A detailed comparison between ReactJS and JavaScript

A detailed comparison between ReactJS and JavaScript

a brief discussion about ReactJS and Javascript , Advantages and disadvantages and differences between them.

As we all know, JavaScript is a scripting or programming language, that allows us to implement complex features on web pages. It is used for front-end development of web pages. But in today’s world, websites and applications are becoming increasingly dynamic and complex. As a result, new tools, and libraries such as React have been built to speed up the process of developing apps.

After learning JavaScript, many developers turn to React. But what does exactly mean React JS? And how it can be compared to JavaScript?

In this article, we will see an overview of React and JavaScript and the differences between both as well.

What is the impact of React and JavaScript on our daily life?

Have you ever found yourself reaching for your phone the moment you woke up? And is your first instinct to browse through your social media? And this behavior is almost universal. And the most increasing activity is on social media and web browsers, after emailing platforms.

Social media is objectively addictive because we form connections and keep in that virtual space. But aside from our human need to socialize, what tempt us to keep going back is how easy it is to use and interact with the platform. The features of these platforms allow us to update our status, upload images, communicate with friends, and consume information. It has become another universe to most of us. And we also thank the design of social media for this.

But have you ever thought about why using social media sites is so automatic to us? What technologies are behind their smooth design? And the main thing is its user interface (UI).

In this article, we will discuss a popular UI framework that is ReactJS, well-known for its capacity to build single-page applications (SPAs). We will also discuss its mother framework, i.e., JavaScript and the comparison between them.

React vs JavaScript: Differences

React is a JavaScript library used for building interactive user interfaces. It is an open-source JavaScript framework developed by Facebook to simplify UI development. React.js helps developers by providing features such as client-side routing and declarative bindings, state management, and data flow. It is used in both frontend and backend; this means it can be used to develop full-stack web applications and it has gradually become the go-to framework for modern web development within the JavaScript community.

JavaScript is a Programming Language for the Web including the features of HTML and CSS. JavaScript can calculate, manipulate, and validate data. It is used for server-side rendering and complex animations or user interactions in apps and can run in any browser.

The history of JavaScript:

JavaScript was created by Brendan Eich, at Netscape Communications in 1995. Netscape and Eich developed JavaScript as a scripting language for use with the company's flagship web browser, Netscape Navigator. It was originally named Mocha, but quickly became known as LiveScript and, later, JavaScript.

JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language, it is lightweight and cross-platform. The traditional website uses js to provide several forms of interactivity and simplicity. However,JavaScrpit has no connection with the java programming language except for some superficial syntactic similarities.

The history of ReactJS:

The inventor of react.js is Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook. It came into existence in 2011. React is influenced by the likes of XHP which is a simple HTML component framework for PHP.

How it started: Back in 2011, Facebook developers started to face some issues with code maintenance and cascading updates because of its huge increasing number of users and features grew very fast, and the challenges for the developers also increased. As the Facebook Ads app achieved an increasing number of features, the team needed more people to keep it running smoothly. The growing number of team members and app features slowed them down as a company. Over time, their app became difficult to maintain. Later, Jordan walke , build a prototype model. The first version of react is FAXJS. The first use case of React was in Facebook’s newsfeed in 2011.

Initial release:

Later Instagram was acquired by Facebook and it wanted to adopt Facebook's new technology. With time, React grew, and Facebook decided to make it open source in May 2013 at JSConf US.

Advantages of JavaScript :

Simple: The syntax of JavaScript is simple and easy. Any person can learn it very easily and use it. It is also very feasible to implement, saving developers money for developing dynamic and attractive websites.

Speed: JavaScript is usually run very fast within the client’s browser. Since it is an ‘interpreted’ language, it reduces the time required for compilation.

Interoperability: JavaScript smoothly integrates with other programming languages. Any webpage or script of another programming language can contain it.

Versatility: JavaScript is fairly open and unrestricted compared to other programming languages. Coding can be done in a heterogeneous programming style and different scenarios.

Performance: JavaScript improves the performance of websites and web applications by minimizing the code length. The codes contain less overhead with the use of various built-in functions for loops, DOM access, etc.

