Whether you are a beginner or an experienced developer, there are always improvements to be made when it comes to writing React apps. Having a good understanding of the different types of components can make a big difference in the quality of your code, as well as your overall development process. In this article, we’ll look at some of the best practices to follow when developing React apps.
Components can be stateful or stateless
Whether you are starting a React app or converting legacy code, understanding the difference between stateful and stateless components is crucial. Each type has different resource and usage requirements. These differences are important when designing interfaces and determining which type of component is best for your application.
Using stateless components is an excellent choice for presentational components that render only the same thing every time. This type of component is mutable and can easily be tested. They also have the ability to be reused. You can even use stateless components inside stateful components in a React app.
Stateful components are a useful solution for apps that respond to user input. These components keep track of changes to a javascript object called state. They then re-render to reflect the changes to the React web app. This can add nuance to the user interface. However, this type of component is also a challenge to test.
On the other hand, stateless functional components are easier to understand and use. These components are written as JavaScript functions and don’t take in state. This makes them a good choice for representing props.
Both types of components can use props. Props are objects used to pass information from one component to another. You can use props to pass global variables from a parent component to children. However, you should not use props to change props. This is risky, and could lead to huge amounts of method calls.
A common programming pattern for state management is using a stateful parent component. This allows you to isolate state management from other components in the app. You can also use a context to replace an external state management library.
Style-Component
Having a Style-Component in your React app can make your code easier to write, follow and maintain. Style-Components provide a way to write CSS inside component files. The style-components library is one of the most popular libraries available, and there’s a lot of community support for it.
The Style-Component API provides many options for writing better react apps. These options include importing style definitions into a component, using props, and storing styles in a separate file.
The Style-Component API also includes a createGlobalStyles function, which allows declaration of styles and global application of styles. This function removes the limitations of component-scoped styling. It is also possible to declare a base style and reuse it for all your React components.
Style-Components also support Props, which can dynamically change your style. Props are used in place of classes in CSS, and can be used for things that cannot be defined by a CSS class. Props are useful for things like animations and media queries, and can be used to style styled components.
Inline styles are another popular method for styling React applications. Inline styles do not have the flexibility of other styles, and are not scoped to a particular component. This makes them great for prototyping applications. However, they do not support basic CSS features, such as pseudo selectors and media queries. They do however limit your access to the style.
CSS-in-JS is an extension of the CSS-in-CSS concept that allows you to style your React component at the component level. This includes a CSS file that has scoped local names, and a style> tag that attaches to the DOM node. It also supports the CSS Module, which is a CSS file with scoped local names that attaches to the DOM node.
Higher-Order Component
Using Higher-Order Components (HOCs) in React apps makes your application easier to build and maintain. It’s a functional programming pattern based on the idea of decomposing a component into its component parts. Then, composing those parts into a new component.
Higher-Order Components are a nifty React feature that allows you to share logic among components. In the case of the search feature, for example, you could implement it in three different components. But, with one component, you can cover all the edge cases.
Higher-Order Components also let you inject additional props into a component before it is rendered. In other words, they are component factories.
Higher-Order Components can be used in conjunction with React’s Context API. This helps to solve repetitive logic, such as fetching data from different components. Besides, you can easily share your logic between components. Higher-Order Components also let developers avoid duplicate code and handle cross-cutting concerns.
Higher-Order Components do not alter existing components, but rather, they extract code from other components and inject it into the new component. The result is a decorated component. You can also configure the component from the outside.
Higher-Order Components have some pitfalls, but they are a valuable React feature. You should avoid using them in the render method, as the component cannot be preserved across renders. You should also avoid nuating the component, since you’ll be creating a non-reusable component.
Higher-Order Components use the “Component => Component” convention, which helps to make sure they are reusable. It’s also a good idea to use HOCs outside the component definition, so you can take advantage of component patterns. This helps maintain cohesive UI building blocks.
Hooks
Using Hooks in React apps is an easy way to improve reusability and productivity. Hooks are functions that allow you to extract stateful logic from components and run it as part of the React lifecycle. They are not only reusable but also easy to share. They are completely opt-in and backwards compatible. This means that you can use them without changing your code.
Hooks allow you to extract stateful logic from components without having to create a class instance. Hooks also let you break your state into smaller functions. You can even use Hooks to run actions as part of the React lifecycle. You can use Hooks in conjunction with other components to perform side effects and prevent bugs.
Hooks are also useful for setting and storing data in your component. You can use the useState Hook to create a dynamic piece of code that will re-render your component whenever data changes. You can also use the useDeferredValue hook to defer any updates until a more critical time. The useDeferredValue hook takes a value and returns a new value once an urgent render is performed.
Hooks are an important concept to understand because they solve a variety of React-related problems. They are easy to understand and implement, and they will help you write code that’s more robust and easier to read.
Hooks are also a good way to maintain a certain order for your components. You can create a custom hook that calls another custom hook whenever a component’s child component is re-rendering. This keeps the code flow consistent and helps improve readability.
If you’re not sure what Hooks are, check out the Hooks at a Glance documentation on the React website. It’s a great place to start learning how Hooks work.
ErrorBoundary
Using error boundaries in React apps helps you prevent errors. Basically, an error boundary is a wrapper around the entire component tree and provides an error UI for users. You can use error boundaries to catch errors during rendering, as well as logging javascript or JavaScript errors.
Error Boundaries are a part of React 16. They can catch errors that occur in the lifecycle methods of a child component or a whole component tree. They also display a fallback UI for users in the event that an error occurs. In addition, they also help remove cryptic errors.
Error Boundaries work like try-catch in imperative code. They catch errors in the lifecycle methods of a child and then display a fallback UI. However, they do not catch errors in asynchronous code. They will not catch errors that are caused by server-side rendering.
When using error boundaries in React, the error boundary will call resetKeys when it handles an error. If resetKeys changes, ErrorBoundary will call prevResetKeys. Then, it will re-render children.
Error boundaries are a great way to prevent errors from breaking your app. It’s important to note that errors will still occur if an error is thrown in an event handler. But, it’s possible to keep the error status inside the state. If you do, your users will receive a detailed error message.
You can also use error boundaries in React to isolate errors in different sections of your application. You can do this by creating multiple error boundaries. Each of these error boundaries will have a counter. If a counter reaches the specified value, the component will throw an error.
