If you are new to ReactJS or curious to know why it’s so popular among web developers and why you should learn it, then you are in the right place.
In this article, I will talk about the history of React.js, five reasons and benefits of learning and using the library.
What is React JS?
Facebook originally created ReactJS in 2011 for their own use. It’s a library that builds user interfaces for SPA (Single Page Application) by dividing UI into reusable components.
As you may know, Facebook is one of the popular social networking websites that use React.js. Nowadays, not only Facebook but many other companies are using this library.
Why Should You Learn ReactJS?
You must be wondering why you should learn React.js. Day by day, the popularity and use of JavaScript are increasing. We have various options available to pick in the market like VueJS, Angular, but why React.js?
Let’s see five reasons to learn React.js.
1. Declarative and Flexibility
React is declarative and very flexible. Once you have learned it, you can use this library on a wide range of platforms to create unique and responsive user interfaces.
Now, in React.js, you can easily create interactive UIs without any hassle. You can design simple views for each state in your application, and React will efficiently update and render the right components in your web application when your data changes.
Declarative views make your code more predictable and easier to debug.
React was built to create components for web applications. A React component can be anything in your web application like Button, Image, Cards, etc.
You can generate a static web application with React using tools like Gatsby.js. You can even build mobile applications using React native or develop desktop apps with React and tools like Electron.
It’s also possible to transform your current existing application in to React application. The library was designed to keep this in mind.
At first, you can change a small part of your web application using React and see if it works. If everything works fine, then you can convert your whole web application into React.js.
2. Great Performance
JavaScript is fast, but manipulating DOM elements is comparatively slow. React made it very fast in an intelligent way.
React usages Virtual DOM to keep track of each component in a web application. When a components state changes, an efficient diff algorithm is used to compare the previous and current state of the Virtual DOM. Then it calculates the best way to apply changes. Finally, the updates are applied to the DOM. That’s how React provides excellent performance.
3. Easy to Test
Now it’s about testing. Reacts design is amiable for testing. You can test your React application with traditional UI browser testing. But UI browser testing is very troublesome and comparatively slower.
You can find lots of testing frameworks, tools, and libraries available on the web. Most of these testing libraries are easy to use and time-saving. You can write your React test quickly using tools like Jest and Enzyme.
4. Reusable Components
React provides a component-based structure. Components can be anything like buttons, text, checkbox, dropdown, etc.
You don’t have to rewrite them from scratch, but you can reuse them anytime, anywhere in your web application. With all these reusable components, you can build dynamic user interfaces.
5. Great Community and Support
The popularity of React.js is increasing day by day, as well as community and support too. It has a large and active community, with over 169k stars on its GitHub Repository. It’s one of the top repositories on GitHub.
The community maintains the open-source library, and anyone can contribute their components to the library.
On the other hand, there are lots of other component libraries available on the internet. So you don’t need to create components from scratch. You can install component libraries and use them in your project.
You can ask for help on Stackoverflow, and you will find there are over 309.4k questions and answers. So you will find tons of essential libraries, help, and solutions on the internet.
Conclusion
React.js is an excellent library for developing dynamic and interactive user interfaces. The good thing is there are plenty of essential and good libraries and mature components. With all of these, you can easily and quickly develop your web application.
Day by day, the use of React.js is increasing. Many popular companies are started using it. So job opportunities are also growing for web developers who are experts at React.js.
If you have any opinion about it, you can comment below to share yours.