React Basics for Beginners

Learn why React is the go-to JavaScript library for modern web development, solving key challenges with the virtual DOM and reusable components.

React is a JavaScript library used for building user interfaces. It was created by Facebook and has quickly become the most popular frontend JavaScript library.

If you’re looking for a job as a web developer, knowing React is a must. It’s widely used by companies large and small to build modern, interactive web applications.

The problem React solves

Traditionally, when creating web pages, web developers marked up their content using HTML and then added styling with CSS.

Then, some interaction was added by sprinkling JavaScript.

This worked well when interaction was nice to have on the web. But now, it is expected for many sites and all apps. React puts interactivity first while still using the same technology

Before React, web developers had to manually update the DOM (Document Object Model) every time something changed on a page.

With vanilla JavaScript, you would typically have to manually manipulate the DOM, which could be slow and error-prone.

For example, if you wanted to change the text of a button when clicked, you’d do it like this with vanilla JS:

const button = document.getElementById('myButton');
button.addEventListener('click', function() {
  button.textContent = 'Clicked!';
});

This could get complex and inefficient, especially in large applications.

React introduced a smarter way to handle this, which is by using a virtual DOM.

It handles DOM updates by only updating the parts of the page that have changed, using the virtual DOM as a lightweight copy of the real DOM.

This makes React much faster and more efficient than using vanilla JavaScript alone. And you don’t have to worry about manually updating the DOM elements.

Components

React also introduces the concept of components. A component is a small, reusable piece of code that can represent anything from a button to a complete page.

Components help organize your code and make it easier to maintain. Instead of having to write a bunch of code for the same element multiple times, you can create one component and use it wherever needed.

For instance, you can create a button component in React and use the same component to display different variations like a Warning button, a Danger button, and a Success button.

For example, Netflix’s website uses React. The interactive parts of the site, like the video player and the content carousel, are built using React components. This helps them provide a smooth user experience, even as their platform grows and scales.

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