Typically, people learning JavaScript programming hesitate when choosing between React, View, and Angular.
So, in most cases, influenced by the opinions of others, they decide to enter the world of professional coding by learning React without having detailed information about its features.
This issue makes them regret their choice in the long run for various reasons and decide to start learning another framework.
This article will analyze what React is, its advantages, and its future.
The popularity of JavaScript frameworks is increasing daily, and understanding how they all work is not easy for a developer.
However, if you intend to use React or want to learn it, you should consider some critical questions in this field. What are you looking to build?
What kind of data are you going to process? Do you want to create an SEO-friendly website etc.?
If you are just about to enter the world of programming, we suggest you read this article to the end to get better acquainted with this JavaScript-based library.
What is React?
React is one of the most potent front-end libraries based on the JavaScript language. Developers use this library to design the user interface of websites and single-page applications. Of course, using React to manage the View layer and build reusable UI design components is possible. React was first developed by Facebook in 2011 for internal activities, but it evolved until it was finally made publicly available to all developers in 2013.
One of the critical features of this framework is its high speed, scalability, and ease of use. Developers can use React to build large web-based applications without loading a page. You can use this library with other JavaScript libraries, such as Angular.
According to many web developers, React is one of the best choices in the field of cross-platform coding, which enables the development of applications for smartphones. This library allows programmers to code on Android and iOS operating systems.
Why ReactJS seems to be the future of web development?
As we mentioned, React is a powerful JavaScript user interface library that has made it the first choice for web development. So, let’s see why companies should consider ReactJS for their project’s front-end requirements over other libraries.
ReactJS will become the primary choice of development teams and startups.
JavaScript is a web programming language. ReactJS is one of the best frameworks for creating user interfaces for web applications through JavaScript. In addition, it has become very popular with developers in recent years due to its ease, speed, and efficiency, so some of the world’s big news sites use this framework to improve the user interface of their websites.
These websites for this reason, choose React to make their site available to users faster. Most importantly, it is open source and gives you powerful capabilities to modify the source code to suit your project needs. Hence, ReactJS will be the leading choice for development teams and startups as it includes all the features needed to build a powerful web application.
has authority
ReactJS is still the most popular platform and is still growing
The simplicity and flexibility of React have attracted developers and companies to build dynamic and flexible applications. Unlike Angular and View, developers with a strong knowledge of JavaScript can use it quickly. In addition, it provides developers with several packages for integration with software projects.
In addition, React allows you to create complex web applications using external libraries and tools and ensure they will have the highest level of performance. This is why ReactJS has quickly climbed the popularity ladder.
It is a suitable option for social networks or e-commerce.
ReactJS is an efficient technology that allows you to implement your creative solutions for various applications for dashboards, social networks, e-commerce platforms, online stores, and the like in the shortest possible time. The high adaptability of this framework with the application allows you to monitor the code execution process most accurately. This issue has made big companies like Facebook, Pinterest, PayPal, Dropbox, and Uber use it wisely.
It is an excellent choice for single-page applications (SPA).
Imagine having to refresh the page every time you scroll through the feed of a social network like Facebook. This is a problem that single-page web apps have solved. Single-page apps provide a rich user experience while fetching data in the background and providing accurate results based on user interaction with the page.
Considering that SPAs must constantly update content based on data from their web server, no technology is as powerful as React. It is not decisive in this field. React was initially used for building single-page applications because it offered powerful features like Virtual DOM, Redux, and one-way data flow, allowing it to handle static content updates precisely. However, many functional capabilities were added over time, making it usable in various fields.
ReactJS allows you to create SEO-friendly platforms.
Everyone wants their web applications to be recognized by search engines to attract the most traffic. Countless solutions for SEO websites and web-based programs are available to users, some of which will not bring the desired result. This is different for applications built using React. The ability to react re-renders the running code, making it a good choice for SEO, especially regarding content that web crawlers need to index. With React, there’s no need to refresh an entire page; This means that pages can load in less time, and search engine crawlers can find the website content in the shortest possible time. So, if you want to create a high-quality, SEO-friendly app, ReactJS is the best choice. More precisely, React helps search engines read the code and display the page under any conditions. This technique has a significant impact on improving the site’s SEO.
What do statistics tell us about the future of ReactJS?
There are many reasons why ReactJS is potentially the future of web development. Among the important reasons in this regard, the following should be mentioned:
- ReactJS has overtaken jQuery to become the most popular and widely used web framework by developers worldwide as of 2021.
- ReactJS was the most popular front-end framework/library in 2022.
ReactJS is best supported by Facebook and the developer community, with communities of thousands of professional users answering user questions and sharing coding best practices.
More than a million websites have been developed using React.
- ReactJS has a significant advantage over Angular or VueJS due to its scalability, rich documentation, easy learning curve, and high ability to provide the most comprehensive solutions to problems.
