React Best Practices – Tips to Improve Your Code

For building highly efficient and interactive user interfaces, you must have React in your toolkit. It has revolutionized the way front-end developers build user interfaces. It is a well-known open-source JavaScript library used to create unique and innovative UX designs for your applications. While it is easy to learn Reactjs but developing an efficient app with React is not simple as it looks. So understanding the React best practices will help you build an interactive app in less time.

1. Reusability is essential: Using one component for a particular function helps you improve reusability. It means not creating a new component if one already exists. Through reusable components of React, developers can share their design patterns among various internal projects. You can create a class and then call its instances wherever and whenever you want to use reusability. The prime aim of reusability is not to achieve consistency, but also to provide scalability while building large apps. By relying on these reusable components, you can save time and money as well as it’s already pre-tested.

2. DRY your code: The meaning of DRY is Don’t Repeat Yourself. To achieve this, you have to avoid duplication or repetition of your codes. A common rule for coders and developers is to keep code as brief and concise as possible. The reason for this principle is that one copy is much easier to maintain than multiple copies; if the information needs to be changed, there is only one place to change it. Drying up your code is good as it’s easy to maintain, saves time and effort, and reduces the possibility of bugs. It relies heavily on the reusability principle as well.

3. Necessary comments only: Add comments in the application where it is essential. It’s not only the best React practice, but it also provides clutter-free code sections. Long-winded comments are like warts that specify poor design. Removing unnecessary comments helps you avoid a potential conflict between directives and codes.

4. CSS in JavaScript: While working on a project, people usually keep all the CSS work in a single SCSS file. When you have a large CSS (SCSS) file you can use the global prefix to help avoid name collisions. But when your application expands, then this method is not suitable. In this case, EmotionJS or Glamorous enables you to write CSS in JS libraries according to your use cases.

5. File Organization: All files relating to any one component should be placed in a single folder, including the CSS part as well. This helps you extract the code and modify it whenever you want. Putting all the files related to a component in a single folder help understand the hierarchy of files easily.

6. Mind Naming Conventions: Naming a component after the function is a healthy idea as it makes it easily recognizable. While using JSX, the name of the component you use should begin with upper case letters, and spacing should not be there. 

7. Keep small and function-specific components: The best way to design components in React is to keep them small so that one component corresponds to one function. Function-specific components make testing and maintenance easier.

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