Table of Content
INTRODUCTION
Every frontend developer who is working to create highly interactive user interfaces will have React in this toolkit. ReactJS has become a very popular JavaScript library amongst both developers and business-app owners because of its amazing features and UI components. While the developers are working on the React-powered creations, they need to be careful to do things if they want to completely tune with the React best practices. By following some expert advice practices, every frontend developer will be able to keep the code well-organized. Besides, ReactJs being a Facebook product, it allows the developers to integrate it with many other interesting components. The app developer can even create his own components and make them available for the entire React community. To make this all possible, every developer, be it a fresher or an expert, should follow some ReactJs best practices. And on this blog, we are going to discuss such top 8 practices of ReactJs -
8 REACTJS BEST PRACTICES TO FOLLOW IN YEAR 2021
Here are some of the ReactJs best practices any frontend developer who can follow -
1. Reusability
As per the rule, one function means one component, so one can definitely improve the component’s reusability. This means that the developer must skip trying to create a new component for a function, especially when there is a component present for that particular function. Instead, the developer must resume the components across the project or across multiple projects, to achieve consistency and to contribute to the ReactJs community.
Besides this, if the developer thinks that any particular component has become huge and it is becoming difficult to maintain it, then the app developer must break it up into required smaller components. For instance, the development team can go further and create a Button component that has the capability to handle icons. Then, each time they need a button, they will have a component to use. This proves that by creating more modular, the team will be able to cover many different cases with the same piece of coding. So, the developer needs to aim somewhere in the middle to get a component that can be used in multiple places and it must be abstract enough, but not overly complex.
2. Small & Function-specific Components
React is a technology that makes it possible to have huge components that have the capability to execute various tasks. But the best way one can design a component is to keep them small so each of these components corresponds to one function. Basically, one component must render a specific part of the page or modify its particular nature. So, the balance between creating multi-function-specific components and creating one concise component can be different from company to company. All and all, a company can have multiple components and recombine them to achieve the expected result.
3. CSS in JavaScript
When the frontend developer starts working on any particular project, one of the most common practices that are followed is keeping all the CSS styles in one SCSS file. Developers use a global prefix to prevent any name collision that can be possible. But, when the project scales up, this solution may not be entirely feasible. Therefore, the developers need any of the libraries available in the market to write CSS in JavaScript. Glamorous and EmotionJS are the two most popularly used CSS in JS libraries. EmotionJS is a library that can generate complete CSS files, after installing it using npm.
4. Consolidate Duplicate Code
One of the most common rules of code that every developer keeps in mind is to brief and concise it as possible. It is the same with ReactJS technology. Here also the developers need to keep the code precise and brief. One way to avoid code duplication is Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY). This approach can be achieved by any ReactJs developer by scrutinizing the code for similarities and patterns. The developer can definitely rewrite the code to make it more concise. But this completely depends on the reusability principle in ReactJs. For instance, if the ReactJs developer wants to add multiple buttons that come with icons, they can simply use a component IconButton called instead of adding the markup to each and every button.
5. Component Name After the Function
Naming the component after the function is one of the best ideas. It helps the developers easily recognize the components. For instance, ProductTable is a name that clearly specifies what the component does. This is important as if the developer names the component on the basis of the code, then it can create confusion in the future. For instance, it is advisable to give the component Avatar name for users, authors, or in comments. Instead, if the developers name it AuthorAvatar in the context then he would be limiting the utility of that particular component.
6. Isolate Stateful Components for Rendering
When it comes to ReactJs, its components can be stateless or stateful. Stateful components have the capability to store information about the state of the component and can also offer the necessary context. While stateless components are something that has no memory and are not capable enough to provide context to different parts of the UI. They can only receive inputs from the parent component and can return JSX elements. They are reusable and scalable and are just like pure functions in JavaScript. And one of the best ReactJs practices is to keep the stateful data-loading logic apart from the stateless rendering logic. It is the best option to have one stateful component that can load data and another stateless component that can help in displaying that data. By following this concept, the developers can reduce the complexity of the components. And the new version of React comes with a feature named React Hooks, which helps the development team in writing stateful function-related components.
7. Component Names must be in Capitals
If the developer is using JSX (a JavaScript extension), then the names of the components they create need to start with uppercase letters. For example, the developers need to name components as SelectButton and not as selectbutton. This is essential to make JSX identify them differently from all the default HTML tags. The earlier versions of ReactJS had a list of all built-in names that were used to differentiate them from the custom names. But, now the list has been updated and has got scrapped and capitals have become the norm.
8. Single Folder for Similar Component Files
Keeping all files related to anyone component in one folder with the styling files is necessary. When there is a small component used by a particular component, then it means that the smaller components must be kept together in one folder. This is the hierarchy that must be followed to make the understanding of ReactJs components. Besides this, the large components of the ReactJs have their own folder and all the smaller parts of those large components are divided into sub-folders. By doing so, the developers can easily extract code to any other project or can even modify the code when it is required. For example, in the Form component, there are different pieces like icons, texts, images, CSS files, and any other sub-components that are related to the Form component must reside in the same folder.
CONCLUSION
As seen in this blog, when the developers follow the best practices of ReactJs, developing the most unique and user-friendly applications. These practices can help the ReactJs development companies to put their projects on the right track and eliminate any potential problems that can occur in the future development process. Therefore, following such practices can be very beneficial.
