4 React Tutorials You Must Follow

Are you looking for reliable tutorials for learning React Native? You have just found the right resource library for learning React Native.  In this blog post, we will guide you on how to learn React Native app development smoothly. 

React Native: An overview

React Native is a mobile app development framework which can be used to build both Android and iOS apps. Facebook launched React Native as an open-source technology that is available to everyone’s disposal.

React Native is in demand for mobile app development as it allows one to build apps at a very fast pace with almost native performance. It provides a great extent of flexibility to the mobile app developers. With the flexibility React Native provides, you can pick any IDE/text editor for writing a React Native app. You can build some part of your app using native code and rest of the part with React Native app.

Isn’t that an awesome feature?

An added benefit is if you already know Javascript and React, then you will quickly be able to grasp the concepts of React Native and become a React Native developer in a very short span of time.

Still not sure why you should take the plunge and learn React Native?

Honestly, in today’s time, React Native is one the hottest technologies and is used by influential brands such as Facebook, Tesla, Instagram, Skype, Bloomberg, Walmart, Uber, and Pinterest, to name a few. If you are looking to grow in your software profession, then React is a skill worth investing in.

Here are some of the best React tutorials that will help you hone your skills:

1) React 16.6 – The Complete React Native Training

The course is comprehensive with around 33 hours of material with Maximilian as the instructor. He is a great instructor and explains every concept in-depth which makes this program very effective for beginners. This course comes with up to 160 downloadable external resources that can help students learn React development effectively.

Maximilian Schwarzmuller is a very proficient teacher who has taught over 200,000 students professionally. This course is offered on Udemy and has real-time practical projects to apply the course learnings.

Following are the key features of the course :

• It is a course for beginners and covers topics from basic to advanced level.
• Along with in-depth concepts of React, additional libraries used with React are also taught such as Redux.
• Prior Front-End framework is not necessary.
• Maximilian is one of the top instructors on Udemy, so that’s another plus.
• It is also suitable for developers who want to learn React development with intermediate to advanced level of experience.
• This course holds a considerable level of popularity among the beginners.

What will you learn in this course?

• The basic concepts of React like syntax and base features
• The ways to output lists and conditional content
• Redux: from Basics to Advanced level
• High-level component features of React
• Deployment of React Apps
• Introduction to Unit Testing
• Forms and Form validation in React
• Styling components
• Authentication using React

Find more details about the React course here.

2. Modern React with Redux

Modern React with Redux is created by Stephen Girder, an expert in React and builds front-end applications for top corporations. This course is a great choice for beginners who want to learn React development. It is hosted on Udemy and is rated 4.5 stars out of 5 stars and has about 39 hours of video lectures. This course is updated from time to time and is suited for both beginners as well as experienced professionals. This course focuses on design principles and enables students to get deep insights on how apps are designed using React.

Following are the key features of the course:

• Delivers the basic concepts of React
• Covers React’s custom markup language i.e. JSX
• Provides coding exercises to help you apply what you have learned
• You will learn about ES2015 syntax in the course
• Custom diagrams to gather a better understanding of React and Redux

What will you learn in this course?

• The basic understanding of React
• In-depth understanding of React at the source code level
• The way to build reusable components in React
• Varied techniques of deployment
• Varied methods to build UIs
• The knowledge of the in-demand  styling libraries
• How to integrate React with other APIs like Geolocation APIs?
• How to handle forms in Redux?
• Asynchronous actions with React and Redux.

Find more details about the Modern React with Redux course here

3. React.js: Getting Started

This course is hosted on Pluralsight with the instructor Sameer Buna who has an immense level of experience in web and mobile app development. This is a training course for beginners which starts with basics of React and advances to teach students how to build an in-browser interactive game with React.

Following are the key features of this course:

• The course focuses on the UI abstracted from DOM
• It instructs on how to use the one-way data flow of React
• Delivers intel on how to build an in-browser game which will provide experience for developing projects.
• Teaches how to put React components to use from a practical perspective.

What will you learn in this course?

• How to build an in-browser game
• How to use reusable components
• How to work with JSX and event handlers
• The way to use state properties of components
• How to work with real data using GitHub API
• How to take input from the user
• Communicating between different components
• To use React’s one-way data-flow
• How to manage the application state

Find more details about the React.js course here

4. Front-End Web Development with React

This course is hosted at Coursera by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology with Jogesh Muppala as the instructor and is a part of Front-End development specialization. Though it’s a package, this course can be used to understand the basic concepts of React. No advanced level experience with front-end development using JavaScript and Bootstrap is necessary to be a student of this course.

