What you need to know about ReactJS

What You Need to Know About ReactJS Before Using It in Your Project?

JatApp professionals think ReactJS is a good tool for making user-friendly interfaces (UI). Such UIs are essential for any web application. Frequently, users access the convenience of the website with the emphasis exactly on its interface. If you think about using ReactJS, we can tell that you are on the right way. It is very good for development but has both advantages and disadvantages you should know about. This article will reveal all peculiarities this framework has.

Key Features

One of the most distinctive features of ReactJS is its universality. Developers use this library on servers and mobile platforms with the help of React Native. This is the principle ‘Learn Once, Write Anywhere’.

Another important feature is the declarativity. By using ReactJS, a developer describes the way in which the component of the interface looks like in different states. The declarative approach reduces code and makes it clear.

ReactJS is also based on the components. Each of them returns a part of the user interface with its state. By joining components, a developer creates a completed web page interface.

Using of JSX is another important feature of ReactJS. This syntaxes extension is used for describing the interface. JSX enables it to describe JavaScript code by using ready components that nearly almost repeat HTML.

Using the virtual DOM is another important feature of ReactJS; we will tell you more about it further. This tool helps to update the real DOM effectively.

Advantages of Using ReactJS

ReactJS is considered to be one of the best frameworks for web development. It has many advantages and enables creating rich, interactive, and robust UIs for any needs. Let’s look at the most remarkable advantages it has.

# 1 Community

Its community is huge and has been formed thanks to Facebook. It has contributed a lot to make this tool powerful for developing and improving UIs for web applications. Moreover, Facebook keeps moving with that and enhances ReactJS for ensuring an effective and pleasant user experience. Still, ReactJS has been developed not only by Facebook. In 2013, it made ReactJS open-source and encouraged making improvements to it. Today’s appearance of ReactJS is surely the result of the united effort. This enables it to form a great community but not only.

The community of ReactJS provides an enormous number of library materials to facilitate the overall development process. Such libraries are advanced and provide new possibilities to developers who can constantly improve the quality of codes and developed applications. The developers share common libraries with many ready tools there, which they can freely include in their new applications. This helps to decrease the time for UI development substantially.

# 2 Virtual DOM

Its Document Object Model (DOM) determines the structure of an HTML document. This DOM looks like an object-oriented web page. You may interact with it by applying various programming languages. Your browser will regularly verify any changes and updates to the DOM. Such changes may be resulted by inputs made by a user, data received from APIs, etc. The browser will update the DOM as frequently as changes appear. Taking into account a large number of existing websites, it can take too long to update everything. Thus, the application’s operation may naturally slow down.

Unlike the DOM, ReactJS deals with a lightweight and virtual version. The real DOM is updated only after the interaction between the virtual DOM and the webpage itself. Here we should also say that such virtual DOM has certain benefits:

• Increased performance

Any startup should make its web application responsive, fast, and convenient enough to provide the best possible services to its customers. The virtual version of DOM can ensure this. It can be updated faster than the real one. This makes an application a number of times effective. When using the virtual DOM, a page can immediately get and show updates received from the server. Facebook uses this virtual DOM technology for updating feeds and chats of users without any necessity to reload a page by a user.

• Effectiveness

It is not effective to update the entire DOM for making a page reactive. This process is resource-consuming. If you use ReactJS, your virtual DOM is updated each time when a certain change is implemented. ReactJS tracks in its memory two types of its virtual DOM – a version with completed updates and a pre-update copy. After such updates have been completed, ReactJS compares by itself these two DOMs and finds amended elements. The next step it takes is updating only the section of the real DOM that has been amended. Yes, this may sound too complicated and time-consuming. Still, it takes far less time than updating the overall real DOM and optimizing its actual operation.

# 3 Reusable Parts

ReactJS is focused on making components reusable. After a component has been created, it can be utilized for other projects or parts of code with minor changes.

Also, the development of a ReactJS application is possible, thanks to using half-ready open-source components from its libraries. In the outcome, this reduces the time for developing UIs. That is dramatically important for startups and allows saving plenty of money and time.

Yes, let’s speak more precisely about saving money. In the case of native applications, you may expect comparatively high performance, but the costs of such performance will be high. If you prefer frameworks that allow using HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3, you can reduce costs. Still, in the case of these frameworks, the level of productivity will be much lower. In the case with ReactJS, you can reach the level of productivity similar to native applications while the development costs will be similar to frameworks.

# 4 Downward Flow of Information

Yes, data in ReactJS goes in one direction only, and developers consider this feature as very beneficial. Such flow is called from parent-child or top-bottom. This downward flow of data prevents the debugging of facilities and possible errors.

