Top ReactJS Best Practices Everyone Should Follow In 2023

We've all heard about best practices for software development, and somewhere along the way learned that they are important things to follow. Despite this, we often find ourselves skimming over them or simply forgetting them altogether. This is no surprise given how many projects we work on in our careers. It would be nearly impossible to memorize everything that applies to those projects.

ReactJS Best Practices can get you a long way. Best practices give react js developers the structure and guidelines we need to make well-informed decisions. They help us write better code that’s easy to read and makes maintenance easier. This article will discuss ReactJS Best Practices and explain why a lot more of your time in React won’t be wasted by following them!

ReactJS is used by a number of companies, including Airbnb, Atlassian, Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix. It has been around since 2013, and it has gained popularity over time because it offers developers many benefits.

React gives you a set of building blocks for creating interactive components that can be used to assemble your application's views. These components come with built-in support for flexibility and performance, so you can create powerful applications without managing all the low-level details yourself. React's design makes it easy to create components that are used throughout your application. It also allows you to implement techniques such as data binding and state management, which is essential for creating large-scale applications.

React is often used in conjunction with other tools, such as Webpack and Babel. These tools help you create a development environment that supports the use of ES6 syntax, which is required for using React.

Advantages of React:

1. It is extremely fast, even on mobile devices.
2. It can be used with any programming language like PHP, Ruby, Python, etc.
3. It uses Virtual DOM which makes things faster than before because there is no need to re-render the entire page when something changes.
4. It uses JSX which combines HTML and JavaScript code into a single file and then compiles it down to pure JavaScript calls like document.createElement(), document.getElementsByTagName() etc., so you don’t have to learn another new syntax while coding with React (like you do with Angular).
5. React makes it easy to create reusable UI components. So instead of writing the same code, again and again, you can just write one component and use it multiple times in your application. This makes your code more readable and maintainable as well.
6. You can use it for simple projects or complex applications alike. This makes it a great choice for beginners who want to learn how to build web apps with JSX or even seasoned developers who want to build larger applications with an added layer of abstraction on top of their existing knowledge.
7. It’s a perfect choice for building Single-page applications (SPAs) and Hybrid apps. Due to its simplicity and ease of use, React is a great choice for building SPAs as well. You can easily create reusable UI components with JSX and use them in your application. And if you want to build hybrid applications using React Native, then it’s also possible with this library.
8. You can use React with any JavaScript library or framework, such as Bootstrap, JQuery, etc., to build an application that is responsive and supports both desktop and mobile devices.

Disadvantages of React:

1. React can be slower than other frameworks such as Angular or Vue because it needs to run an additional render cycle on every change in the application state. If you're not careful with how you implement your components, this can cause serious performance issues.
2. Since React isn't opinionated about how you structure your code, it can be difficult to maintain large applications if they aren't designed well from the beginning.
3. It's also worth mentioning that React is a library, not a framework. This means that it doesn't come with built-in functionality such as routing or state management. If you want to use those features in your application, you'll need to find an appropriate third-party library and integrate it into your project.
4. The React ecosystem is constantly changing, so it can be hard to keep up with all of the new tools and libraries that are released over time.
5. It can become very difficult to manage once your application starts growing in size and complexity. This is especially true if you have a team of developers working on the same codebase at once. React does not have any built-in support for state management or event handling, so if you need things like that in your application, then you'll either have to write them yourself or find an external library that handles them for you (such as Redux).

React is a great framework for building web and mobile applications. It's fast, it's easy to use, and it's very popular. That's why we're seeing more and more jobs listed that require experience with React.

But there are some common challenges that React developers face. Here are five of them:

Learning the basics

The learning curve for React can be steep at first. The syntax is different from what most developers are used to, and there are some new concepts to get used to as well (like JSX). If you're coming from another framework like Angular or Vue, you'll have an easier time picking up the basics than someone who has never worked with JavaScript before. But even if you know JavaScript well, you'll still need to learn about how React works in order to build complex applications with it.