Following are the key features of the course:

• You will get an understanding of the varied React features which include components and forms
• You will be introduced to Reactstrap for development with Bootstrap
• Advanced understanding of the Redux and the Flux architecture is delivered.
• Learn to use Fetch for client-server communication

What will you learn in this course?

• Flow architecture and introduction to Redux
• Client-Server communication
• React Routers and Single Page Applications
• How to design responsive applications using React and Bootstrap
• A quick tour to React animation
• Use Reactstrap for web design
• Combining reducers
• How to design the architecture for a React-Redux application
• Using the Fetch and REST API
• Testing and deploying React applications

For more details on front-end development with React, go here.

Parting thoughts

Never stop learning. Be an opportunist and make gold when the time is right. Today, the IT market is abundantly seeking for React professionals. Now is the time to scale your career and equip yourself with skills that recruiters are in need of. Give the above courses a spin. May the force be with you!

If you would like to join us as a React developer or want to build an application using React technologies, then go here

React Native Or Xamarin for App Development

The number of smartphone users has remarkably increased over the years which is evident from the pace at which this generation is going tech-savvy. The smartphone industry has seen a growth from around 2.1 billion users in the year 2016 to nearly 2.5 billion users in 2018.

Globally, over 36% of the world’s population owns a smartphone now as compared to just 10% in 2011. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are the most popularly used operating systems in the industry. Android leads the market with approximately 80% smartphone sales and on the contrary, iOS holds a 15% market share.

With this increasing demand for smartphones, the demand for mobile applications has grown to monstrous proportions today with more and more companies investing in them. Every day, thousands of apps are launching on both the platforms – Android and iOS. In 2017, Android users were able to choose from 2.8 million apps while Apple’s App Store had over 2.1 million apps.

The need for developing apps that work well over different platforms has increased. It makes it very important for developers to make their apps stand out in this overly crowded pool of apps. To develop great applications, a developer must be aware of the right set of tools required.

In the past, Android applications were written using Java while iOS applications used Objective-C and Swift. Currently, there has been a shift in this trend with the introduction of cross-platform development tools like React Native and Xamarin. Cross-platform development is basically designing applications that work well for both Android and iOS and other operating systems like Windows.

Earlier, developers had to write similar codes twice that would work for different platforms. With React Native and Xamarin, the development process has become easier. Not only are they cost-efficient but also save time and shorten the development cycle considerably.

The question that remains is which one between React Native and Xamarin serves as a better development tool.

For answering this, let us take a look at the detailed comparison between the two and then choose which one suits your needs the best.

Introduction to React Native and Xamarin

React Native is a cross-platform development tool that allows you to code using JavaScript while Xamarin uses C# for creating user interface codes. Big brands like Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb, and Tesla are using React Native and brands like Slack and Pinterest prefer Xamarin.

The key difference from the monetary perspective is React Native is a free tool that can be used to build applications while Xamarin does not offer a lot of features for free especially if you’re designing for a big enterprise.

7 detailed comparison between React Native and Xamarin

Here, we have outlined other differences for your perusal.

1. Development Environment

Both Xamarin and React Native are open source frameworks but the environment required for development is different for both.

For using Xamarin, you will have to download Microsoft’s Visual Studio. Visual Studio includes Android SDK which is a tool required for creating Android applications. For iOS, XCode is required which is only available for Mac.

For React Native, you will need to install Node and any other development environment tool to write JavaScript like Visual Studio and Atom. If you want to use React Native in a native way, you will have to download Android SDK and XCode, similar to Xamarin.

2. Performance

Xamarin allows you to run the fastest code for both platforms. Applications built on 64-bit code are faster as compared to  32-bit code. Xamarin supports 64-bit mode and it also provides the fastest UI by allowing developers to use native tools directly.

On the contrary, React Native does not support 64-bit mode on Android. It does not give very good results on iOS as well when it runs the fastest code but it does give you an option to custom UI designing frameworks which can use fast native widgets.

3. Code Compilation

React Native uses Just-in-time (JIT) compilation which converts program source code into native machine code just before the program is run. This cannot be done in iOS apps, so the developer needs to go back to the Android code and it does not happen the other way around.

Xamarin uses Ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation since JIT is not valid for iOS. AOT means that the code is compiled before starting an application. The reason behind this is security features don’t allow writable executable segments. This makes Xamarin a better choice.

4. Compilation Time and Development Speed

As your Xamarin app grows in size, it will require longer to compile. A bigger project means more compilation time, increasing the development time required as well as the cost.

