.Front-end frameworks and libraries are an essential aspect of the web development process. To build high-performance responsive websites and web applications, the use of libraries has become imperative.
With the speed at which the digital world is changing, new libraries are released every year. It’s understandable not to know which library or framework to use for which project. In this blog, we are going to share in detail the projects your company should use React for.
In this blog, we talk about one such front-end web development tool – React. We share in detail the type of projects in which your company will benefit from using React.
What is ReactJS?
ReactJS is a JavaScript component library for creating user interfaces for websites and applications. Developed by Jordan Walke in 2011, it sets a new precedent for developing fast and dynamic websites using JavaScript.
Commonly referred to as React, it gives coders resources to develop reusable and easily embeddable UI components that reduce development time and provide a responsive user interface for websites, web apps, and mobile apps.
User Interface or UI is anything a user uses to interact with a website, such as a button, link, menu tabs, or search bars. React offers a large collection of these UI components that front-end developers use to create custom interactive elements.
React mainly focuses on building the visualization layer (composed of all the parts of a page visible to users) of an application.
Many users describe React as a framework rather than a library. They are not wrong to do so. After all, React is more than just pre-written code snippets and functions. Today, you can build entire apps for web browsers and smartphones using ReactJS and React Native. Consider reading this article for a clear view of the reasons for using React.
It has a robust ecosystem and is remarkably flexible. It comes with its own set of companion libraries and frameworks for implementing complex functions.
With the help of features like virtual DOMs, JSX, impressive state management, and reusable components independent of each other, React users can significantly reduce their development time.
You can create clean and manageable code thanks to React’s strict structure rules and unidirectional flow of data. It is also possible to effortlessly test and maintain these web applications and websites.
Now let’s see what ReactJS is for and why and where web developers are using React’s great ease of use.
What is React used for?
ReactJS is a versatile, open-source library that is primarily used in front-end development, focusing on building user interfaces.
A few use cases of React are mentioned below. Companies generally prefer to work with React when their project involves any of the following…
The React framework is the ideal choice when you want to develop Single Page Applications (SPAs) because it can rewrite and update the content of a web page without the need to reload or refresh the page.
React Native, the best React framework for native mobile app development.
Why use ReactJS?
Mature and easy to understand development workflow
One of the main reasons to use React.js for web development is the library’s optimized development interface and coding language. Thus, React’s lightweight API is enhanced with fast performance capabilities to achieve a fast and hassle-free development workflow. React’s components and concepts are simple to understand, so there’s not much of a learning curve here.
Unlike other popular frameworks, like Vue and Angular, there’s no barrage of extra HTML attributes (created when JavaScript is “crammed” into HTML – a standard practice for traditional frameworks and library solutions JS). In the long run, by putting JSX in JavaScript (literally doing the opposite), React guarantees much cleaner, more readable, and more complete code.
Ultimate flexibility and compatibility
Using React.js for web development can come in extremely handy because React is one of those cases where you master a single technology to easily reuse it across a range of platforms. This is all because it is a library in nature, the main purpose of which is to create distinct web design elements and components (from buttons and labels to grids and interactive features).
Added to this is the significant contribution of the extended and long-established community. The current React ecosystem is so large that it allows developers to build desktop solutions and mobile apps, generate static websites, manage server rendering, and integrate advanced technology concepts (like VR and 360° views) into web solutions – all following simple and similar react web development guidelines and philosophies.
Hassle-free reuse of components
We answer the ultimate question above – what is React.js used for in web development specifically? To create separate components. And that’s exactly why the created components can be easily reused. Once you’ve created a React.js web app item, you get a single object that can be added to any other project that’s compatible with React-based code.
Although a larger general hierarchy is built from these components (which are wrapped in higher-level components), each of them has a distinct internal logic and rendering principle. This provides exceptional scaling possibilities that achieve much better consistency of React web applications and make subsequent support and optimization a breeze.
High performance enhanced by virtual DOM
By virtualizing and keeping the DOM in memory, React provides exceptionally fast rendering capabilities, with all view changes immediately reflected in the virtual DOM. The specialized diff algorithm juxtaposes the previous and current virtual DOM states, calculating the most efficient way to apply new changes without requiring too many updates. A minimum number of updates are then introduced to achieve the fastest read/write time, resulting in an overall performance increase.
DOM changes make systems slow, and by virtualizing DOM, these changes are minimized and optimized smartly. All virtual manipulations of the DOM take place “behind the scenes”, i.e. internally and autonomously, which also significantly saves consumption rates of hardware resources (CPU power and battery mobile devices, for example, which should give you a hint as to when to use React.js as well).
The powers of Flux and Redux
A particular demand for React for web development is also driven by the Flux and Redux capabilities it offers out of the box. The creators of Facebook first introduced the Flux-based software architecture, which enhanced the standard React components with one-way dataflow capabilities and offered a more optimal structure of actions.
Thus, a central dispatcher is used to orchestrate actions created and updated stores. It then updates views based on store changes. This way, all data stays in the stores – no duplicates are generated, allowing you to keep all model data nicely in sync across the entire application without going far.
