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What Is React?

What Is React

Date First Published: 9th October 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Development

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Advanced

Difficulty Level: 8/10

Learn more about what React is in this article.

React, also known as React.js or ReactJS, is an open-source and frontend JavaScript library used to quickly and efficiently build interactive user interfaces with much less code than JavaScript. Applications are built using reusable user interface components that can be thought of as building blocks. Once these building blocks have been assembled, they form the whole user interface. React works by creating a virtual DOM in memory, meaning that instead of directly manipulating the DOM of the browser, React creates a virtual DOM in memory, where it does all the required manipulating before making the changes in the browser DOM, improving the performance. Developers can also preview React applications in realtime as they modify the code. React is not a programming language or a framework. It is a library.

React can be plugged into an existing web app over a CDN to add interactivity to a HTML page by inserting the external JavaScript links to the React API, DOM, and component files and placing the <div> element to mark the portion where the developer wants to render the React component. React gains control over the page after adding it.

JSX

React uses a syntax representation to JavaScript called JSX (JavaScript XML). JSX was developed by Facebook as a syntax extension for JavaScript to extend HTML functionality. With JSX, there is no need to separate HTML and JS code as React allows declarative HTML to be directly written in JavaScript code.

Which Websites Use React?

Due to its ability to create fast, scalable, and efficient web-based applications, React has became popular. A few major sites that use React include:

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Netflix
  • Reddit
  • Uber
  • PayPal
  • Imgur
  • The New York Times

History

React was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook. He released an early prototype of React, called "FaxJS". It was first used on Facebook's News Feed in 2011 and later on Instagram in 2012. React is now maintained by Meta and a community of developers and companies.


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