Debugging

React is a great tool for building user interfaces, but it's not always easy to debug them. The learning curve for debugging with React is steep as well because there are no built-in tools for doing so. You'll need to use the Chrome Developer Tools or another browser extension like Redux DevTools to see what's going on inside your application.

Complexity

The more complex your application gets, the harder it is to understand how everything fits together. React is great for building user interfaces, but if you're trying to build something like a complete chat app with real-time updates, then you'll run into problems. You'll need to use a combination of React and other libraries like Redux. This is where the complexity really starts to add up, and there are very few resources available for managing large React applications.

Struggling with Redux

Redux was created by Facebook to help developers create more predictable and maintainable applications using React. It acts as an application state container for storing the entire state of your app in one place so that you don't have to keep track of it yourself when writing components or routing logic.

The problem is that Redux can be extremely difficult to learn and use. It has a steep learning curve and can be difficult for beginners to grasp. There are also many different ways of using Redux, which makes it hard to find the best approach for your application.

Dealing with bugs caused by 3rd-party libraries

There are tons of useful libraries out there for React — whether for form validation, code splitting, animations, or other things — but many of them are buggy and poorly documented, which can cause problems when using them in your own apps. When using these libraries, it’s important to thoroughly test your app to ensure that everything works as expected. If you encounter bugs or unexpected behavior in a library, try filing an issue on its GitHub repo and see if any other users have had the same issue.

Componentization

Developing well-structured components is an essential skill for any React developer — but it’s not always easy. It takes practice to learn how to structure components so they are reusable and maintainable over time as your application grows in complexity. The ability to write clean code that follows best practices is critical for every developer working with React, especially those who want to advance their careers by becoming full-stack developers or learning other languages like Java or Ruby on Rails.

There are some common practices for building components and here are some of them:

1. Don't go overboard with nesting components

ReactJS is great for creating reusable components, but sometimes it's best to keep things simple. If you find yourself nesting components too deep, consider breaking them down into smaller pieces. This may mean that you need to create more components than you initially anticipated, but it will help keep your code organized and maintainable.

2. Avoid using indexes as keys whenever possible

Indexes are great for data structures, but they're not ideal for keys. When you use an index as a key, ReactJS will automatically re-render whenever that value changes. This can lead to performance issues if your application relies on many DOM elements with dynamic indexes. Instead of using indexes as keys, try using object references or IDs instead. For example, if you have an array of objects that represent a list of users, you could use their references to keep track of them. This will ensure that ReactJS only re-renders when one of those references changes instead of every time the index changes.

3. Keep your components small and focused on one responsibility

Keeping your components small and focused on one responsibility will make it easier to understand how the component works. This is especially important when working on a large team with lots of developers, as it makes code reviews easier and reduces the chance of bugs. If you find yourself adding too many responsibilities to a single component, consider breaking it up into smaller pieces.

4. Use the right lifecycle methods

When you're developing with ReactJS, it's important to know when different lifecycle methods are called so that you can perform any necessary actions at the appropriate time. For example, componentDidMount is called after a component has been rendered and inserted into the DOM; this would be a good place to perform AJAX requests or initialize timers.

5. Keep your code DRY

DRY stands for “Don't Repeat Yourself.” This principle is especially important when it comes to ReactJS development because it's easy to write components that are very similar; however, you should try to avoid doing this as much as possible. Instead of writing the same code in multiple places, define a function once and call it from different components instead.

6. Use props

Props are a way of passing data down through your component hierarchy without having to make changes at each level of nesting. For example, if you have a parent component that needs to pass some data down to its children but those children also need additional information, you can pass both sets of data as props to the child. This makes it easier to change your application's behavior without having to alter every component in the hierarchy.

7. Don't use inline styles

Inline styles are a bad idea because they make it difficult to change the appearance of your application without affecting other parts of it. Instead, you should use CSS classes or custom components to define how things look. This will allow you to easily style related elements differently while keeping your code DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself).

8. Use Object Destructuring for Props

Props are one of the most important parts of React.js. They're used to pass data from a parent component to its child components. While props are great, they can also be hard to manage if you have a lot of them. That's why it's a good idea to use object destructuring when working with props in order to make your code more readable and manageable.

