React Native: Modern Day App Development Framework For Building Cross Platform Applications

Note: The focus of this blog is on what makes React Native a modern-day mobile app platform, not how it is compared with other frameworks or libraries.

In today’s digital age, mobile apps have become one of the significant platforms for users to stay connected with the brand and utilize its valuable services. For the innumerable times, an application is accessed by users for various parameters like, for a smooth transition from one page to another, to quickly access the brand’s products, to quickly download the data and for many more individual purposes. Companies are finding it imperative to have a mobile application as a significant part of their core platform strategy. Whereas there are businesses, who are primarily driven by mobile apps, Uber and Dominos are the best example for it.Initially, mobile apps required to have separate development effort for Android and iOS. Thanks to React Native, the issue is effortlessly ruled out through the native route. The most beloved part of React Native is it does not at all comprise on the quality the application. Airbnb, Netflix, Bloomberg and Instagram are the best examples to understand its success.

The Basics

React is an open source JavaScript library for building painless interactive UIs and the key is the use of “components.” When you start building your application using React, you are required to break up your application into components with each representing a single view of your application. Components are one of the significant ways to iterate your code as you are not required to go through hundreds of lines. Simply go through the React component you want to modify.

Components Allow You To Reuse Your Code

For example, if you have created a component “textbox,” you can use that component every time you need it, all you are required to do is include it in your new view.  Flexibility and Efficiency are features that make React a powerful JS library. So, consider porting this same idea to the native application.

Why React – Open-Source JavaScript Library Has Become So Popular

• DOM API is hard to work with whereas, React provides the platform to work with the React browser in a friendly way than the real browser.

• React let the programmers to declaratively define their UI and model the state of those interfaces. It means, developers can describe the interface like a function. When the transaction will be going happen to that state, where React will take care of updating the UI based on that.

• React is a JavaScript library and it is very small API to learn, where you are only required to understand how to use a few functions of it. With its constant use, your JavaScript skills will make you a better React developer. In a few hours of productive learning a JavaScript developer can become a fruitful React developer.

There’s a lot more than the above-mentioned points. Now let me get you through the reasons behind the rising popularity of React. One reason is its Virtual DOM. As per the React’s official definition, it’s a JavaScript library for building UI. However, it’s vital to understand the two different parts of this definition:

• React is not a framework, it’s a JS Library. Just like other libraries, it requires more libraries to form any solution. React focuses on just one thing and on doing that thing very well.

• The thing that React does perfectly in the second part of its definition is building User Interfaces. A UI is anything that let the user interact with a machine. User Interfaces are everywhere, from the computer mouse to the simple button on the microwave oven. If the device we are trying to interface can comprehend the JavaScript, then we can use the React to describe UI for it.

As web browsers can understand the JavaScript, so we can use React to describe Web User Interfaces. Without React or such similar libraries, we would be required to develop UIs manually and that too with the use of native Web Apps and JavaScript.

“React is declarative,” let me tell you it is so true. We can specifically describe User Interfaces with React and tell it what we want instead of how to do it. React precisely take care of that how and translate declarative descriptions to actual the UI in the browser.

React Design Concepts Are The Reasons Behind Driving Its Popularity

1. Composable, Reusable and Stateful Components

In React, User Interfaces are using components, consider the components as simple functions. You can reuse these functions as needed and compose bigger functions from smaller ones. Components are similar to the function; you can reuse a single component in multiple User Interfaces. Components can contain other components.

2.  The Nature of Reactive Updates

When the state of a component changes, the User Interface that represents also changes as well. This modification in the description of the UI should be reflected in the device you’re working with.

Whereas in a browser, we are required to regenerate the HTML views in the DOM. With React, you are not at all required to worry about “how to reflect and when to take these changes”; React automatically update the DOM when it is required and state the changes.

3. Virtual Representation

Usually, we rely on the power of JavaScript to generate HTML, rather than enhancing HTML to make it work with the data. Rest other JavaScript frameworks try to enhance the HTML, just like Angular extends HTML with conditionals, loops and others.

Whenever the data is received from the server, we actually need something more than HTML to work with that data. It’s either the power of JavaScript to generate the HTML or making use of an enhanced HTML. Both the approaches have their own pros and cons. React prefers the latter one with the claim of more advantages.

Making use of JavaScript to render HTML makes it so easy for React to keep a virtual representation of HTML in memory that is also referred as Virtual DOM. React makes use of the Virtual DOM to render an HTML tree virtually first and then state changes. This procedure is known as Tree Reconciliation and it is the finest Web Development thing that has happened ever since AJAX!

Take Away

React Native is currently updated to version 0.48 and it is growing very fast with the support of large and supportive community. Reacts members are creating new components and modules for anyone to use. In the near future, it won’t be surprising if React Native becomes a framework company to build native apps.

Author Signature

If you are an entrepreneur or a startup company and if you are looking to cutting costs and speed up the development process, without compromising on quality or performance, then hire React Native developers from Bacancy Technology. We are renowned react native mobile app development company and we have already developed numbers of cross platform native applications for Android & iOS mobile platforms.