Why React is Better Than Vanilla JS
React has been gaining in popularity and was recently featured on Facebook’s newsfeed as one of the best ways to structure your application code. But what exactly makes React so special? Why not use vanilla JavaScript instead? If you’re still wondering why then this article is for you! We’ll explore why React is the preferred choice of many developers, including some members of the Facebook development team, and how it stacks up against vanilla JavaScript in terms of functionality and performance.
Speed
Because of its virtual DOM, browser updates only affect parts of your app when using React. The framework helps you code faster, resulting in fewer bugs and better functionality. Also, with a large number of active developers constantly contributing to it, updates and bug fixes are regularly issued. In other words, if you build something using vanilla JS without a framework like React or AngularJS and then don’t upgrade to new software or fix security issues or bugs as they appear in browsers, your users could be vulnerable to attack by hackers — with no end in sight. And that’s just one reason why it pays to use software made for web development instead of writing everything from scratch yourself.
Code Reusability
As you’re working on an app, you don’t want to continually rewrite old pieces of code. If you find yourself copy-pasting similar code for each new feature, it might be time to consider reusing code in some form. Common methods for doing so include function libraries and class abstractions. Both have their own pros and cons; choose what works best for your use case! When deciding which approach makes more sense, consider how likely it is that a piece of code will be used more than once — if it’s highly likely, your project will benefit from building out that reusable functionality as a library or higher-order component. If not, consider making use of vanilla functions where possible instead.
Ease of Production
While JavaScript has increased in popularity and frameworks like Angular, Vue, and Ember have gained much ground on it over time, one thing hasn’t changed: JavaScript is still easier to learn than any of those. Combine that with its ubiquity on every platform and you have a framework that’s accessible to everyone — from your first-time developer intern (on your own dev team) to someone who isn’t familiar with web programming at all. In fact, considering how far JavaScript has come since its early days, it’s more accurate now to say that you can use vanilla JS instead of React! For those already familiar with JavaScript-based libraries like jQuery or Backbone — learning React should be a natural fit.
So what makes React such an easy choice for developers? Well, it’s fast because it avoids a lot of unnecessary rendering operations that are typical to other frameworks by updating only what actually needs to change. It offers an elegant yet simple solution for breaking code into separate components that keeps data flowing through your app without having to worry about things getting out of sync or redundant work happening unnecessarily. Last but not least, there are great tools for beginners and experts alike including boilerplates and even IDE plugins for seamless development throughout your project’s lifecycle. These attributes alone make using React worth considering when deciding between vanilla JS vs react js.
Ease of Maintenance
Adding a new feature to your site or improving performance can be tricky with vanilla JavaScript. When you have classes that depend on each other, it’s easy to break something by making a seemingly unrelated change. You can get into trouble really quickly when using plain JS, especially if there are many developers contributing code and changing code at different times. With React, since there’s always a clear separation between components, changes won’t accidentally cascade through your app and cause other issues to crop up throughout your entire site. And you won’t have to worry about overlapping CSS either, because everything is in its own component with its own stylesheet that’s easy to manage and override.
Ease of Debugging
When things go wrong, you need to be able to easily troubleshoot your code. Because libraries make it difficult for you to see what’s going on, many of us make our debugging more difficult than it needs to be. Any time you get stuck with a problem in vanilla JavaScript, there’s a very good chance that someone else has run into it too (like here). But when you rely on big libraries like Angular or Ember, both documentation and Stack Overflow can fail you — since so few people use those frameworks. That’s why many developers have started using npm packages like react-addons-perf or even SpectatorJS in order to bring more performance metrics into their apps.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to upgrade from plain JavaScript, it’s easy to make a case for choosing React. It introduces a number of useful paradigms that make your applications easier to maintain, and (eventually) easier to scale. If you’re interested in learning more about how these paradigms work and fit together, be sure to check out our other guides on redux and flux.
