Why You Should Love React Web Development

React has only been around for five years but it has become one of the most favorite JavaScript libraries for web development.

It’s constantly evolving and more and more companies are implementing it.

We thought that giving it a short introduction and explaining why we like to use it for our work could be a good idea.

To start with, what exactly is React?

React (also referred to as React.js) is a front-end JavaScript library for building powerful user interfaces.

It was created by Facebook in 2013 and gained popularity thanks to its simplicity, speed, and other great features.

We have been using it for about two years and here is what we think about it: 

“React is more of a framework than a library since it offers so much and gives a structure to your code. However, compared to other Model–view–controller frameworks, React is pretty much just the V for view. But don’t despair, you can easily provide the M and C with other libraries of your choice.”

We see that React is an evolving open-source project which regularly releases new features.

"Hello world" React example

Another simple React code example

What do developers love about React?

1. They love it because it is easy to read and write. 
2. Being able to use JSX for tags directly inside JavaScript is a huge advantage.
3. The JSX allows developers to create HTML templates, bind functions to them and determine what needs to be rendered.
4. It also has the one-way data flow so whenever a user changes something, data is updated and the User Interface (UI) is redrawn. 
5. As such the UI is always a representation of data which is clear, simple and easy to maintain, especially in complex UIs like Facebook pages.
6. It supports a component structure (splitting UI into small containable pieces that have the functionality of their own) which allows for easy reusability and good code structuring.  
7. In contrast to Angular.js and Ember.js which are full-featured frameworks, React has a wider choice of libraries to use.

Our colleague Dominik highlights the pros: 

“React is very lightweight and pretty fast. Since it only cares about views, there are not too many redundant features as in other major JavaScript frameworks. It’s just the core engine and the rest of what you do with it is up to you. You can go with the crowd and use Redux for state management, but you can also choose Mobx or other alternatives. Whatever suits you. You don’t have to use some predefined workflows and structures. It’s all in your hands.”

Comparison React with Vue.js and Angular

Also, the comparison with other popular JavaScript frameworks Vue.js and Angular is interesting.

What do companies love about React?

It allows them to see results of the MVP (Minimal Viable Product) much faster than using other front-end frameworks.

When they want to create an easy to extend enterprise system in a browser with a lot of events, resources and data models, React is a good way to go.

Building UI with React provides long-term benefits.

The code is:

• easily maintainable,
• testable,
• and behavior of the application is predictable.

React for single-page web applications (SPAs)

Besides building complex applications, React is suitable for creating single-page web applications (SPAs).

It can switch between different views without visible whole page refresh like on Facebook, Airbnb, Udemy, or Uber.

React is pretty much fun. It means to write less, do more, and have absolute freedom to play around.

We believe that the future looks bright for React.

To sum it up: 

“React has a massive user base and is currently being very well supported – a great sign that it will stick for at least a few more years (but probably much much longer). It has already gone through many stages of updates and therefore its quality is almost guaranteed. Since the core is lightweight, it poses very few limits to what can be achieved with it.”

What do we use React for?

You can use React for anything you like in your frontend of the web. React is just another way to write existing code and features.

At Rascasone, we used React.js to develop projects for Esticom - construction management system, Mikenopa - wifi and network online management system, and Pinstriped - web application for meetings management.

We are also experimenting with different state controllers and SPA routers.

We use it most of the time for: 

• dashboards,
• forms,
• validations,
• tables,
• calculations,
• or any other more complex web components.

One of our colleagues also implemented a versatile paginator which can be used for paginated tables or other content.

Do you need help with React?

If you have any questions about React or want to use it for the development of your website, let us know and we will react promptly.