Getting Started With ReactJS - Goldenmace IT Solutions

Getting Started With ReactJS - Part I

Before we start the tutorial let’s deep dive into some basic information about React.

So let’s jump into it.

What is React?

React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces and Web application and it is managed and developed by Facebook. It is the view layer for web applications.

The heart of all Reactjs applications is components. A component is a self-contained module that renders some output. We can write interface elements like a button or an input field as a React component. Components are composable. A component might include one or more other components in its output.

Why You Should Learn ReactJS?

JavaScript is everywhere now and so is React. Having strong React skills is a great way to get ahead with building modern web apps at the moment. We already have a lot of reasons to learn React JS. There are more major reasons that get you going instantly for Reactjs.

The most greedy one could be it is developed by Facebook engineers. (Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook).

React JS has been used extensively on Instagram, Netflix, PayPal, Apple. Facebook started using React in 2011 for the first time.

It can be used to produce any type of web application, native mobile apps, command-line interfaces, avionics and much more.

React is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks and cementing its leading position with its rapid growth.

React is capable of building any complex UI keeping state out of the DOM. React uses a Virtual DOM that ensures maximum efficiency by only re-rendering nodes whenever it is required.

It is much easier to learn. One would take a few hours to learn React JS upon having good command in JavaScript language. Mastering React would require a long time but that is definitely not longer than any of its cousins.

How does it work?

While building client-side apps, a team of Facebook developers realized that the DOM is slow (The Document Object Model (DOM) is an application programming interface (API) for HTML and XML documents. It defines the logical structure of documents and the way a document is accessed and manipulated. So, to make it faster, React implements a virtual DOM that is basically a DOM tree representation in Javascript. So when it needs to read or write to the DOM, it will use the virtual representation of it. Then the virtual DOM will try to find the most efficient way to update the browser’s DOM.

Unlike browser DOM elements, React elements are plain objects and are cheap to create. React DOM takes care of updating the DOM to match the React elements. The reason for this is that JavaScript is very fast and it’s worth keeping a DOM tree in it to speed up its manipulation.

I hope this helps you to get the first understanding of React, its uses, and its benefits. React may seem complicated to start with but its all worth. Feel free to ask your questions in the comment or drop us an email on info@goldenmace.com.

Before we start with React JS some basic things which are most important which you have to learn.

Javascript
NPM
BABEL

Javascript: You can learn javascript in detail from these video tutorials.
Link 1: Net ninja Javascript tutorials
Link 2: Traversy Media Javascript tutorial

NPM: NPM is Node’s package manager. It’s a repository of thousands of useful pieces of code that you may want to integrate with your project.

npm also has a command-line tool that lets us easily install, manage and run projects.

Use npm too…

– Adapt packages of code for your apps, or incorporate packages as they are.
– Download standalone tools you can use right away.
– Run packages without downloading using npx.
– Share code with any npm user, anywhere.
– Restrict code to specific developers.
– Create Orgs (organizations) to coordinate package maintenance, coding, and developers.
– Form virtual teams by using Orgs.
– Manage multiple versions of code and code dependencies.
– Update applications easily when the underlying code is updated.
– Discover multiple ways to solve the same puzzle.
– Find other developers who are working on similar problems and projects.

You can learn more about NPM from this link Traversy Media NPM crash course

BABEL: Before React code can run in the browser, it must be changed in certain ways. One necessary transformation is compiling JSX into vanilla JavaScript.

– Babel is a JavaScript compiler that includes the ability to compile JSX into regular JavaScript.
Babel can also do many other powerful things.

More updates on its way! Stay Tuned!