However, Flux is only an architectural template used as a front-end for convenient UI design flow which cannot be used as a full-fledged library. This is where Redux comes in as a convenient Flux implementation. In particular, it offers a single storage object to manage all application data, which makes underlying data management manipulations simple and trouble-free. Renders are triggered on store changes, while the view stays in sync with the corresponding data items.
The extensive set of tools available
Among other things, our specialists personally explain why we use ReactJS for web development by highlighting an exemplary toolset and technology stack. React Developer Tools as well as Redux Development Tools offer extremely handy capabilities while you can easily install and use them like regular Chrome extensions. Specifically, with their help, you can efficiently inspect React-based hierarchical components (including props and related states), verify dispatch actions, and view state changes immediately within the extension (which can also be saved and used as a backup for debugging in the future).
The powers of React Native
You might be thinking to yourself – “This is all great and all, but should I use React for web development in more progressive projects, and would it fit my needs if I’m about to start a web development project? development of native or hybrid applications? And that’s where React Native comes in as a real game-changer that opens up native and hybrid mobile app development for iOS and Android for you. Naturally, you lose some code reuse opportunities, but only in favor of proper native performance and system management.
Creating a single application can be more economical, while you can also opt for a hybrid solution for more personalized results, using a single code base for somewhat different solutions created for different environments. separate operation.
React.js Logo
A vast community and resources define the market. At the same time, it is actively supported by specialists working directly on Facebook’s software system, which alone should be reason enough to use React.js for web development. You can use more of the proven elements that are at the heart of the world’s most important software solution. You can even check out a dedicated blog where Facebook developers share their ideas and updates.
JSX syntax for extended HTML
Why Use React for Web Development? With React.js, you can use declarative HTML syntax directly in JavaScript code. To display the user interface, browsers decode HTML texts. They do this by building DOM trees, which can then be manipulated using JavaScript to create an interactive user interface.
Multiple DOM manipulation is more efficient using JSX. Developers can build neat and maintainable code by passing HTML and React.js components into browser tree structures. React.js applications are faster and more efficient thanks to JSX and virtual DOM. Other frameworks and libraries can also be used with JSX.
Unique React Hooks
When React Hooks was first introduced, there was a lot of talk about whether it was going to replace Redux. We do not think so. But Hooks is a new feature in React.js 16.8 that allows JavaScript authors to add states and other functionality to function components.
You won’t have to deal with more difficult classes. Hooks simplify managing state logic between components, grouping comparable logic into a single component, and transferring data between components that don’t have props or classes, which says a lot about the reasons to use React for web application development.
When to use React?
As we have seen, ReactJS is a very flexible and versatile library. With the wide variety of features it offers, it can sometimes be a little difficult to figure out when to use it.
Our website development services include bespoke React solutions. We use React in different types of projects for companies of all sizes. We recommend using React JS for the front-end development for:
SPAs
Imagine that a user has to refresh the page to get new recommendations on Netflix.
SPAs keep repetitive parts of a web page like the menu section and the header. Only update necessary content when a user acts like scrolling or double-clicking or left-clicking.
ReactJS is suitable for SPAs because these sites continually update the content of their sites based on data from web servers. The feature-rich library, with the provision of Virtual DOM, Redux, and unidirectional data flow, can expertly handle the rigorous content update process.
Dynamic websites
For dynamic websites that need to manage multiple users and their requests, ReactJS is the best solution. It is also imperative that the site does not require repeated refreshes to avoid losing users.
Using the virtual DOM makes React web pages extremely fast and responsive.
Mobile apps
Mobile apps and apps for Smart TV can be built efficiently using React Native. Native apps work like web apps but have a native look and feel.
Dashboards and other data visualization tools
Data visualization tools require constant updating of data. Dashboards compile and display analytical data for a project. These dashboards are usually built as a client-side SPA, which significantly affects the application load time.
With React, you can use JavaScript to implement the same code on both the client side and the server-side. The Server-side rendering is done much faster, and React will render and display the webpage without much delay.
SEO Friendly Websites
React apps can be made SEO-friendly with a few modifications, like pre-rendering. But SPAs and other dynamic websites can become slow if rendered previously. Next.JS is the best option for SEO optimization of your React sites.
Customized solutions for a limited budget
If your team is familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and you need custom apps. React is the best choice for you. With an easy learning curve and no complicated jargon, your team can easily develop a cost-effective solution.
React is a widely popular library in the developer community. Although there are many other frameworks on the market today, React holds its own. With the various innovative features and functions it offers, it’s hard not to see why. We recommend giving React a shot for the next suitable project.
Conclusion
The library React is very famous and used all over the world. It offers state-of-the-art features and is the ideal choice for developers looking for an easy-to-use and highly productive JavaScript framework.
Every year, new libraries and web frameworks are developed by programmers. It is hard to predict which technology will be here for the long haul. But ReactJS has proven its durability over the past 10 years against technologies like Angular, Django and PHP, Vue, and Ruby on Rails.