- Programs that simplify the process of maintaining projects due to minimal coding. ReactJS is an excellent framework for creating a single-page application with dynamic content. When you have ReactJS developers on your development team, you can be sure they will help you develop and maintain web-based applications cheaply.
- React provides an intuitive API with powerful capabilities and a developer-friendly approach to building user interface components that seamlessly integrates HTML tags with CSS styles. The functionality provided by this framework includes two-way data binding, declarative programming, and custom DOM rendering. Because of its simplicity and comprehensiveness, React offers solutions to widespread problems with developers.
What are the disadvantages of React?
The learning process of React is a bit difficult compared to other frameworks. If you have just entered the programming world, you will have difficulties understanding the codes. React is challenging to learn related to JSX, part of JavaScript’s extended syntax.
The React framework is newer than some older web frameworks and libraries, such as jQuery. For this reason, it isn’t easy to understand some of the codes and functions it provides, and some of its features need improvement.
Among the features that should be improved, the following should be mentioned:
- The need to write additional native code for that group of components incompatible with the React framework.
- React components face performance degradation over time.
- Too many updates will confuse developers.
- The initial setup of React is a time-consuming process; The reason for this is the delay in starting threads in JavaScript language.
- Since React is a game source library, it has little security. To be more precise, such libraries have made them famous on the one hand, and on the other hand, it has faced a problem with their security. Security is a priority in some projects, such as developing financial and banking programs, where the entire process must be done confidentially, and using React is not recommended. For this reason, experts recommend not using this framework for such projects.
What key benefits does React offer?
This framework, similar to other JavaScript-based frameworks, has advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages of React is that it enables code reusability. To be more precise, if your work tool is this framework, you no longer need to design a separate application for each operating system, such as Android or iOS. That’s why most developers learn React to save time and reduce costs.
The advantage of the above framework is that it uses different threads and native programming interfaces in designing the user interface. The components in this framework’s open-source libraries make designing and developing applications faster. In other words, this library provides a wide range of functions that programmers need in a prebuilt form. In this case, all developers have to do is select the required module. It should be noted that using the library codes is free for everyone.
As we mentioned, it is an open-source framework based on JavaScript. For this reason, developers can access it most efficiently. Also, if you face any problem while using this framework, a robust community of React developers will help you. Other advantages of this framework include a simple and understandable user interface, the ability to build stable applications, modular architecture, support for various plugins, etc.
Ease of creating mobile applications
Before this framework, programming a dynamic page was a complex process many developers were reluctant to undertake. Creating such pages requires unique HTML loops. React solved this problem to shorten the coding process of projects. This is simplified thanks to the use of JSX syntax.
Component-oriented architecture
Component-oriented means that React uses specific components. This clear and logical architecture plays a vital role in effectively communicating elements with each other and the visual design of web-based applications.
Using a declarative programming paradigm
Programming includes two types of commands and declarations. In the authoritarian type, the programmer must define specific steps to go through them to reach the final goal. While in declarative programming, the principles and generalities are mentioned, and the programmer does not intend the implementation steps. Since React is based on declarative programming, the code written is much easier to predict. Therefore, it is easier to check and fix problems.
Virtual DOM
The presence of this feature in React allows the development of programs to be easier and more flexible. In this case, the virtual DOM replaces the original instance; thus, everything coded is shown every time the program changes.
Declarative user interface
This feature increases the readability of React codes and fixes bugs faster. This framework is one of the best desktop and mobile UI development options.
Convenience
Having well-defined lifecycles makes it easier to use React to build professional applications. React uses a special JSX syntax, allowing the best combination of JavaScript and HTML. Of course, using JSX as templating is unnecessary, and you can use JavaScript alone whenever you want.
Ideal performance
In React, there is no prebuilt container to achieve dependencies. This issue has enabled developers to use Require JS, Browserify, and EcmaScript modules, which are automatically added to the dependence.
Native approach
All features introduced in various sources for React are also valid for React Native. Also, the codes are standard between Android and iOS operating systems. This feature helps you to use the components you have created in different projects.
last word
Today, most developers use the React framework to save money and time. Despite React’s shortcomings, it is highly regarded by developers. Considering that JavaScript has different libraries, you may be asked why we should choose React. Undoubtedly, advantages and unique features have made programmers go for it. People with coding experience will not have much problem working with React.
Meanwhile, Angular and Ember libraries use a standard Domain Specific Language, which makes their learning process difficult even for experienced programmers.
This is to learn ReactYou should have some knowledge of CSS and HTML and be familiar with how JavaScript works. Since React has similar design patterns, the process of designing a website or application using this framework is not much different from each other. JavaScript and React Native help you create more professional application interfaces for Android and iOS platforms.