# 5 React Tools

Such tools are extensions for Firefox and Chrome that provide a complex of inspection widgets to make the development easier. This extension makes debugging simpler and allows developers to find among all components ones they require and also review certain deeply-nested parts.

Summary from JatApp about Benefits You May Get

Using ReactJS can bring you this:

– Virtual DOM can increase the performance of overloaded applications and decrease the risk of emerging of possible inconveniences. You may get a better user experience.

– The rendering of pages can be faster, and users can feel more comfortable while working with your application.

– You can decrease the amount of time and money spent on the development of web applications.

– The reusing of code enables to create mobile apps a number of times easier. The code that has been created during web development can be reutilized for cretin new apps. So, there is no need to hire two or more teams of developers for developing both for a website and a mobile app.

– The reusing of codes also prevents you from making the same mistakes. If you craft or use good codes, you can write less code for the next apps.

Disadvantages of Using ReactJS

Like many other development tools, ReactJS has its disadvantages, along with its advantages. So, let’s see what they are.

#1 Troublesome JSX

This tool applies the JSX syntax extension to create JavaScript objects with HTML syntax. This helps to make modifying the DOM simpler and increase the readability of code. Such HTML syntax can look a bit confusing in JavaScript for beginners. Yes, it takes time to get accustomed to this feature. So, beginners frequently speak about JSX as a disadvantage of ReactJS.

#2 Difficulties with Search Engine

SEO optimization is of great importance for any web application. It is necessary for increasing traffic and getting new customers. Before telling you about difficulties with making the ReactJS app SEO-optimized, let’s refer to the manner in which Google web page indexes work.

To index all web pages, Google applies bots. They scan and secure information related to the Google index. After a user has requested a certain piece of information, Google verifies all data stored in the index of Google for providing the most necessary sources of data. Such bots can index all HTML pages easily. Still, it does not operate so smoothly when it works with ReactJS. The indexing procedure is far more complicated in this case comparing with static pages. So, it is risky that ReactJS indexing can be not as it should be, or such indexing may take too much time for making Google bots work well for a page. But, consider server-side rendering or pre-rendering to help in making your website SEO-optimized.

# 3 Documetation

ReactJS is a comparatively new technology that continues growing thanks to developers who contribute to it and make wider. Still, its documentation is poor, and libraries are lacking comprehensive info. Developers intend to update libraries without amending the documentation itself. This creates difficulties for those who have familiarized themselves with new features and integrate new libraries.

#4 Narrowed UI Focus

In fact, ReactJS is a JavaScript library where tools for web application UIs are created. Comparing with frameworks, ReactJS is not an all-in-one tool for developing the entire application. So, if you use a model–view–controller (MVC) design pattern while developing your web application, ReactJS will be only one responsible for such a review. The model and controller are two parts that should be created by applying extra tools. When you use, ReactJS, you have to integrate extra tools for routing, APIs, and other segments of your web application. Taking into account that certain JavaScript frameworks propose complex solutions and enable the creation of all components of the MVC pattern, some developers treat the narrow focus of ReactJS as a disadvantage.

Summary from JatApp about ReactJS Drawbacks

When you use ReactJS, you may face these drawbacks:

– Beginners may find JSX syntax difficult.

– It cannot be easy to make SEO optimization easily.

– The documentation it has is very poor, and libraries are often incomplete.

So, Should You Use It or Not?

Well, we suggest you using ReactJS for these reasons:

– It suits well for teamwork and the strict UI following.

– UI code is readable and easy to maintain.

– The UI development is based on separate components, and such an approach is often considered as a very perspective for web-development.

Still, there are also reasons why you should think twice before starting using it:

– At the initial stage, ReactJS may slow down the work.

– It is not easy to grasp fast how props and state work and how components interact.

– Its documentation is a kind of labyrinth for new developers.

– ReactJS does not support browsers from IE8 and younger and likely never will be.

– If your web application is not overloaded with a large number of dynamic pages, you need to write a lot of codes for resolving minor tasks. For instance, if your application requires dropdown, resize of a window or lightbox, you need to write this on your own.

Still, these issues can be resolved easily if you are going to have teamwork.

Tips from JatApp

If you have decided to use ReactJS, we have a couple of tips about its work:

– Use tools of React and Redux developers.

– Components should not be too large.

– Make all your components functional.

– Make your components without states – they can make software testing and data exchange more difficult.

– Always use propTypes.

– Avoid using deep rendering.

Final Words

ReactJS is quite a popular library for working with UIs. Its main features are declarativity, component approach, universality, use of the virtual DOM, and JSX.

ReactJS is considered as effective for making interactive It has certain disadvantages. Still, the number of its advantages is bigger. You should keep in mind both while creating your web application and growing your business.

If you have any trouble with deciding about the strategy of web development, contact us instantly. JatApp will be glad to be of help to you.