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React best practices to follow in 2021

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React is an open-source javascript library that is used for developing interactive user interfaces. While working with react it is recommended that while using react you follow react's best practices. This will help in keeping the code clean and organized. React being open source library developed by Facebook allows integration with a number of different components and developers can also create their own component and share with the community. According to Statista, react.js is the second most used web framework among developers.

Here are the React.js best practices:

1) Make the components function-specific: The components should be small and function-specific: As react allows to interact with different components and also allows to create components, but keep the components size to small and it should respond to one function only. A single component should change the particular behavior of a page. The benefit of this approach is function-specific components can be independent components and it would simplify the process of testing and maintenance. Individual small components can be used again across multiple projects. Smaller components can be updated easily. Smaller components make it easier to implement a performance optimization.

2) Reusing the Components: Reusability saves time and is crucial for development. It is really effective if the components can be reused among various projects. So writing one function for one component should be practiced as this would avoid writing the code for the same function again if the function already exists in the system. Additionally, the function could be shared in the community which would help other developers to use the code. It is also recommended to break down large components into smaller components that are troublesome to maintain.

3) Do not Duplicate your code: Stitch your code together. React's best practices requires the developer to keep the code brief and precise. Earlier we talked about reusing the code, the benefit of reusing the code is to avoid duplicating the code. The code can be analyzed to find out patterns and to eliminate the duplicated code by reusing the function component created earlier.

4)Embedding CSS in Javascript: Most Developers have the habit of writing all the CSS code into a single CSS file, however, this practice is not feasible in the long run when scaling up. React offers EmotionJS and Glamorous are widely used CSS in Javascript libraries.

5) Keep Comments to a minimum: Generally, developers tend to write comments along with code, but react to best practices say otherwise, comments should be included only when it is necessary. This will avoid congestion in the code and would make it easier to read and this would also avoid any conflict that could happen between the code and the comment while changing at a later stage.

6) Component's name should be followed after Function: Naming the component after the function makes it easier to point out the function. For instance, UserProfile will be easier to understand in place of CreatorUSerprofile. As CreatorSUerProfile is confusing and would not be used in other pieces of code due to its name.

7)Capitalising the name of Components: Another best practice of react is to capitalize the name of components if A Javascript extension is being used in the code. The reason is this will enable React to differentiate components from default HTML tags. But capitalizing is not required if you are not using Javascript extension, however, this may reduce the reusability of components for other projects.

These react best practices are aimed at providing coders and users an idea about how to code in react. As coding requires time and effort and once the code is written without having the knowledge of its best practices then it would affect the project in the long run. On the other hand, if it's a complex project or react is not your cup of tea then you can reach out to certified React Developers, as they have the habit of following all the best practices while developing the project.

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Adebisi Oluwafemi

Point 7 is not just good practice but a mandatory one. Even react pops up a warning if you don't