Disadvantages of JavaScript :

Lack of debugging: Although some HTML editors provide debugging it is not efficient as other editors like c/c++.It is difficult to find the issue as the browser doesn’t show any error.

Client-side security: Javascript is visible to the users so it can be misused by others involving malicious activity. Also, it is very easy to insert code into the site that compromises the security of data.

Single inheritance: JavaScript supports only single inheritance; doesn’t support multiple inheritances. Some programs may require these object-oriented language characteristics.

Rendering stopped: A single code error can stop the rendering of the entire JavaScript code and it shows the user as the javascript is absent

Advantages of React.js:

Declarative: React’s main benefit is its declarative programming style. It enables significant data changes that result in automatic alteration in the selected parts of user interfaces. There is no additional function that you need to perform to update your user interface.

Virtual document object model(Virtual DOM): JavaScript uses real DOM(Document object model ) which is slow. With React’s virtual DOM we can overcome the issues faced by real DOM and it improves the overall performance.

Instinctual: ReactJS is extremely instinctual in work. It provides interactivity to the layout of any UI. It enables fast and quality-assured application development that saves time for both - clients and developers.

Reusable components: ReactJS provides reusable components that developers have the authority to reuse wherever they need them. And it reduces the development effort and ensures smooth performance.

SEO friendly: It is SEO friendly because it can run on the server, rendering and returning virtual DOM as a regular webpage to the browser.

Some additional advantages are-

  • Easy to learn and use

  • Support cross-platform.

  • Support of handy tools

  • Creating Dynamic Web Applications Becomes Easier

Disadvantages of React.js:

Lack of proper documentation: React technologies updating and accelerating so fast that there is no time to make proper documentation. To overcome this issue, developers write instructions on their own with the evolving of new releases and tools in their current projects.

High speed of development: The high pace of development can be an advantage as well as a disadvantage. In case of disadvantage, it is continuously evolving It may be hard for developers to adopt all these changes such as the need for constant relearning of processes or new mechanics. some developers might not be comfortable with keeping up with such a pace.

Only covers user interfaces: ReactJS Covers only the user interface Layers of the app. You must choose some other technologies to get a complete tooling set for development in the project.

JSX: JSX (JavaScript extension) that makes the code more readable and clean can be considered an advantage but some developers consider this a barrier. Because the mix of HTML and JavaScript in JSX makes React JS much more complicated to learn.

When to use Javascript:

If you are interested in creating simple web applications that only have a few pages with little logic involved, then plain JavaScript might be the best choice.

When to use React.js

If you are building an app with a lot of interactive components that require a lot of logic or programming, then React might be the best choice.

React.js vs JavaScript: A brief explanation

React is a JavaScript library that is used for the development of user interfaces. The first step in building React applications is to write the markup for the application and render this markup into a virtual DOM. The Virtual DOM is then used as the basis for React’s rendering algorithm. On the other hand, Plain JavaScript does not need any special libraries or tooling. You need to specify what you want and it will be rendered by the browser. You can use JavaScript without any libraries or tooling at all.

However, it is difficult to achieve certain features that React provides like handling state changes or using event listeners where you have to use proxies to work properly in JavaScript.

If you want to build an interactive and user-friendly app, React might be a good option. React has many benefits like being able to group components and use them together as one unit. This allows us for more complex applications with less code.

Another benefit of React is reusable components that are independent of each other so they can be used in different apps or websites.

However, if your app doesn't need the flexibility of reusing components and the complexity of a web application, plain JavaScript might be a better option. Plain JavaScript does not have the same features as React but it is easier to learn and it has a simpler syntax than React's syntax.

Summary:

By looking at the benefits and limitations of both ReactJS and Javascript, we can conclude that we clearly can't declare which is better. The uses depend upon their characteristics. Both are usable and you can use any one of them according to your requirements. However, we can say ReactJS is growing fast and it improves the development of JavaScript-based applications, SPA’s .

The main features of ReactJS we can find are-

  • The virtual Document Object Model

  • Reusable components.

Thank you for reading this blog.Happy learning.

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