Introduction
ReactJS has shown remarkable results and aided businesses to expand their user base significantly. Be it Mobile App Development or Web Development; the web framework has progressed with leaps and bounds since its inception.
One of the key reasons for its popularity is its JavaScript library and its open-source framework. With such, ReactJS has always been beneficial to businesses, making life easier for developers.
Over 1/3rd of professional developers prefer ReactJS as a web framework. However, it comes with limitations as well.
ReactJS: A Brief History:
Initially developed by a software engineer working on Facebook in 2011, ReactJS was officially released for the general public in 2013 and is now an open-source JavaScript web framework.
With its release, it was rejected by the developer community because it used Markup and JavaScript together in a single file.
But, as people started experimenting with ReactJS, the community embraced the same component centric approach of the framework for separating concerns.
Over time, it gained popularity across diverse environments and was adopted by large companies in production.
With more and more developers acknowledging the efficient and powerful user interfaces that ReactJS renders, it has only witnessed progress, unlike other web frameworks.
Today, ReactJS is used by multiple Fortune 500 companies, with Facebook keeping full-time React development staff to release bug fixes, documentation and enhancement of such.
ReactJS: Key Features:
People who are into web development may know about ReactJS very well. Despite being an atypical Web framework, ReactJS offers multiple coding possibilities, gaining massive popularity in recent years.
With big companies like Netflix, Pinterest, Skype and others implementing it, ReactJS has gained devotees and may soon become ubiquitous.
In the enterprise, cloud native computing is the flavor of the day, and ReactJs can be used to build and deploy cloud native applications over extensive public, private or hybrid cloud systems.
Before knowing about the advantages and limitations of the web framework in the context of cloud or other environments, it’s important to get to know about the JavaScript framework in detail to understand more about ReactJS capabilities.
- JSX ReactJS: JSX is a syntax extension of JavaScript, and can be used to write HTML or XML like codes besides ReactJS. This code can coexist along with ReactJS code and can even be processed by the React framework.
When working with ReactJS, developers need not use JSX but can obtain added project flexibility.
- Reusable Components: The web framework consists of multiple components. Each component has its specific controls and logic that can further be reused or repurposed in other parts of the code, meeting specific requirements.
Moreover, components can also contribute to maintaining code order, especially during larger projects composed of multiple scripts.
- Virtual DOM: Document Object Model or DOM manipulation is necessary for conducting modern and interactive web activities. DOMs help organize the web app structures’ elements, helping scripts access the various web page elements.
Traditional DOM manipulation demands fundamental elements and DOM components to be rendered continuously for every manipulation.
However, a virtual DOM only re-renders the manipulated actual components. ReactJS uses virtual DOM for memory improvement and efficiency.
Thus, ReactJS is a library for developing interactive user interfaces with enhanced flexibility, unlike opinionated web frameworks like Vue.js and Angular.
React is a solution that brings simplicity coupled with elegance, a set of definite determinants of potential.
With its combination of speed, performance, usability and flexibility, ReactJs is ideal if your team uses DevOps practices in web and application development.
Pros of ReactJS Framework:
ReactJS can help developers create more interactive and immersive websites with minimal effort when it comes to coding.
Facebook once developed the framework with the view of providing an improved platform for the developers.
Now, this JavaScript framework has become an undeniable part of front-end Web development.
With a greater understanding of the ReactJS framework & features, now it’s time to learn about the pros of using the framework.
- Easy learning and SEO friendly – ReactJS benefits significantly from being an open-source JavaScript framework, and the most notable reason is its ease of learning.
Any developer can easily create training tools and other documentation to aid new and old developers to learn. For developers with even brief knowledge of JavaScript can learn about the ins and outs of React within days.
Also, business owners get to find web developers easily. The ease of learning feature of the framework allows quick fixes and improvements, pacing with new updates.
With this framework, developers can prepare and immediately configure a new project with just one command!
With React, websites become more readable in search engines and mitigate the serious JavaScript issues, making websites more SEO friendly.
- High efficiency with Virtual DOM – Web apps developed on ReactJS display enhanced efficiency, one of the reasons for its progressive popularity. With every change made, the Virtual DOM gets updated.
ReactJS packs two versions of DOM; updated and copied before the update. Because of this, dual DOM can compare the elements to discover changes in less time and more efficiently.
The Virtual DOM further assists in enhancing the user experience by making the overall development process faster.
- Better State Management – ReactJS has brought a shift in state management with the release of Hooks API; allows sharing and reusing of state logic between the reusable components without restructuring the script.
Also, downward data flow comes as an advantage, offering seamless data flow, thereby reducing the number of errors in debugging.
Cons of ReactJS framework:
After understanding the major advantages of the ReactJS framework, it’s necessary to look at its limitations for a better analysis before you start working on it.
- Development Pace: Although ReactJS is constantly evolving, the speed at which it is progressing makes it look like a disadvantage. This pace of development splits the development realm into parts. With one supporting the constant evolution, while others consider it problematic, since relearning things is constant.
- Complicated JSX: While the JSX syntax is a boon for ReactJS, developers often see it as a disadvantage because of its complexity and difficulty of understanding.
- Documentation: People consider the development pace a problem and feel that the constant changes leave limited time to update the documentation process. Thus, the enhancement itself poses an adverse effect on documentation processes.
- Non-vigilant Focus: ReactJS packs an array of development tools for creating user interfaces. However, it’s not a universal solution and displays a narrow UI, a disadvantage on its part.
Final Thoughts:
ReactJS is very efficient and aids in developing faster web pages with a powerful UI. Analyzing the pros and cons may help develop a better understanding.
Undoubtedly, ReactJS is revolutionary, but you need to know both sides of the coin to make the best out of it.
Thus, it’s quite feasible to use the framework for expanding businesses.
To get the best results, you can always hire a top ReactJS development company, which can assist you throughout your project by becoming your aid in need!