Object destructuring is a method for extracting data from an object. It's an ES6 feature that allows you to specify which parts of an object you want to access. This makes it easier to declare props since they're often long and hard to read.

Let's take a look at an example. We'll create a parent component and then pass it some props:

We can destructure it like this:

9. Avoid Mixing Data And Logic In Components

It’s a good practice to separate the presentation and business logic from your React components. However, sometimes it can be tempting to mix data and logic inside a component. That’s because often we want to make sure that data is available when it’s needed by other parts of our app.

You can do this by creating a new component that is responsible for managing the data and displaying it on the page. This is what we call a smart component. It’s a way to encapsulate business logic and data for the specific purpose of displaying it on the page.

10. Use Pure Functions To Reduce Side Effects

Pure functions are functions that have no side effects. They don’t mutate data outside the function and they don’t rely on external input. Instead, pure functions produce new values based on their inputs. As a bonus, pure functions are easier to test as they can be called without any mocking or other setup.

11. Use Immutability To Reduce Side Effects

Immutable objects are strongly typed and can’t be changed once they have been created. This is useful because you can’t accidentally change an object that has already been created. It also reduces the number of bugs you need to fix because any changes are made by creating a new object rather than overwriting existing ones.

In the case of mutable objects, you can accidentally change an object’s state. This is a common cause of bugs, especially in large codebases where it’s easy to miss a line of code that modifies an object. Immutability also allows you to use functional programming techniques like memoization and recursion without resorting to dirty hacks like using global variables or having multiple functions all trying to access the same data structures.

12. Avoid Unnecessary DOM Manipulation

When you change the DOM, you force browsers to repaint the page and recalculate the layout. This can make your app feel sluggish even if there’s nothing technically wrong with it. You should also avoid unnecessary DOM manipulation because it makes it more difficult for search engines to find relevant content on your pages.

If you can eliminate or reduce the need for DOM manipulation, then you’ll make your app feel much snappier and more responsive.

13. Use PropTypes for Documentation and Error Checking

In React, you can use PropTypes to document and check the types of props in your components. This is helpful because it makes your components self-documenting, which means that anyone who has to maintain or extend them later will know what they are supposed to expect. We recommend using PropTypes when defining custom components and especially when creating reusable UI components.

PropTypes are one of the most underused features of React, yet they can save you from a lot of bugs and headaches down the road. They allow you to specify what properties an element requires and what type they should be in order to work correctly with your component. This way, when someone uses your component incorrectly (or tries to pass an invalid value), they'll get an error message that tells them what's wrong. They can then fix their code, rather than spending hours trying to figure out why it isn't working.

14. Use Fragments over empty divs

Using unnecessary divs increases the number of elements in your DOM tree, which then increases page load time. So use Fragment when you want to group all the components.

For example,

Instead of this

Use this

15. Use render props when possible

When you need to pass some data down a React component tree, the best way is to use render props. This pattern allows you to avoid passing down multiple props and instead just pass a function that returns what’s needed.

This is useful when you have a component that needs to pass data to multiple children. For example, if you want to pass some data down through the component tree, it’s best to use render props instead of passing down multiple props.

16. Use ES6 syntax

React is written in ES5 but it uses JSX, which allows you to use ES6 syntax inside React components. The JSX compiler converts the code into regular JavaScript before it gets executed by the browser. This means that you can use classes, arrow functions, destructuring assignments, spread operators, etc., without worrying about compatibility issues with older browsers (that don't support these new features).

It's true there are plenty of approaches and workflows for React, but we think ours is the best. In any case, you can't go wrong with any approach if you're consistent, use good design principles, incorporate automated testing, and can demonstrate a high degree of code maintainability in your ReactJS project.

As you can see, there are many things to consider when using React, and you may find that the simple models we considered here are not enough to guide your development. We suggest that readers look at the React community forums for more information on best practices and design patterns. You may also consider looking at cases where React was used incorrectly, or cases where mistakes were made due to a lack of knowledge of React conventions. These cases can be valuable in terms of learning to prevent similar mistakes in the future.