In the five years since React was introduced by Facebook developers, more and more industry players such as Netflix, Yahoo and Atlassian are using it. What these enterprises have in common is a need to handle vast amounts of data that changes over time, especially when a company’s value proposition depends on flawless handling of streaming video.
HOW DOES REACTJS WORK?
First of all, it’s important to understand the differences between the new React Native framework and the original React.js library.
The original React.js was created as a JavaScript library, primarily as a front-end interface that ran on your server. React creates composable user interfaces with reusable components that react to data changes. Instead of working with templates or HTML directives, React components call a render method that produces a string of markup, then injects this directly into your document. Whenever the data changes, React calls a new render method.
As it grew, it expanded capabilities for building full web applications. Creative programmers discovered how React.js solves problems of better handling of dynamic data for faster response times. It lets you design simple views for every application state. React.js, as its name implies, responds to data changes instantly and renders the right components for a smooth user experience.
HOW DOES REACT NATIVE WORK?
Initially, problem-solving with React.js was limited because it’s not a full mobile framework. In response, React Native was released in 2015. React Native compiles to native app components so you can build your apps in native iOS or native Android. It’s committed to the “learn once, write anywhere” model, although you have to come in with some app-building experience.
In addition to having strong JavaScript knowledge, you should have experience developing wrappers for native components and APIs in the target natural language. Of course, you can still use React.js for building out these components because React Native implements React.js behind the scenes.
WHAT DOES REACT.JS SOLVE OTHER THAN X-PLATFORM?
Netflix programmers explained why they chose React early last year. The problem was that users, particularly those on mobile platforms, tend to have variability in their networks. Latency and slow load times were causing users to bounce, even though Netflix didn’t have any control over the networks they used. Users needed a faster way to download and process initial markup, scripts and style sheets as data streams changed. On top of network latency, the app startup performance was slowed down by DOM elements based on the parsed JSON payloads.
What attracted Netflix to React.js was the way it handled customized user interactions and rendered code for A/B testing of its streaming services. Netflix saw huge improvements in the initial load time of its applications, the performance during runtime and rapid scalability of new apps. React.js delivered isomorphic JavaScript (on both the server and the client), virtual DOM rendering with a diff algorithm and support for compositional design patterns using Mixin APIs to deal with frequent changes in the data.
WHERE CAN YOU GO TO LEARN MORE?
Here’s a great React.js tutorial directly from Facebook developers, with a link to source code on GitHub. One thing you can be sure of is that your apps will have to handle more data, from more sources and in tighter refresh cycles. You should get ahead of the curve now to avoid server overloads and downtime from the flood of data coming to an app near you, sooner than you think.