What are the key features of ReactJS

ReactJS is an open-source JavaScript library for building user interfaces (UIs) for single-page applications (SPA). Facebook and a group of individual developers and companies maintain React, which plays a major role in powering some of the most popular web applications like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more.

Here, we will discuss the key features that make React a potent tool in a web developer’s arsenal.

In this blog post, we want to draw your attention to the key features that make React a potent tool in a web developer’s arsenal.

JSX (JavaScript XML)

React uses JSX, which is a syntax extension for JavaScript. It combines JavaScript and HTML into one accessible file, making the application simpler and cleaner. It is not mandatory to use JSX in React, but it’s useful as it prevents injection attacks.

The standard behavior of React DOM is to escape any values built into JSX before their rendering. This guarantees that only the elements explicitly written in your application can be injected. Everything is into a string before being rendered.

Virtual DOM

Unlike traditional web applications, React employs a Virtual DOM (Document Object Model), boosting performance.

The DOM is a cross-platform programming API that treats an HTML, XHTML, or XML document as a tree structure, where each node represents a part of the document. When the state of an object changes, ReactJS creates a new virtual DOM and compares it with the old one, updating only the updated objects in the real DOM.

Components and Reusability

Everything in React is a component. This component-based architecture provides high reusability, making development faster, easier, and more scalable.

Elements like buttons, navigation bars, or complex UI segments can be defined as components, stored, and reused whenever needed.

Unidirectional Data Flow

React has a streamlined flow of data that only flows in one direction (from parent components down to child components through props). This architecture makes tracking down and debugging errors easier.

Moreover, it enhances the readability of the codebase, making it more maintainable.

React Native

One particularly special feature of React is its ability to adapt beyond web browsers. Facebook introduced React Native, a framework for building native apps using React and JavaScript.

This means that developing apps across different platforms (like Android and iOS) is now a smoother and more unified process.

Easy Integration

React can easily be integrated with powerful libraries like Recoil or Mobx for state management and libraries like Jest for testing. This lets a developer cherry-pick the tools that best serve their project requirements without losing out on the benefits of React.

Strong Community Support

React brings along massive community support. Being open-source, developers worldwide continually contribute to it, providing various solutions or third-party tools that can be used to build applications.

React offers unique features that make it easier to create interactive UIs. It allows developers to create encapsulated components that manage their state, painlessly update, and render just the right components when the data changes.

If you want to start using React now, check how I created a TODO list app using React here.