React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
- Declarative: React makes it painless to create interactive UIs. Design simple views for each state in your application, and React will efficiently update and render just the right components when your data changes. Declarative views make your code more predictable, simpler to understand, and easier to debug.
- Component-Based: Build encapsulated components that manage their own state, then compose them to make complex UIs. Since component logic is written in JavaScript instead of templates, you can easily pass rich data through your app and keep state out of the DOM.
- Learn Once, Write Anywhere: We don't make assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, so you can develop new features in React without rewriting existing code. React can also render on the server using Node and power mobile apps using React Native.
Why React? The main purpose of this article isn’t to explore the why — it is a heated topic and there are plenty of articles out there offering (often strong) opinions on why to choose one library or framework over another (Comparison of Component Libraries,
Some of the reasons you might look at moving from Angular 1 to React are due to the performance and complexity issues surrounding Angular 1, which React addresses with features such as:
to benefit from more code-reuse by using it in conjunction with React Native or by making use of server-side rendering; to move to a more modular architecture to avoid similar migration headaches in the future; to adopt a library (and supporting ecosystem) that has had significant and widespread uptake compared to Angular 1, bringing a large and innovative community around it; or to simply keep up with the rate of change in the front-end world, giving your company the best chance to hire developers in the long term. Whatever your reasoning, I strongly believe you can’t go very wrong adopting React, and I consider moving to React as much of a prudent business decision as a technical one.
