ReactJS Overview

ReactJs is a JS framework originally presented by Facebook developers. There are many different opinions on the usefulness and advantages of this product. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of ReactJS.

React Features

Comparing ReactJs with Angular or other MVC frameworks makes no sense, since ReactJs is just a representation. React is a template-based language combined with several functions that support output to HTML, i.e. the result of React’s operation is HTML code.

ReactJs implements the concept of reactive programming: modification of the result of its work depends on the state of components. Thus, a = b + c, and A will always depend on the values of B an C.

ReactJs constantly works with DOM, re-rendering it when conditions change (the part of DOM that is changed by ReactJs is called a component). Prior to that, such a practice would have seriously affected the application’s performance, but the developers of ReactJS approached this problem quite radically: they completely rewrote the DOM in Javascript.

An important feature of ReactJs is the use of JSX. This is a JS add-on supporting the use of pro-XML syntax in Javascript code. JSX is blend of Javascript and HTML that is quite unusual for most developers. The standard practice is to separate the JS part and the markup, which makes it difficult to track HTML -> JS -> HTML changes. JSX helps you see all processes in a single place without getting distracted by the complexities of well-written and valid code. JSX compiles into pure JS.

Cons

The kind of difficulties ReactJS novices may face:

• Complex documentation

On the developer’s website, the tutorial is scattered across multiple tabs, the information is far from being structured. However, if there is a whole team working with ReactJS, this problem can be solved pretty quickly. We recommend studying documentation at devdocs.io, where this information is presented in a more structured way.

• Not all standard browsers support React

To solve this problem, it is recommended to use additional plug-ins – for example, the S5-shim library for IE8 support. There exist other extensions for ReactJs, however, considering the “weight” of the framework, their use should be minimized.

• Few gadgets available

ReactJs is a relatively young framework, so all, even standard, widgets will have to be written nearly from scratch. Need a custom dropdown or lightbox? You’ll have to write a fair deal of code even for such simple tasks.

Pros

UI development is based on separate components – and that’s the future of development.

ReactJs works great for teams, it’s a pleasure to write in and easy to test.