React is one of the most popular and widely used tools for building modern web apps right now. At least 68.9% of the developers who work on React say they enjoy using this library and plan to keep doing so. As web development is the backbone of most businesses nowadays, it’s important for us to know exactly what React is.
Let’s start this part of the post by talking about the definition of React.
What Is React?
The user interface development library called React is written in JavaScript. It is run by Facebook in collaboration with an open-source developer community. Even though React is a library and not a language, it is quite popular in the field of web development. The library appeared for the first time in May 2013, and since then it has become one of the most popular front-end libraries for web development.
A library is not the same thing as a development framework, which is a set of ideas and a plan for addressing and meeting the needs of development. A library is simply a collection of books and other materials. When building an application with React.js, you can choose from a number of different Javascript frameworks. Some examples of these frameworks are Create React App, Shards React, Redux, and React DnD.
React offers more than just UI. For example, it has extensions like Flux and React Native that help supports the application’s overall architectural components.
Recommended reading: Top 7 Best Resources to Learn React JS for Free
The 5 Things To Like About React
The React front-end development framework is now more popular than any other front-end development framework. This could happen for a few different reasons.
1. React Is Easy To Learn
Angular and Ember are “Domain-specific Languages,” which means that they are hard to learn. React, on the other hand, is easy to understand for anyone with even a basic background in programming. All you need to know to use react is the basics of CSS and HTML.
2. Improved Performance
Since React uses Virtual DOM, making web apps is faster because of it. Instead of updating all the components again, as most web apps do, Virtual DOM looks at the previous states of the components and only updates the parts of the Real DOM that have changed. Traditional web apps, on the other hand, update all of the parts at the same time.
3. High Testability
It’s very easy to test applications made with ReactJS. Since React views are functions of the state, we can change the state in the ReactJS view and then look at the output and any actions, events, functions, etc. that come from that.
4. Reusable Components
Components are the basic building blocks of every React app. Most of the time, a single app will have many different components. These parts have their own logic and controls, and they can be used over and over again in the app. Because of this, a lot less time is necessary to design the application.
5. One-way Data Flow
React follows a data flow in only one direction. This means that when making a React project, developers usually put child components inside their respective parent components. Since data only goes in one direction, it is much easier to fix bugs and figure out where a problem is in an application.
Recommended reading: Why Choose React Native for Your Mobile App Like Bloomberg or AirBnB
The 3 Significant Features Of React
React comes with important features that make it attractive to JavaScript developers. One of these is the availability of reusable React library code, which speeds up development and makes it less likely that mistakes will exist in the code.
1. JSX
Instead of the more common JavaScript, JSX is for creating templates in React. JSX is a simple JavaScript add-on that makes it possible to quote HTML and render subcomponents using HTML tag syntax. We use JavaScript to turn the HTML syntax into calls to the React Framework. We can also write in the standard JavaScript language.
2. Virtual DOM
The Real DOM is what the Virtual DOM in React is based on. The Virtual DOM is a lighter version of the Real DOM. Real DOM manipulation is much slower than virtual DOM manipulation. When the status of an object changes, Virtual DOM will only change the representation of that object in the real DOM, not all of them.
3. Extensions
React can be used as a user interface (UI) framework, but it also has a number of add-ons that allow it to be used for the whole application architecture. It provides server-side rendering and makes it easier to build mobile apps. You can add to React in many ways, such as by using Flux and Redux.
Recommended reading: Top 10 Best React Native Courses For Beginners
The 4 Common Threats To Watch Out For
1. Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
The act of putting a malicious script into the source code of an online application is X-site-stuffing, or XSS for short. This script is picked up by the browser, which thinks it is safe, and then the bad code is run as part of an application. If an XSS attack works, the attacker might be able to steal user passwords, get sensitive data from the app’s pages, send requests to the servers, and do other bad things.
2. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
DDoS attacks flood a web app’s infrastructure with more users than it can handle, which makes the app crash. Their goal is to stop an application from working and make it inaccessible to its users. Some of the most common ways to do a distributed denial of service attack are with UDP, ICMP, SYN, and HTTP request flooding. An attacker will try to use up as many resources as possible, like memory and CPU processing time, because a server and firewall must respond to each request.
3. XML External Entity Attack (XXE)
Most of the time, this kind of React attack is made on a text-based language called extensible markup that is used by a web application. The attacker falls into the extensible markup text-based language (XML) parser to turn XML into readable code. Even though the language is used during the conversion process to store and unify the data, XXE is still put into the system. To avoid this kind of vulnerability, you should store any sensitive data in JSON format and use SAST tools to find any XXE code in your apps. You should also keep your system up-to-date.
4. Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)
In this type of React cyberattack, the person who did it gets the user to do something on the web app that the attacker wants. This may involve the user sending money or agreeing to do something. Social engineering is the name for this kind of cyberattack. The main reason why people do things that are bad for themselves is how the bid is made. In fact, many of these bad requests come with the help of the programming language JavaScript to trick the user into falling into a trap. There are things that can be done to protect against this, like making sure that CSRF tokens are read from cached apps. In contrast, the server should be issued an authenticated request in order to permit only relevant headers.
Other types of cyberattacks include SQLi, CSV injection, arbitrary code execution, Zip-Slip arbitrary file write via archive, unsecured randomization, resource downloaded using an insecure protocol, and many more. Most cyberattacks take one of these four forms.
Conclusion
With React, it’s possible to make corporate apps, web apps, and mobile apps that all work well. It is easy to use and can help you in many ways with the tasks you are doing. In addition, it lets you work with a large number of developers who enjoy working with the library.
The React framework also has features that make it possible to make user interfaces that are easy to understand and applications that are fast, scalable, and efficient. React makes it easy for developers to work with HTML and Javascript, and it allows them to build libraries of reusable components, which saves them time.
If your business needs a web application, you can hire one of Designveloper‘s experienced React software engineers to do the work for you. We have developers who are very good at React, and we know how to use React to result in real business results.
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