Why ReactJS Should be a Perfect Choice for Your Next Front-end Application
The web technology is rolling rapidly with new advancements these days. It’s hard for individuals to focus on just one platform. Specially when you – being a developer – are going to opt frameworks for developing web applications, it sometimes becomes a bit puzzling task to choose the best one for the job. There are a lot of tools available for various functional operations and they are quite useful in relevant domains.
However, only few of them prove to be handful to us as they revolutionize our workflows to a much greater extent. This is the reason why ReactJS is one of them and is quickly becoming a norm for powerful front-end applications.
React is quickly gaining the reputation of best front-end framework in the market because of its endless functionalities. It opens up a new world of possibilities including server-side rendering, real-time updates, different rendering platforms like iOS, Android and various other options.
It is basically a JavaScript library developed by Facebook. Its major advantage comes in developing creative front-end interfaces for web applications. While seeing off various updates in recent few years, React is now capable of converting itself into a fully functional framework.
Lowdown on ReactJS
ReactJS gives webmaster and business owners an ease to develop large scale web applications capable of changing data while reloading pages. It also allows webmasters to use React with other front end frameworks like Angular to produce an altogether creative interface. It is for those who want fast, scalable and simple front-end solutions combined with great built-in functionality.
React is an open source JS library mainly used for developing interactive user interfaces. Webmasters lov using React for handling view layer of the web applications as well as of mobile apps. This exquisite client-side technology also allows webmasters to develop reusable UI components, to ease various iterative operations alongside.
Web applications powered with ReactJS also find a matchup with SEO as we will explore that in detail later in this article.
Understanding the Core Features of ReactJS
Here are the core features which illustrate why ReactJS an entirely different JavaScript library to others and the components which enhance its diverse operations to the next level:
1. JSX
Instead of usual JavaScript, React uses JSX for template creation. Because JSX allows easy HTML quoting and using the HTML syntax, it helps to render subcomponents.
2. React Native
In 2015, Facebook announced some native libraries of React, so that developers can develop diverse applications with desired front-end functionalities. It has a set of reusable UI components for both Android and iOS platforms. Using React native, you can develop any mobile application with the native look and feel.
3. Virtual Document Object-Model
The unique Virtual Document Object-Model of React allows creating the data structure for various functional operations. It helps in the computation changes as well as updating the browser. This facilitates programmers to code applications with desired logical operations. React library renders every page for each change. Whereas logically, the components which are changed are only rendered.
Why Choosing React Simplifies Developers Job?
Here are the reasons why ReactJS is increasingly being used by many big techs and what advantages will it bring for your next front-end application:
Primarily Focused on User Interface
ReactJS is much more focused on user interface unlike Meteor JS and AngularJS. It gives your users a highly responsive interface with the help of Javascript interactions between the Native environment of the device and ReactJS. As a result, this reduces the application’s load time and helps to keep it running smoothly without any interruptions.
ReactJS Brings Advanced Efficiency
ReactJS has its own virtual Document Object Model (DOM) to store the app components. It gives developers great flexibility in organizing operations amid high performance gains. Using DOM, ReactJS calculates in advance what changes do developers need in components and hence updates the DOM-trees accordingly.
This practice allows DOM to avoid time consuming operations and manage them in an efficient manner.
Reusability of React Components
Another major advantage why to choose React for your next front-end application is that it allows reusability of the code components any time. The practice saves a lot of time at the developers’ end, and eases their burden in relation to their operations.
ReactJS components are isolated, so the change in one doesn’t affects any other component. Hence the reusability becomes efficient and makes programming more precise for the developers.
Simple Framework
ReactJS is quite simple to use as compared to other front-end frameworks. It has well-defined workflows and component-based approach that makes several operations a lot easier. It uses plain JavaScript structure that is why is quite easy to understand.
It has a unique syntax called JSX which is a blend of JavaScript and HTML. So anyone with the basic programming knowledge, can easily understand JSX and start building fully functional mobile / web application.
One-Way Data Flow
You can achieve code stability with the ReactJS. It allows programmers to work directly with the components and also make use of the data-binding technique to ensure changes that took place in child structures don’t affect the parents.
Many view-models of JS representation have a disadvantage, where changes in child elements cause changes within the parent. But Facebook took care of this issue with React JS.
React JS uses just one direction data flow – downward. In this type of structure, there is no way that child elements can affect the parent data. hence, if a developer wants to change any object, all he needs to do is to modify the state of that object and update. In the same way, only permitted components will upgrade.
The JavaScript Library
The JSX syntax is a composite blend of HTML and JavaScript used specifically in ReactJS. It makes the whole process of writing components for website a lot easier, while the HTML part allows developers to to render functions without concatenating strings.
ReactJS makes proper use of native APIs and hence allows JavaScript stack to work across platforms.
Works Perfect With SEO
The major drawback of many JavaScript frameworks is that they are not search engine friendly. Though some have made significant improvements in this area, but not very handful to complement SEO practices.