On the contrary, React Native serves as a better tool since it does not require compilation as it uses JavaScript and it is scripted. It gives you the feature of hot reloading, which means you can simply reload the JavaScript by refreshing the app. It serves as an advantage since it allows you to test and modify React Native apps rapidly.

5. Debugging

Debugging an application code in Xamarin can be easily done since the debugging can be done in the same way as that of a .NET application using Visual Studio. This makes it a positive aspect of Xamarin.

Debugging with React Native is similar to debugging web applications. You can use the Chrome developer tool and also use third-party tools to debug such as Reactotron or Redux development tools.

6. Design

Xamarin allows you to design the UI in either a platform-specific way (by using XML for Android and storyboards on iOS) or you can use Xamarin. Forms which allows you to share the code for both Android and iOS.

React Native, on the other hand, allows you to customize visual components easier as compared to Xamarin, thus making React Native a better choice for developers because in any project a great extent of focus is stressed on the UI.

7. Framework

React Native uses a more modern one-way data flow for its development while Xamarin works with the MVVM framework style. Both frameworks are equally useful, depending upon the requirement of a project’s code.

Concluding the comparison between the two, it mostly depends on either a project’s needs or an individual’s requirements. However, if compared on the basis of their features, Xamarin can be a more preferred choice by developers as it provides a faster framework along with a classical approach. The biggest drawback of React Native is low performance and that it does not offer the native look and feel that Xamarin offers.

We made our points, now the choice is yours! 

What is React Native?

React Native is an open source framework that is used for writing real and natively rendering mobile applications that are compatible with both Android and iOS. React Native is based on React, which is Facebook’s Javascript library used for building user interfaces.

Here, “native” means that web developers can now write mobile applications that look and feel like native apps all from the comfort of a Javascript library that we’re already aware of. React Native makes it easier for developers to develop for both Android and iOS at the same time.

React Native applications are written using JSX which is a mixture of Javascript and XML-esque markup, similar to React for the web. It is a reliable choice for the developers who are familiar with Javascript as there will be no need to learn Android specific Java or iOS’s Swift.

How React Native can increase developer productivity

React Native helps in making apps that are smoother since its main focus stays on UI. Due to its compatibility with different platforms, giant companies like Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Airbnb, Walmart, Tesla, Uber Eats and many more are now using React Native.

The increasing popularity of React Native is motivating more and more developers to use it. There are various ways in which it has helped in increasing the productivity of developers.

Some benefits of coding in React Native are mentioned below:

1. Code Sharing

This is one of the most important reasons why developers are choosing React Native. It is a cross-platform mobile app development tool which lets you share most of your code for producing other apps for different platforms. This means that you can produce multiple apps with the same codebase.

Code sharing helps in saving developers’ time as now they don’t have to code separately for different operating systems. Therefore, you can develop two apps in half of the time estimated.

2. Frameworks

A framework is basically a real or conceptual structure that helps you in simplifying complex problems by serving as a support or guide for building something that expands the structure into something useful. As compared to a protocol, a framework is easier to comprehend and also frameworks are more prescriptive as compared to a structure. Some computer system frameworks can also include actual programs.

React Native is a framework that helps in speeding up your development work by saving time and making it easier for developers. It gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of choosing any code writer that suits your demands.

3. Components

React Native provides you with a number of built-in components. So, instead of writing codes from scratch again, you can reuse codes by using components. When you use components, you’re basically reusing codes written by other programmers.

For example, there is a component in React Native called ‘View’. The view is an area where you display all your content. View lets you arrange your content in a very good manner. It helps you when you need a nested element. Also, when you need to wrap your content inside a container and use different styles for different elements, this component is of great help.

Other than View, there are plenty of other components that can be used like Navigation, Text, Image, Text Input, ScrollView, StyleSheet etc.

4. Hot Reloading

We all know that recompilation takes up a lot of time. React Native gives you the choice of instantly reloading your app without having to recompile.

Compiling an entire code requires a considerable amount of time; whenever a developer makes a change in the code, he has to recompile the code to see how the modification looks in the app (how it has changed or improved). In a nutshell, a developer has to compile a code more than a thousand times depending upon the size of the project.

Now with React Native, the hot reloading feature lets you instantly view how your app looks after a code modification without wasting your time in recompilation. Since this is a time-saving feature, it helps greatly in boosting the productivity of developers.

5. Flexible and easily understandable codes 

With React Native, codes can be reused. A single update will work for both the platforms. It makes it easier for developers to detect bugs between codebases. Also, since its interface is modular and intuitive, developers who weren’t previously involved in a project can easily understand the code and use it as a basis for future developments. 

