Launched in 2010 by Facebook, React is an open source technology that became popular when Facebook bought Instagram in 2014 and launched this new language.
Facebook, together with a free software community made up of more than 1,000 developers, is in charge of its maintenance. As a result, this new technology has become one of the most innovative when it comes to programming.

What is React used for?

It is used to develop applications with ever-changing interfaces. Its main goal is to achieve a clear language that is easy to understand, based on the MVC pattern. The syntax (known as JSX) is very similar to that of an HTML and makes the code far more legible and readable.

React can also be combined with Redux. This helps draw a line between the presentation and content components. The term “presentation” refers to the way things look like (i.e., how data sent by “props”, short for properties or the configuration attributes of each component, are received or returned). “Containers”, however, focus way more on how things work and, as such, do not have a fixed Document Object Model (DOM).

The state of components only provides their conditions and characteristics at a given time. There are two types of components: those that have a state and those that don’t. This categorization aims at providing a better understanding of user interfaces and applications, increasing their reuse factor so that a component can be employed more than once and in a variety of scenarios.

Being a programming language, React can be used to create a website view, that of an app or any similar layout. Moreover, I believe the simultaneous use of React, Redux and JavaScript help build user interfaces that are as modern as dynamic as our imagination allows. At Teldat, we use this technology to design the front-end of some parts of our SD-WAN solution. The goal is to maximize its user-friendliness and dynamism.

Despite having been developed only a few years ago, this new technology will prove key in the years to come and many big IT players are already investing in it to carry out their projects.