if coming from an MVC background. Once you understand that, the learning curve drops away revealing an extremely minimal and easy-to-use library.
How large were the projects? Was there a high level of concurrency? redux-saga is definitely an example of over-engineering unless you fully understand its benefits (which are many, depending on context).
The library helps manage complex, concurrent in-flight workflows. Games are a great example of this, or something like a flight booking app that communicates with many different processes and servers and you need to ensure that fine-grained control is maintained at all times.
And that therapist has access to 100% _pure_ (and unfortunately illegal) MDMA.
This is one of the great tragedies of the war on drugs: UN member states are bound to the convention under law, so until this unjust (and unscientific) barrier is torn down it will always be dangerous and difficult to acquire for therapeutic purposes. But things, thankfully, are changing for the better.
When a patient sits with a therapist under the influence of MDMA, which typically consists of two doses (100-120mg initially, then 70mg a few hours later) spread over an 6-8 hour period. The patient is largely experiencing their own internal process, but at times the therapist is there to help guide and comfort. Before and after the session there is conventional psychotherapeutic follow-up.
Every time articles like this appear on Hacker News it fills me with joy. I have personally watched a much older person heal extensive personal trauma with just one MDMA session, and to this day I regard it as a miracle that seemed impossible prior to the treatment.
It's just one way to do things, used to demonstrate interesting new tech. It's meant as a helpful pointer similar to TodoMVC and not as a demonstration on how to build Hacker News "better".
You should give it another try. The modern ecosystem / DX environment is really fast and slick. I've known a number of native devs from different languages who now love the lang and what it has to offer. But you've gotta go into it with an open mind :)
Stick to https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app/ and you'll be golden. If you need more config later, you can "eject", but this is a one-command-and-go kind of thing that is well maintained and works great.