What is ReactJS? [Reasons + Features of Using ReactJS]

Hardik Thakker

Founder & CEO

Published On: Mar 06, 2023

Nowadays, the demand for mobile and web application development is increasing day by day. So, it becomes essential to understand the concept of front-end frameworks that can make your work easier.

One such popular front-end JavaScript library is ReactJS. You can refer to React.JS in many ways like React or ReactJS. And if we talk about Fortune 500 companies, they use ReactJS.

Do you know that ReactJS is one of the most commonly used web frameworks among developers worldwide, as of 2021?

Here, we will discuss some of the basic concepts of what is ReactJS and its features introduced in this blog post to make a clear understanding of opting for React framework rather than other Javascript frameworks.

What is ReactJS?

Jordan Walke is the creator of ReactJS. The first deployment of React was done on Facebook’s newsfeed in the year 2011 and then in 2012 on Instagram.

An open-source library used explicitly for building robust user interfaces for SPAs (Single Page Applications) is ReactJS. React is a client-side JavaScript library, which means it runs on the client/user’s machine in the browser as opposed to running on a server.

React makes it easy for you developers to create web applications that can change or synchronise your data without reloading the page.  The primary purpose of React is that it can be used to handle the view layer for web and mobile apps. It also allows the ReactJS developers to create reusable UI components. React UI frameworks help to create a great-looking interface for your React application.

What is ReactJS Used For?

As defined earlier, React is nothing but a JS library that makes it easy for you ReactJS developers to design and build user interfaces or UIs. User interfaces are the set of on-screen menus, search bars, buttons, and someone that can efficiently interacts with to use specifically for websites and web applications.

Just before the launch of the ReactJS framework, it was pretty challenging for React developers to build UIs by hand by specifically using “vanilla JavaScript” (plain JavaScript language) or with minimal UI-focused React predecessors like jQuery.

In simple words, React is a boon for dealing with longer development times and plenty of opportunities for errors and bugs. So, in 2011, Jordan Walke came up with an idea to launch React JS to improve UI dev process.

In addition to providing reusable React library code to save development time and reduce the chance of coding errors), React comes with two key features that add to its appeal for JavaScript developers:

• JSX
• Virtual DOM

To get an even better understanding of React JS and why you should use it, let’s take a look at both concept in detail in the next section.

Related Post: Vue vs React – Which Framework Should You Opt For Business

Top 7 Reasons for Using ReactJS For Web Development

Now, it’s time to highlight some of the reasons that will clear your doubts on why React is better than other Javascript frameworks. You’ll be surprised to know that React JS is most commonly used framework as per the Statista report.

1. Create Dynamic Applications Faster

   Compared to Javascript, React makes it easy for any software engineer to deal with less coding and offers more functionality. So, it will help you get rid of some complex coding and make the dynamic applications faster and safer. One of the best option is to consult the best ReactJS development company that will help you design and build web app faster.

2. Improve Application Performance

   With its active use of Javascript virtual DOM (Document Object Model), React is solely responsible for designing and building web applications faster. Yes, you read it right.

   The working process of virtual DOM is relatively simple. First, the comparison of the component’s previous state is done and is updated only when the items in RealDOM are changed. So, you do not have to update all the components again, as we usually do in conventional web applications.

3. Make Use of Reusable Components

   For any React project, components are the heart of it. A single app may have multiple components. All such components typically have their logic and coding behind them.

   The good part of React is that you can add as many components without worrying about the application’s performance. You can even reuse them multiple times.

4. Follow Unidirectional Data Flow

   React follows a unidirectional data flow. When you design a new React app, you often nest child components within parent components. Right?

   Often, it’s one of the best practices that you need to follow.
   The data flows in a single direction in React, making it easy for you the developers to debug errors and identify where a problem occurs in an application at the moment in question.

5. Deal with Small Learning Curve

   The application dev with React is easy, and you can quickly learn React application development process faster. React combines the concepts of core HTML and Javascripts with some additional functionality.

6. Develop Both Web and Mobile Apps

   React is solely responsible for developing applications for both web and mobile-based. 

   React supports a framework called React Native, which allows you to create responsive mobile applications.

7. Perform Easy Debugging with Dedicated Tools

   Facebook has released a Chrome extension that can be used to debug React applications. This makes the process of debugging React web applications faster and easier.

Best 8 Features of ReactJS

ReactJS is nowadays gaining quick popularity among web developers as the best Javascript framework for developing web applications. It is playing an essential role in the front-end ecosystem. Let’s highlight some of the major Reactjs features.

1. JSX – JavaScript Syntax Extension

   JSX (JavaScript XML), a Javascript syntax extension, is usually used with React to represent how the user interface should look. In simple words, JSX is nothing but an XML or write HTML structures that is specifically used by the ReactJS framework.

   JSX allows the developers to write an HTML coding structure in the same file where the Javascript code is written. Moreover, React makes the coding easier to understand and debug.

   With the help of JSX, you can easily embed JavaScript objects inside the HTML or React elements. Let’s go ahead with a straightforward example of React element that represents the implementation of JSX.

   Let’s go ahead with a straightforward example of React that represents the implementation of JSX.

