React has been drawing a lot of interest lately – although it is not new. However, it is becoming more and more important in terms of user needs and expectations. In this post, we explain what React is, how it can positively affect your marketing and why it is impossible to imagine modern website design without it.
What is React?
React is a very popular JavaScript framework written by Facebook. This front-end library enables fast and easy development of modern and interactive user interfaces. A virtual DOM (Document Object Model), which is easier to manipulate than standard DOMs, enables the rapid implementation of interactions.
The basis of React is Javascript XML (JSX), a Javascript extension that can be expanded by XML elements (Extensible Markup Language).
Why should you use React?
One of React's biggest assets is the already mentioned virtual DOM. In contrast to normal DOMs, changes can be made without affecting other elements of the website or keeping those effects at a minimum and thereby reducing maintenance efforts a great deal. The result is a fluently behaving application, even if major measures or databases run in the background.
React gives developers a lot of freedom – it is "only" a library. However, React can also be combined with other libraries. The React components and their composition determine what is displayed to the user. The components can be displayed both on the web and natively on various mobile devices – ensuring maximum flexibility at the cost of very little to no effort.
Figuratively speaking, React is placed between the component and the DOM. It only uses a representation of the usual DOM with the Virtual DOM. As a result, access to the components as well as updates are much faster. The developer is therefore mainly concerned with the design of the UI components (user interface). The clear advantage: the components are reusable. Once properly implemented, they can be used over and over and easily customized as needed. Due to the focus on components, the entire application does not have to be checked immediately after an update or other if other changes have been made to individual elements. React components can also be easily integrated into existing applications.
React provides enormous flexibility and requires significantly less effort. It works stably and has already proven itself in a large number of projects, including major well-known companies such as Facebook.
