The popularity of the User Interface has risen over the years. A better website gets more natural traffic. Websites’ appearance is as significant as their functionality from a non-technical standpoint. Websites must meet the basics, such as being user friendly, able to guide the user in the right direction, and being able to render as quickly as possible. Websites which fulfil such conditions not only are user friendly but also have a higher SEO ranking (It also depends on metatags and engagement, but that is a whole new topic for some other day).

Despite the fact that HTML, CSS and JS can do the bare minimum, individuals still rely on websites to access information. Libraries allow developers to create applications quickly without worrying about their backend functionality. They are simply a bunch of code that can be plugged into your applications and can be used as needed. It allows you to spend more time on creating a better user experience rather than worrkying about how things work in the backend.

React is used to develop User Interfaces for websites using JavaScript. You can integerate your React applications with CSS frameworks such as Material UI, Bootstrap etc. to make your site look prettier.

React deals with the Model part of the MVC [Model-View-Controller] architecture. It is responsible for the front-end of any application. But it doesn’t stop there. React has more amazing features that make it stand out from the rest.

  • React’s use of JSX

    • In React, it is possible to write JS inside HTML and vice versa. This might seem a Lil off but it is the most beautiful and the most important one you’ll come across while learning React.
    • The advantage of using JSX is that it is easy to understand and code.

  • React is a component-based library

    • Code in React is broken down into smaller pieces called components. Breaking down code into smaller pieces makes it more readable and easy to understand.
    • These components are of two types, stateful and stateless. Stateful components depend on other components for their rendering. Whereas stateless components are those which are independent of the other components, less clumsy and easier to understand.

  • Usage of Virtual DOM

    • This is one of the most important programming concepts that React makes use of very efficiently.
    • The virtual DOM (VDOM) is a programming concept where an ideal, or “virtual”, representation of a UI is kept in memory and synced with the “real” DOM by a library such as ReactDOM.
    • A virtual DOM is a copy of the Real DOM that has been created which looks for state changes within the application. Once changes are noticed, the virtual DOM checks the current VDOM with the previous VDOM, this process is called diffing.
    • React uses the process of Batch Updation, which means that changed elements are updated in the form of batches.

  • React’s use of hooks

    • The introduction of hooks in React has changed the way people look at React. Initially, when there were no hooks the activities that a functional component could perform were limited. It was only capable of receiving data through props and could not modify the state of a component.
    • The Introduction of Hooks has not only made Functional Components as powerful as Class Components as they were now able to manage component states but also the reduction in the amount of code that was written to perform a single task was massive.

  • At first,** React’s Ecosystem** is quite overwhelming, but once you are up and running, you’ll realize that it is quite interesting.

    • It consists of State Management tools like Redux
    • Styling Components like Material UI, Chakra UI etc
    • Works pretty good with Axios etc.

  • React Native

    • React Native combines the best parts of native development with React, a best-in-class JavaScript library for building user interfaces. Use a little or a lot. You can use React Native today in your existing Android and iOS projects or you can create a whole new app from scratch.

  • Firebase

    • While React is mainly focused on building the Front End of applications and is concerned with User Experience, React supports the use of Firebase.
    • Firebase is a Google-backed application development software that enables developers to develop iOS, Android and Web apps. Firebase is used for authentication, authorization, and managing a real-time database.

There is an enormous demand for front end developers, and it’s growing. Knowing and understanding React is critical in this day and age.