In turn, it increases the flexibility of a team and it is easier to make updates and upgrades to web applications. A team can get work done by developers that are suited best for specific developments. This saves time and also decreases the risk factor of data loss. React Native allows you to transform a web project into a mobile decision within no time.

6. Graphics Processing Unit

The React Native architecture uses the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) instead of a CPU (Central Processing Unit) which is used by most native platforms. This makes React Native well tuned to mobile environments. Also, it helps in giving extremely fast performance compared to other hybrid technologies.

Final Words

In conclusion, React Native provides a better learning cycle to the developers and develop mobile apps in a shorter time duration with better efficiency. A developer who has the experience in web development can expand the same skills to create mobile apps as well. The possibilities are infinite if you choose to think that way.

With the immense opportunities for expanding a business, it also helps the clients gain more customers or browsers. With React Native, mobile app development has become cost-efficient because of the reusability, and code sharing features.

Clients with a limited budget quotient can get the apps developed for both the platforms (iOS and Android) as front-end developers with a working knowledge of Javascript can easily create react mobile apps at affordable prices.

React Native is widely preferred for mobile app development and developers don’t have to compromise with the quality of apps for multiple platforms as well. Furthermore, React Native offers safety, portability, and longevity which enhances developers’ efficiency and decreases workload and wastage of time.

For more resources on React, read the top five reasons to choose React JS for development.

Why choose ReactJS for Development

ReactJS is gaining popularity these days and here we are to tell why?

Let’s begin with what is ReactJS?

ReactJS is an open source JavaScript library pioneered and made available in the market by Facebook. It is mainly intended to create rich and engaging web apps speedily and efficiently with minimal coding.

React JS provides the liberty of working on individual components instead of an entire web app which in turn helps them to provide the best feasible rendering performance.

With its extra flexibility and simplicity, ReactJS has arisen as the future of web development. It is estimated that over 94000 sites utilize ReactJS and more than 1300 developers are using for development currently.

Most popular examples of the use of ReactJS are PayPal, Facebook, Uber, Instagram, and Airbnb. These corporates use ReactJS to fix their interface related issues.

Now, that you know the potential of ReactJS in frontend development, let’s discern the point by point reasons to essentially adopt it.

1. Rich user-interfaces

With the liberty to work on individual declarative components, ReactJS is the first choice of developers to bring out coolest UIs and reap the cream of the market.

Also, rich user-interfaces are the USPs of any web entity and hence, it will be smart to use ReactJS as it is used by industry leaders. The best part is that with this technology, you can come up with interactive and user-friendly user interfaces at a very fast pace.

2. Speedy learning curve

Unlike Angular, this one is very easy to learn and use. If you already have JavaScript skills, learning ReactJS will be easier for you. An already Javascript developer can pick up the basics and start developing an impressive web app only in a couple of days with any ReactJS tutorial.

3. Reusable Components

As said before, ReactJS provides a distinct component-based development approach. First, you begin with developing tiny components called lego pieces like checkbox, button, dropdown and then wrapper components are created, which are composed of those smaller components. Once done with wrapper components then higher-level wrapper components are written. This pattern goes on until you have one root component in your hand which is your app.

In this way,  each component has been rendered properly and constitutes of its own internal logic. This approach yields some outstanding results as follows:

a) You can grow your codebase by re-using code and also, it is easy to maintain.

b) Your app carries a uniform look and feel.

c) It is super-easy to develop and conclude your app.

4. Quick render with Virtual DOM

In developing a web application, high user interaction and viewing updates are involved and possible performance issues ought to be considered.

Though Javascript engines these days are very fast, DOM manipulations are still lagging in speed. ReactJS caters to the long-standing issues of updating DOM with virtual DOM which is a DOM kept in memory.

Virtual DOM adopts an efficient way to accommodate the updates which reduce the read/write time which in turn enhances ReactJS performance.

5. Clean Abstraction

Clear abstraction means that ReactJS does not reveal any complex internal functioning to the user and keeps it smooth on the surface.

In Angular, you need to learn complex internal processes such as digest cycles while in ReactJS you only need to comprehend the states, component’s life cycle, and props to achieve what you desire.

6. Robust community support

ReactJS enjoys a very strong community support with a trail of 82,50,0000 search results on ‘react tutorial’. Developers around the world are upgrading their skills and are helping freshers to learn ReactJS. This contribution shows how crucial this technology is for today’s tech world.

The rising competition from other frameworks namely Vue.js is crucial. New render types can be expected in the future release like the ReactJS team is going to add a unique fragment syntax to the JSX that doesn’t need keys and with this error handling will be improved at developers’ end. In past, working on ReactJS was not this easy as runtime errors require regular page refreshing. The present version of ReactJS has come up with a completely rewritten server render which makes it very fast and ideal for streaming.

