12 Benefits to Building Your Website With React JS

Have you ever wanted to try React JavaScript for your website?  Ever since it was open-sourced in 2013, React JS has received positive feedback from its community of users.

In fact, React has grown from the fledgling user interface it once was to a platform with over 1 million current customers to date.

Still wondering if React JS is for you? Keep reading to learn how it’s become a superior interface with all the features that users want.

The “JS” in React JS indicates that it’s an interface that relies upon JavaScript. As you may know, JavaScript was originally developed to be a more accessible language with a lower bar of entry for developers who wanted a more simplistic approach to coding. 

Developed in under 10 days by Netscape Communications Corporation, JavaScript first became known as “Mocha.”

This early version of Mocha was first used as a prototype by Netscape’s search engine. In 1995, it was renamed LiveScript, and later that year, it became known by the popular name we know it as today, JavaScript.

Its quick and progressive development shows how accessible and simple JavaScript was designed to be. Similarly, React JS was built with this same simplicity in mind.

React JS was introduced in 2011 as an application user interface (UI) by Facebook. It is an open-source, component-based library that hosts web applications. With React JS, users create independent components by grouping together small sections of HTML code. 

Because of this familiarity with the JavaScript framework, users can largely rely on their knowledge of JavaScript instead of having to learn more functions. With other UI’s such as Angular, users have to his is not the case, and so React JS is a comparably simpler UI. 

Front-end development does not need to render slowly, although many often do. React JS includes a virtual document object model (DOM) to make the computing process smoother and faster.

Since bottlenecks slow down computing when an application relies on a single component, a virtual DOM removes these bottlenecks from the process.

If you want to make changes to an HTML document, a virtual DOM saves these changes to React’s API memory and then syncs them to the real DOM later. This way, changes occur gradually without holding up the computing process.

React JS allows you to be more selective in the editing process. When users want to change a child component, other UI’s may require the parent component to be changed as well. 

With React, you can simply change the child component without having to compromise the parent component. Generally, all you need to do with React is to use new props to re-render a child component. 

React JS is known to have incredibly code flexibility, meaning you can modify and manipulate code as you please. 

However, its one restriction is that all components must be treated as pure functions. That means that the information you input into the function will always have these same output return values. 

While this may seem like a limitation, pure functions eliminate opportunities for certain classes of bugs to compromise the code. 

Since pure functions are isolated from outside states, bugs that target these external states don’t affect pure functions. This immunity to certain bugs produces more code stability. 

The emphasis on pure functions also makes code easier to organize and reorganize when you need to make changes later. 

React JS also has more callback functions so that you can execute arguments within the outer function. These functions can then be executed during or after a code operation. 

UI testing is designed to evaluate the features of an application to determine whether the code meets certain performance standards. 

The ability to test UI is an important part of improving the user experience. If there are any functionality issues to be found, they should ideally be identified in the testing process so they don’t complicate the user experience.

Testing is simply a way of ensuring that UI aesthetics operates with quality. However, this has historically proven to be difficult task. 

This is primarily because of the manual labor involved and the uncertainty in estimating where bugs have occurred in the UI.

In the past, testers have had to simulate all the ways that users may hypothetically interact with the UI and then fix the bugs they encounter in those interactions. 

In order to test the GUI, testers would have to create “mutant” cases of code in order to test a UI’s bug-detection capability.

With React JS, testers no longer have to mutate the UI to get results. Instead, React’s Virtual DOM produces its data tree so that testers can fix bugs on their own. This is where the debugging tools come in handy.

React also has a comprehensive set of developer tool extensions available on Google Chrome’s web store.

As of July 2020, the newest features are the “Components” and “Profiler” tabs which allow you to view components history and record code performance.

React JS is known to have some of the best debugging tools in its class of development UIs and these additions simply add to that reputation. 

With the “Components” tab, you can view all of the components that were rendered on a specific page, including the root React components. You can also view the components creation history and which one came before the next one. 

If you want to change the props or state of one of these components, you can also do that in the Components tab. 

On the other hand, the “Profiler” is where you can use the React components data tree to record code performance. 

In general, users can return to virtually any state of their application to fix the code or record code activity.

The virtual DOM has more uses than just simplifying document changes. It also has the ability to render JavaScript applications as regular webpages.

Why is this useful?

Well, Google is largely the only search engine that can crawl applications with JavaScript content. Other engines can’t actually read these applications if they heavily use JavaScript.

This is important because crawling allows search engines to evaluate your website’s credibility. Search engines send out bots that “crawl” your website to determine whether you have quality links, empty pages, and various other SEO-related factors.

If your website is positively evaluated, search engines will prioritize your site as an authoritative source and increase its ranking.

You can also use JavaScript React to power your animations. Using React Transition Group, you can use simple components to identify enter and exit transition stages. You can also use the DOM to manage groups of elements at a time. 

This does not allow users to write out animation behaviour, but it allows you to manage multiple transition components at one time.

If you want an animation library, you can instead use React Motion. Here, you’ll find a list of animation components to use with unique functions. React Spring is another animation library you can use.

Having a CLI can simplify project management by providing a space to input more direct commands. 

With a CLI, you can micromanage a project or a series of projects at a time. You can also automate computing tasks and make the management even more efficient by storing scripts within React’s interface.

React JS is now one of the favourite UIs on the market. 

It has quite a few big names to draw that can attest to its quality performance. Netflix, PayPal, Uber, BBC, Airbnb, and of course, React’s parent company, Facebook all currently use the React JS UI. 

Some of these companies have also been long time users of the platform. Netflix, for instance, has actually used to React JS ever since its launch in the late 90s. 

If you’re wondering about the quality JS React can produce for your website, these reputable sites should give you an idea of what’s possible.

If you want to create a mobile app along with your website, you can use React Native to develop a mobile app with JavaScript React. 

Using the same development tech for both websites and mobile can help your fluency with the program. While the website and mobile platforms vary in operation, React’s focus on the components remains the same. 

React Native is also available on multiple platforms— iOS and Android. Since React Native renders to native platform UI, you can also use some native components like “view”, “text” and “image” as other mobile apps. 

React JS is specifically designed to target some of the most common pain points for users and offer easier solutions. 

It is one of the most inventive but accessible interfaces in its class which is why it’s had so much user success.

Want to start using React JS today?

Contact us today and we can help you get started using React JS with web or mobile design, eCommerce and more.