   Copy

   const name = Albiorix Technology;
   
   const greet = <h1>Hello, {name}</h1>;
   
   

   As you can see in the code, it’s neither a string nor HTML. Instead, it embeds HTML into JavaScript code.

   Related Post: Angular vs React

   As you can see in the above code, it’s neither a string nor HTML. Instead, it embeds HTML into JavaScript code. This feature is the perfect one if the developer is completely aware of the basics of HTML and JavaScript.

2. Virtual DOM

   DOM means “Document Object Model”. DOM plays an essential role in the life of web developers as it divides into modules and executes the code. Usually, JavaScript Frameworks or other frameworks typically update the whole DOM at once, which makes the web application slow.

   All the representations of the “real” DOM are kept in the memory in React, and that is “virtual” DOM (VDOM).

   React keeps a lightweight representation of the “real” DOM in the memory, and that is known as the “virtual” DOM (VDOM).

   If we talk about manipulation, real DOM is much slower than VDOM. The primary reason behind it is that it gets nothing drawn on the screen when you change the code.

   For example, when you make any change to only that object state, VDOM is responsible only for that particular object, rather than updating all the objects available.

   To make it simple for you, let’s understand the meaning of DOM and how it works.

   

   DOM treats an XML or HTML document as a tree structure in which each node is an object representing a part of the document.

   The interaction of Virtual DOM and React DOM with each other is very straightforward.
   

   • A VDOM gets updated only when there is any specific object change in React app.
   • A comparison with the previous state object is performed, and then only the update is done for that specific object in real DOM or React DOM, rather than updating all the available objects.

   As compared to other frameworks, this will lead to fast dev process.

3. Performance

   Applications developed using ReactJS are always top performers. The primary reason is the virtual DOM. The DOM is a cross-platform and programming API that specifically deals with HTML, XML or XHTML. The React DOM exists entirely in memory.

   As React uses VDOM, web development becomes much faster than those developed with alternate front-end frameworks.

   React breaks a complex user interface into individual class components, allowing multiple users to work on each functional component simultaneously, speeding up the dev time.

4. One-way Data Binding

   This remarkable feature of React keeps everything modular and fast.

   With its unidirectional data flow, React allows you to nest child components within parent components during the designing phase of React development.

   A developer has complete control over the whole application, and most importantly, they are aware of where and when an error occurs.

5. Debugging

   The testing of React applications is made easy, and it’s just due to a large developer community. The excellent part of React is that Facebook provides a small browser extension that makes React debugging faster and easier, as you can see in the below figure.

   

   Once you add the extension, a React tab will be made available in the developer or React devtools options in the Chrome browser. So, the developers can quickly inspect React components or we can say function components directly.

   Now, let’s take a look at React’s essential concepts.

6. Components

   A component is essentially a piece of the user interface. React splits the UI into independent, reusable parts that can be processed separately.

   Generally, there are two main types of React components.

   • Stateless Functional components
   • Stateful Class component

   First, we’ll see the meaning of stateless components. They have no state object of their own and only contain a render method.

   With the help of render method,, you may derive data from other React components as props (properties flow).

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   function Example(props) { return <h1>Welcome to {props.name}</h1>;
   }
   
   

   On the other hand, stateful class components can hold and manage their state and have a separate render method for returning JSX on the screen. Therefore, as they have a state, so we call it a Stateful component.

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   class app extends React.Component {render() {
   
   return <h1>Welcome to {this.props.name}</h1>;
   
   }
   
   }
   
   

7. State

   The state is a built-in React object that is used to contain data or information about the component. A component’s state can change over time; whenever it changes, the parent component re-renders.

   The change in state can happen as a response to user action or system-generated events, and these changes determine the behavior of the component and how such event handlers will render.

   Copy

   class Example extends React.Component {state = {
   
   name: "World"
   
   };
   
   updateName() {
   
   this.setState({ name: "Albiorix Technology" });
   
   }
   
   render() {
   
   return
   
   <div>
   
   {this.state.name}
   
   </div>
   
   )
   
   }
   
   }
   
   

8. Props

   React Props (properties) is a React built-in Javascript object that stores a tag’s attributes and works similar to the HTML attributes.

   It provides a way to pass data from one component and data patterns to other components in the same way as arguments are passed in a function. Such data patterns improve readability for your React application.

   These are the common ReactJS advantages that the developers need to take care of. Meanwhile, you can have a look at some of the best reasons for using ReactJS for front-end development.

Final Thoughts

To summarize, React JS

• Is an open-source and flexible javascript library designed by Facebook to create single-page web or mobile applications.
• Allows you to create reusable UI components.
• Makes it easy for you to create web apps that can change data, without reloading the entire page.
• React creates virtual data tree and detects new changes and updates the UI accordingly.
• Enables you to deal with data flow always in a single direction.

React JS is a powerful framework that is specifically used by multiple software engineers globally. It allows you to design and build React apps more robust as compared to other front-end frameworks.

I hope you got the basic overview of what is ReactJS. We have come across various advantages of using ReactJS for better design and deployment.

What are you waiting for? Build your web and mobile apps with ReactJS today and improves app performance.