Comprehensive Guide to React Development 2022

If you’re not new to the tech world, you might know the importance of frontend frameworks and libraries in web development and how their ecosystem is evolving rapidly. In order to walk at the same pace, businesses adopt new tools along with different libraries and frameworks available to choose from. But there is no shadow of a doubt the urge to stay updated leads them to a big dilemma of which technology would be perfect for building their desired digital solutions. In this blog, we will discuss in detail why React is an incredible choice for web app development. 

No matter whether it is a high-performing responsive website or a web-based application, using libraries is crucial. React or ReactJS can smooth the way for you. It is one such frontend web development tool that 10.2 million websites worldwide are using. Today, software engineers worldwide are interested in learning this hottest skill. Not only this but a lot of demand for React developers has also been noticed among startups and MNCs in recent years. But why?

Why is there a lot of buzz around React? What is ReactJS? What are the skills required to learn this tech? How much time would it take to become a pro in React? Well, if such questions hit your head, it’s time to go through this blog post. 

Let’s start with the basics, learning what React is. 

What is React Development?

Maintained by Meta (formerly Facebook), React is a free and open-source frontend JavaScript library that developers can use to build user interfaces (UIs) as a tree of small pieces called components. But what are the components? It is a mix of HTML and JavaScript that helps capture the logic required to display UI sections. React is also known as React.js or ReactJS and is maintained by a wide community of individual developers. React is an outstanding technology you can use to develop single-page, mobile, and server-rendered applications with frameworks like Next.js. 

But Why React Development?

Creating an application with high-performing functionality is easier but displaying the data that evolves over time is a fundamental difficulty many might face. But React solves this problem by providing a better way to display the continually changing data in massive applications. 

React is considered as the V layer in the Model-View-Controller (MVC) software development pattern. When it comes to the MVC approach, an application is divided into three pieces.

• Model- The model implements data storage and retrieval in the database.
• View- This part is responsible for displaying the UI. 
• Controller- The controller receives user input and passes it on to the model. 

React only allows a developer to use the view component. For model and controller sections, different tools are required. 

Do you know the main reason behind the high popularity of React development? Check out the below-listed advantages. 

• React is straightforward: All you need to define the app’s look and React will handle the user interface (UI) updates as the data changes. 
• It is declarative in nature: The data in an application is not static. And when the data changes, React better knows how to update the changes.
• React is a component-based framework: Such a quality facilitates the creation of testable, reusable code. You can create a component once and can further reuse it anywhere.

Apart from the advantages listed above, React.js is also considered the most preferred framework like Angular because:

• It works best with component-based user interfaces.
• Data binding on a single level.
• Building blocks with a lot of flexibility.
• Wide community support.
• Easy to control everything in a single location.
• Helps in developing complex applications.

Top Skills You Must Have Before You Learn React Development

Now you have a good idea of React development. But if you want to become a pro in this field, you must know the following skills. Take a look-

1. HTML and CSS

Good command of writing HTML and CSS codes can make your journey as a frontend developer easier. Above all, learning React will also become fun. Make sure you know 

• how to write semantic HTML tags and CSS selectors, 
• how to implement a CSS reset, 
• how to use classes,
• how to implement a box model,
• how to write responsive web applications,
• how to build a frontend app with HTML and CSS. 

2. Fundamentals of Javascript and ES6

If your fundamentals of JavaScript are not clear, you can’t master React as it is the most essential to learn before moving to React. Explore the topics given below and explore as much as you can about the fundamentals of JavaScript and ES6. After all, JavaScript is the basic foundation to learn any framework.

• Be clear with the concepts like variables, numbers, boolean, strings, and other basic fundamentals.
• Learn about operators, loops, conditionals, functions, JavaScript keywords, arrays, objects, and other fundamentals.
• Event handling, DOM manipulation, and how the ‘this’ keyword works are different in JavaScript. But most developers find these terms quite confusing. Make sure you know how they are different from each other. 
• Higher-order function, arrow function, callback function, state (how state and setState() function works) scope, extends and inheritance, class & constructors, map, reduce, promises, modules, filter, closures, const, let (difference between var, let and const) and other features of ES5 and ES6.

3. JSX (Javascript XML) & Babel

JSX is another skill you must know before you start learning React. JSX appears like HTML and is considered an effortless way to add HTML code inside JavaScript. It is an extension of the JavaScript language syntax. 

On the other hand, Babel is a compiler that transforms HTML-like text in JavaScript files into standard JavaScript objects. It takes features from the latest version of ECMAScript 2015+ (ES6+) or JavaScript and brings them down to ES5 or regular javascript. Make you have clarity about concepts like JSX and Babel. 

4. Package Manager 

You must have a solid understanding of the NPM (Node Package Manager) registry that keeps track of the file that has been submitted. In simple words, the NPM registry provides you easy access to software to build software. Make sure you know about the package manager before moving to React. 

5. Version Control (Git and GitHub)

Git is an open-source version control tool that helps developers manage and keep track of the code. On the other hand, GitHub is a code hosting platform for version control and plays a great role in enabling collaboration among developers. Mastering React will only be possible if you have good knowledge of these version control tools. 

Where is React Development Used in the Real World?

Today, React is extensively used by several tech giants as part of their frontend stack. React in the real world is doing wonders and below are a few examples of leading MNCs and startups reaping the benefits of this technology. 

1. Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud-based file-sharing platform that switched to ReactJS a few years back. According to a report, Dropbox has over 600 million users as of Q3 2019 and 400 billion pieces of content uploaded to this platform. The platform’s tech stack has the capability to support this enormous traffic and data flow. Thanks to React that helped Dropbox to enjoy more features such as code components for more efficiency in development. 

2. Asana

Asana is an incredible project management software that is used by millions of people worldwide, including the employees of several organizations. One can easily track the project’s progress, plan tasks and collaborate with others using this excellent tool built with React. 

In 2016, when Asana was scaling up and the user base was growing at a rapid pace, they recognized that their in-house framework, Luna, would be unable to achieve the necessary performance. Therefore, the company decided to rewrite the client-facing side of the application with React.

‍‍3. Instagram

Instagram is a social media platform, equipped with numerous features, including Google Maps APIs, geolocations, and many more - impressive, isn’t it? This giant platform is based on the ReactJS library which enhances its performance and makes it appealing enough to amaze users. And the rest is history. 

4. WhatsApp

WhatsApp uses ReactJS for building user interfaces from Facebook in the same way it uses Velocity.js and Underscore.js as its most efficient engines. Even the WhatsApp Web app has also been using React, just like the Facebook web experience. 

5. ClearScore

ClearScore is one of the UK’s fastest-growing FinTechs that provide access to users to their full credit history. The company used Atomic Design methodology along with React for the client-facing side. Such an approach helps ClearScore to keep up with the demand for tracking credit history. 

Conclusion

Now we have discussed everything about React codes you can use for your next project. React is indeed a great framework that helps many companies to modernize their tech stack. If you also want to take advantage of this framework, get in touch with 75way. We are a leading React development company you can easily trust for your dream projects.