Top 10 Mistakes ReactJS Developers Make
Hi there! We are all human and we all fallible, this happens even when working with ReactJS. Often developers make mistakes due to deadlines, and when there is not enough mastery and knowledge and pressure from the customer. This is true for both beginners and top-level developers. Therefore, in this article, we will describe the top 10 common mistakes and how to avoid them. Let’s start!
React was made by a Facebook developer and first used in news feedback in 2011. It is also intended to be used in tandem with other libraries. Thus, part of its success is versatility. React is very easy to use, and it touches on one of the most frustrating things – creating complex user interfaces. This allows your applications to effectively make changes to HTML and XML documents. React uses a virtual DOM that maximizes efficiency by re-rendering nodes as needed. This means much more efficient rendering and easier to work with the quick. But given all the benefits of React, even a professional can make mistakes for the reasons I mentioned above.
Moving on to the most popular bugs, I’ll start with more architectural questions.
1. All novice developers very often forget about optimization. In React, although it is called reactive, it is actually not reactive in itself. It will run very slowly if you don’t pay enough attention to it. I highly recommend that you constantly describe absolutely all the conditions for updating your components, try to describe their typing. Because the quality of the code depends on this, as well as how your application will work.
2. The next point of architectural mistakes is the lack of components that are often written. Any developer who wants to make a new project very often makes large spaghetti codes from one page, which is very difficult to figure out. This is the worst approach you can think of. Starting from the very beginning, you need to create as large a base of reused components as possible that will help you to optimize, simplify support and test your application. Keep this in mind and try to reuse your code as often as possible. An example of this would be a simple button. In the future, your designer will definitely want to change it. And it will be much easier to change this in one place than to change throughout the application. This is the most basic example. Also, do not forget that all these reused components must be polished to perfection, covered with tests, all update conditions are described and things like that. This will turn your application into a small constructor. You will reuse components very often and easily.
3. One of the very popular mistakes is forgetting to use keys when we want to render a list of components. What is the essence of this error? When we try to display a list of components, we do not specify a key. Initially, the React creates a virtual DOM tree and assigns its own unique key to each tag in order to make it easier to find and identify the components that need to be optimized and changed. React always does it automatically, except for specific lists. On the lists, you must specify which unique parameter will be the key. It is also bad practice to assign the key to the index of a given array. Because you will delete one element, and in all subsequent ones it will change the index.
4. When working with complex data types, re-create objects or lists. This is necessary for better functionality.
5. Many people forget that a state function is not asynchronous. The usual class state consists of hooks. Therefore, there are situations when we want to cause a change in state twice in a row. With such a call, React tries to automate this and do as little manipulation as possible with the DOM tree and increase our productivity. But when we send a new state to it, it will optimize that. Therefore, if your function or state must depend on the previous one, use the syntax through a call back. Because of this, everything will work as we expect.
6. Use context more often. With context, you can pass data through the component tree instead of manually passing properties at each level. So if you have multiple components that need data, use context. If you only have one child component, use composition.
7. Use ref references to interact with the child. We can use refs to activate animation, select text, or control focus. For example, to set focus in React, we can refer to DOM elements.
8. Use static type checking. JavaScript is a dynamically and weakly typed language, a lot of problems go from incorrect types. Various type checking tools can be used to solve this problem. Flow is a well-known and beginner-friendly option. It allows you to annotate React variables, functions, and components with custom syntax and makes it easy to catch errors quickly.
9. Use fragments instead of divs. Often we have a lot of components, which we have to wrap in a div because render only allows one component to be returned. Because of this, we add an extra HTML element to the document.
10. Writing your own libraries instead of existing open-source ones. Of course, while you are just learning, writing a lot of your own libraries will allow you to grow faster and get better at it, but if you want to be on the cutting edge of programming development, you just have to try at least every open-source library that solves your problems. Just ask the search robots if there are any libraries that solve your problem – they are great at answering such questions. You will be able to improve existing developments or understand how to solve a problem much better by the example of problems in existing libraries.
Conclusion
After reading this article, you learned about frequent mistakes that are common in developer codes and programs in general. I described their decisions and explained why they are so important. Try to work without mistakes and improve your skills!