ReactJS is an open-source JS library that has gained a lot of popularity in much less time. After Node.js, developers are preferring ReactJS as the top frontend framework to work with, as per the Stackoverflow developers survey 2022. Though React is easy to learn and implement, but not without its best practices. Click here for more information on react best practices to follow.
Using ReactJS is a good alternative for developers while developing single page apps, or even enterprise apps. Following reactjs best practices like using reusable code, following code structure, not duplicating the code, etc., can be helpful. Here we will discuss nine important react best practices in detail
Let’s begin then!
React Best Practices for easy React development
Here’s the list of nine different React best practices that are compulsory to follow while working with React libraries. These practices help with a smooth development process.
- Keeping the components small
- Organization of files
- Avoiding the use of state
- Consolidating duplicate code
- Grouping By on the basis of File Type
- Follow the Clean Code Approach and DRY
- Reduce Using stateful components
- Follow proper naming conventions
Let’s begin learning more about each practice in detail.
Keeping the components small
Keeping the React components small is amongst the best React practices that can create wonders. Implementing this feature is quite easy and can help you write clean code. It makes code maintainable too. Helps in retaining the sanity of the code.
If there are more than 10 lines on your React component, then consider it to be too big. Generally, skilled developers split huge components into different smaller components. And, they also avoid framing huge components.
Also, components are reusable in React. Hence, instead of writing components for different functions, just search for components with similar functions. Reusing those components is easy, instead of writing a whole block of code which fulfils similar functions.
Huge components are hard to maintain, update and debug. Also, it consumes a lot of time, resources and developers in creating one large component. Ultimately decreasing the productivity rate.
On the other hand, small components are easy to make, debug, maintain and update. Hence, developers should make different components for different functions.
Organization of files
Beginner developers may make mistakes in file organisation in the React app. A proper structure of files and folders is important in a React app, but is also important in other apps. It helps in understanding apps better and updating the app also becomes easier.
When the project starts growing, adding or creating an asset folder keeps the top-level CSS, font files, and images. One helper folder can hold other files for different functionalities.
You can maintain a different folder for keeping all components of the React app. Even subfolders for minor components can be made. Make a file hierarchy that is easy to understand and contains files and components that are easy to find not only by you but by other team members too.
Following this process can easily make the organisation of files easy and also makes upgrading the future project easier. Creating easy files like package.json, index.js, etc. helps in easy navigation of files and folders.
Avoiding the use of state
ReactJS state keeps the track of data, when it is changed, the state triggers React components to re-render. When developing a React app, avoid using state because the more the state is used, the more it keeps track of your app. It might later interfere with the performance of your app.
There’s one way of decreasing the use of State, and it is by declaring it when necessary. For example, if you are getting user data from any API, try storing the whole user object in state rather than storing specific properties.
Don’t’ do this:
const[user_name,set_user_name] = useState(‘’)
const [pwd, set_password] = useState('')
Do this:
const [user, set_user]= useState ({})
Consolidating duplicate code
A simple rule for different code is keeping the code brief and concise. React best practices also suggest developers to keep their code small and brief. One of the ways to keep the code small is to avoid duplication of the code – Don’t Repeat Yourself.
You can make this practice work by scrutinising coding patterns and the similarities in the codes. Do not repeat the code, instead search for components that serve the same functions. You can easily use the reusable components in your app and add features in your code.
Grouping By on the basis of File Type
The root directory is still an src directory. Everything any client will see on the screen is still going in that folder. We still keep the index.js and app.js files in the root of this directory and then have directories that represent the parts of constituents of the app like context, css, components, hooks, and also tests.
As the way of our project is set, it depends on the requirements of the apps and how to implement it. The basic structure of the app depends on how the app requires it. Same kind of files should be kept under one folder. Ultimately the file structure should be made easy to navigate. How to do that is upto the choice of the developer and their team.
Follow the Clean Code Approach and DRY
DRY means Don’t Repeat Yourself. It is a popular best practice amongst reactjs developers. In this method, one has to ensure that they are not repeating the variable names, functions, classes, methods, and also objects. Duplicating or repeating yourself leads complexity in the code and invites errors while compiling and testing.
Additionally, DRY helps in reducing the development time by giving authentically vital points. If you provide registration from every user, you can make a single component and also implement it all over the source code by using DRY. This will ultimately help you write code that is bug free and also performs repetitive tasks easily without creating errors.
This can be done by looking for trends and superficial similarities inside the code. If you discover any, it’s probable that you’re duplicating code and that there’s room to do away with overlap. Most certainly, a little rewriting would make it clearer. This largely depends on React’s reusability concept.
Reduce Using stateful components
As the practice name suggests, stateful components are used to store state of the component information and also provide necessary content. On the other side, stateless components do not have memory and it also doesn’t provide any context.
Stateless components have less code that is to be executed as compared to stateful components. It increases the performance of the apps as it takes less time to execute stateless components. Hence, reducing the use of stateful components is also a best practice that developers shouldn’t miss to follow while working on React projects.
Follow proper naming conventions
Developers can use PascalCase while naming different components for differentiating components from other JSX files. For instance: NavMenu, SuccessButton, TextField, etc.
One can use camelCase naming convention for declaring functions inside components, for e.g.: showElement(), handleInput(), etc.
Final Words
These 9 are primary React best practices to follow while working on React projects. These practices are easy to implement and also helps in making the React development process easy.
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