Surprisingly, ReactJS works perfect with SEO. You can run ReactJS on the server and the virtual DOM will be rendered to the browser as a regular web page, having no need for any other practices.
Easy to Learn and Understand for Newbies
Compared to other front-end frameworks, ReactJS is quite easy to learn. Beginners with the basic programming knowledge can easily learn ReactJS because of its easy syntax and code structure. The only thing you need while mastering ReactJS is the thorough knowledge of HTML and CSS.
Angular on the other hand, is bit difficult to learn as compared to ReactJS. Because if you are not familiar with the Typescript, you won’t be able to master Angular at once. You need to learn Typescript first before moving on to Angular, which itself requires a good amount of time.
How You Can Learn React?
Whether you are a newbie or a professional, going through the official documentation of any technology or language or software, acquaints yourself with the first-hand knowledge. It helps you understand the purpose of its creation, requirements in use cases and principles.
Same is the case in getting started with React JS. If you are new to it, then using its official documentation to learn the core principles is the best choice for mastering the framework at first. In particular, React’s official documentation is quite well-maintained and is easy for the newbies to understand it.
The homepage of React’s official website gives a thorough overview of the framework and its stunning features. After reading that, go to the ‘Docs’ section where you will learn about how to get started with React. After completing that part, move on towards the tutorial section where you will find a whole lot of videos covering different React JS topics.
The tutorial section is very insightful and gives newbies a practical working knowledge of React. It covers different examples and useful tips for absolute beginners.
How React is Different From Angular and Vue?
The major difference which sets ReactJS apart from Vue and Angular is its extensive libraries. While obviously, Vue and Angular are quite new as compared to React, but still the level of proficiency which React provides is clearly missing in these two frameworks.
The reason is that React is more mature than these two frameworks, and more importantly the development team behind it (Facebook) is really keeping up the framework’s standard high.
In comparison to Vue and Angular, React has more UI kits available. For the server-oriented apps, React provides optimized server side rendering to make operations a lot easier. While developers rate React Native as the best tool for developing cross-platform mobile applications.
But on the other hand, the Angular and Vue teams are really working hard to optimize few loopholes, but it’ll take time to reach React’s level of maturity.
What are the Best Learning Websites for ReactJS?
To learn React, first of all, you need right online course material to master the core principles of the framework. While following few practical examples afterwards will be handy to get practical working experience of React. Here are few online resources where you can find right courses to kick-start React quickly.
Facebook React Docs
Facebook’s React documentation is undoubtedly the best source for learning React framework. It might look difficult to you at the first glance, but this documentation is comprehensive and has great qualitative insights to learn React framework. By reading this documentation, you can understand it easily.
TutsPlus React Tutorials
TutsPlus has a large stack of React tutorials for both beginners and professional developers. It covers wide ranging topics – from basic to advanced – and have dozens of useful tips. For newbies, I will recommend to catch up with the TutsPlus React tutorial, as these are very definitive guides and give a thorough learning experience of all the React.JS workflows.
React Training
The React Training site is yet another resource for learning React framework in great detail. The courses on this website are very comprehensive in nature. By far, React Fundamentals is the most subscribed course of the website because it outlines core principles of React.
All the courses on the website get regular updates with new techniques and practices, so it’s worth checking the website often to learn new useful tips.
Pluralsight
The beginner level courses on Pluralsight help you gain the thorough knowledge of React fundamentals including component states, Props object and JSX. Once you have completed the course, you can move on towards the intermediate level training of the React which covers more details of the framework. It covers topics such as Flux, Redux and working with intricate elements.
Finally, the advanced courses will explore concepts like API, HOCs, external state and more.
Best Books to Read For Mastering React
We have compiled a list of few React Native books which every tech enthusiast will love to have on his / her bookshelf. The following React Native books will help you learn the core concepts of development in React as they are one of the most up-to-date publications on the topic you can get your hands on.
React Native Tutorial
This book is a complete guide for the front-end novices to master React Native from the scratch. Written by Nicholas Brown, the book gives a thorough overview of the framework. The users will explore key React fundamentals from installation to props, ScrollView to animations and much more.
Getting Started with React Native
Here’s another React Native ebook available for beginners who are just starting out to learn the framework. Written by Ethan Holmes, Getting Started with React Native helps you learn React from the core. The book includes practical examples that help building fully-functional native JavaScript applications from the scratch.
Learning React Native
Here’s another one for the beginners’ bookshelf. It is indeed one of the best books for learning React Native available. Learning React Native is a real hands-on guide, with author Bonnie Eisenman walking you through how to build mobile applications with step-by-step instructions and plenty of code examples to set you off on the right track.
Final Words
ReactJS opens new world of possibilities for interactive front-end applications. The framework is user-friendly, easy to learn and brings numerous functionalities for easing development operations. This article covers some handful insights as why ReactJS is useful to both professional webmasters, and for the beginners who aspirant to enhancing their learning curve.
If you still have any queries, about ReactJS or want to contribute more to this topic, feel free to write down your comments below in the comments section.
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