React Architecture Best Practices

If you’re a frontend developer working on highly dynamic user interfaces, you’re probably familiar with React. While developing React-powered applications, you should take care to adhere to React’s best practices. This aids in the organization of your code.

As you may know, React is a Facebook-developed toolkit that enables the integration of a variety of diverse components. Indeed, any developer is free to design their components and make them publicly available. The following sections discuss some of the best practices for react architecture.

1. Minimize the number of components and make them function-specific

As we all know, React enables the creation of massive components capable of performing various functions. However, a more efficient method to build components is to keep them tiny, such that each component performs a single purpose. A single component would render a specified section of your website or alter a specific behavior in an ideal world. This has several advantages:

1. Function-specific components may be deployed independently, which simplifies testing and maintenance.
2. Each component is reusable across several projects.
3. The community may access components that perform generic functionality.

2. Adaptability

By adhering to the concept of one function “equals” one component, you may increase component reusability. This indicates that you should avoid creating a new component for a function if one already exists.

Not only will you get consistency by reusing components throughout your project or across several projects, but you will also chip in the community.

On the other hand, if a component becomes too large, cumbersome, or difficult to maintain, it is preferable to divide it into as many smaller components as necessary.

3. Incorporate CSS into JavaScript

When beginning a project, it is customary to store all CSS styles in a single SCSS file. Using a global prefix eliminates the possibility of name clashes. However, when your project grows in scope, this technique may become impractical.

Numerous libraries exist that make it possible to create CSS in JS. The two most popular CSS in JS frameworks are EmotionJS and Glamorous.

4. Eliminate redundant code – DRY your code

A general guideline that applies to all code should be as short and succinct as feasible.

This is also true since React best practices urge you to make your code concise and exact. One approach to do this is to prevent duplication – Avoid Self-Repetition (DRY).

This may be accomplished by inspecting the code for patterns and similarities. If you discover any, it is conceivable that you are duplicating code, and there is room to delete it. Most likely, some reworking will result in a more compact document. This largely depends on React’s reusability idea.

5. Distinguish stateful from rendering features

React components may be stateful or stateless. Stateful components keep track of their state and give essential context. By contrast, stateless components lack memory and are unable to provide context for other UI components. They accept just props (inputs) from the parent component and return JSX elements to you. They are scalable and reusable and are comparable to JavaScript’s pure functions.

Foremost, the best practice in React is to keep your stateful data loading code distinct from your stateless rendering logic. It is preferable to have one stateful component for data loading and another stateless component for data presentation. This decreases the component’s complexity.

6. All files of a single component should be contained in a single folder.

Maintain a single folder for all files associated with a single component, including style files.

If a tiny component is only utilized by one component, it is logical to keep it all together inside that component’s folder. The structure will then be clear — significant components will have their folder, while their lesser components will be divided into sub-folders. In this manner, you may quickly remove code for use in another project or even edit it at any time.

7. Create tests for every code written.

Adequate testing guarantees that any new code contributed to your project interfaces properly with old code and did not disrupt current functionality in any programming language. It is a good practice to build tests for every new component you create. As a best practice, you should establish a Test directory inside the directory of your component to hold any applicable tests.

You can roughly split tests in React into two types: those that verify component functioning using a React app and those that verify your whole application once it renders in the browser. For tests in the latter group, you may utilize cross-browser testing tools.

Finally,

These React recommended practices will reduce your typing choices and increase the clarity of your code. Once you begin using this, you’ll appreciate its apparent, concise features such as code reuse; sophisticated react components, the option to add a distinct state variable, and other minor pre-built React.js features for more straightforward usage. This collection of React best practices will assist you in setting your endeavors on the right track and, later, avoiding potential web development issues.

Hope you had a great read about React Architecture Best Practices!