What is React and why it can make website development cheaper

Reast is a library responsible for building the user interface of a site. Moreover, such an interface, where there is not only text, but also interactive elements, dynamics, and various events.

What are we talking about? About the ability to like, for example. Or send the completed contact form. Or work with maps stuffed with infographics. Or with the administrative panel in an online store, where a product, a basket, and the process of sending a payment have several states.

So, if one user action on the site should lead to some changes, then these changes will occur according to certain scenarios - the same scripts. To make the development of a site with a large amount of JavaScript code faster and more convenient for the developer, React is used.

The more complex the site, the more likely it is to make it without the use of React and its main competitors - the Angular and Vue.js frameworks.

React was born in 2013. It was invented by Facebook in the process of introducing chat into its social network. The chat had to work on all pages, but at the same time not affect or be affected by other interface elements.

But before that, there was an idea that the Internet of the future should not consist of dull static HTML and CSS, as in the mid-1990s, but become much more active and more fun. To achieve this, we needed a language with simple rules, accessible primarily not to programmers, but to interface designers and curious Internet users.

Something similar to Java, but not as complicated. Even Python was a contender for such a language, but after a series of renames and running around timelines, JavaScript appeared under the leadership of Brendan Ike.

Any web page, if you can read its code, are objects, as if nested in each other. For example, a page consists of a head area for the title, styles, font size, and other technical information, and a body area for the main content. It turns out such a branching tree of HTML and CSS objects, which is called the DOM (Document Object Model).

But the problem is that the classic DOM does not provide for the creation of dynamic interfaces, so the JavaScript executed on the pages slows down its rendering. But React suggests that you first create a lighter simulation than the DOM, which is called the Virtual DOM, change only those objects in this copy that are affected by user actions, and apply these changes to the real DOM.

For example, if the React site has a chat, then the browser will not refresh the page after each message sent.

 - Reduced server load and development time. The performance of the site increases: pages open faster and the interface responds to user actions. If a regular web application, upon a request from a browser, returns HTML markup with CSS to it so that the browser renders the page, then in the case of React applications, the browser first downloads a set of scripts that run on the user's device. This takes the load off the server and improves performance.

 - It is not necessary to develop the entire site on React if dynamic blocks occupy only a small part of it. While static pages work as usual, we can make a specific block in React and insert scripts so that they only run in it. There are companies that years later rewrote their product on React. This transition does not have to be done right away, but it can be more convenient from a development point of view.

 - Compared to regular sites, React sites have a cleaner architecture that is easier to detect and fix bugs and easier to maintain. The developer is in control of data flow, markup, and styling, and is ideally familiar with programming patterns that make building applications faster and more flexible.

 - If the front-end and back-end development teams describe in advance in the documentation the format for receiving and sending data between parts of the application, then they can work in parallel: while the server part is being developed, front-end developers based on the documentation imitate the data that will come from the server.

JavaScript turns a simple website into a useful working tool. But it will cost you more if the team takes a classic approach to web development. The Devox Software team https://devoxsoftware.com/technology/react-js-development-services/ that knows React will save you money.

This library is great for applications with a lot of interactive elements and allows the developer to work faster and have full control over what happens on the client side. If your site is supposed to have a lot of dynamic content, choose a team that knows React.

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