Why ReactJS is recommended?

For a business to have a competitive advantage the entrepreneur and developer are always looking for better techniques in today’s tech world. ReactJS is one of the greatest technologies for the frontend. ReactJS is a step towards better user engagement, higher click-through rates, and conversions.

Also, the updates of DOM is prevented with ReactJS which means the app will be faster and deliver better UX. This technology was first developed to improve website server’s total rendered pages. It is highly efficient with the capability to modify built tooling and maintenance budgets.

Final words

To get the desired performance from the professionally crafted business apps the best practices are important to be used. At GoodWorkLabs, we have a team of highly experienced ReactJS developers who can assist you in developing your customized web app.

We have given proven results in the form of raising conversion, cost-cutting, accelerating growth rate and demonstrating the major functioning of ReactJS developer for any business. For an instant quote, contact us.

The best JS frameworks for Front End & Back End applications.

Are you on your way to create a remarkable web application?

If yes, then probably choosing the right and best JavaScript framework will be the toughest task on your list currently. Whether to choose AngularJS or Node JS or React JS might be giving you sleepless nights.

There are several parameters to consider before making the decision like maturity, size, features, interoperability, dependencies, etc. Without in-depth knowledge, this is a difficult choice.

In this blog, we have laid out the comparison between these three JavaScript frameworks for your reference.

1) AngularJS

Angular JS is a client-side web framework launched in 2009 by Google. It was aimed to resolve issues in creating single page application faced by angular developers. With a large support community, it has an extensibility feature and can work well with several libraries.

Reasons why AngularJS is recommended:

1) User interface

AngularJS has the plus point of using HTML for defining web app’s user interface. HTML is less fragile to recognize and also it is a declarative language. Overall it offers simplification of web development process in which you just need to define what you want.

2)  Flexibility

Web app development is made flexible with the use of directives and filters. The benefit of using directives is that they bring functionality to HTML rather than manipulating the DOM. Filters, on the other hand, are standalone functions that are separate from the app. Still, they take care of data transformations.

3)  Testing

Unit testing in AngularJS is done by injecting mock data and then measuring the output. This is a completely different way of testing web apps in which individual test pages are created.

Let’s go over the technical aspects for choosing AngularJS over others:

Advantages of AngularJS

• Easily testable framework
• Data synchronization is done automatically between the components and model view
• Vast Angular libraries
• Inbuilt dependency injection subsystem
• Simple routing
• Angular Data binding
• Marvelous UI design
• Customized Document Object Model can be created easily
• It provides strong template building solutions

Drawbacks of choosing Angular JS

• DOM elements come with performance issues
• Limited Routing offered
• Scopes are difficult to debug
• Angular gets slow with pages embedding interactive elements
• Third party integration is very complex
• The learning curve is steep

For more detailed information on Angular JS, here is a guide on Angular JS to help you understand the javascript framework better.

2) ReactJS

ReactJS is more of an open-source JavaScript library rather than a framework. With this, astonishing UI can be built with good rendering performance. React is more dependent on ‘view’ in the Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. It was launched to resolve the rendering issues of large datasets in JavaScript frameworks.

Reasons why ReactJS is recommended:

1)  SEO Effective

ReactJS can be easily run on the server and then a virtual DOM will be rendered which will return to the browser as a web page. This a benefit because search engines find it hard to read JS-heavy apps which is the main issue with JS frameworks.

2)  Excellent efficiency

ReactJS generates its own virtual DOM and also it takes care of all the changes to made in the DOM and any updates in the DOM tree. For gaining a good performance it is a great and flexible approach.

Here are the other pros and cons of React JS:

Advantages of React JS

• It offers faster updates
• Importing components is relatively very easy
• With ReactJS you can reuse the code
• JS debugging is smooth
• It has easy learning API and smooth interface designs  
• Fully component based architecture

Drawbacks of React JS

• The learning curve is steep
• It is not a framework and just a library
• Flux architectures
• If you integrate React into an MVC framework, some configurations would be required

3) NodeJS

NodeJS is a server rather than a framework which is powered by Google Chrome V8 JavaScript engine. It executes JavaScript on the server side. Its main application is done for simplifying development of complex applications.

Reasons why NodeJS is recommended:

1)  Server-side proxy

NodeJS can handle numerous simultaneous connections in a non-blocking manner as it can be used as a server-side proxy. Mainly it is used when you want to proxy different services with varying response times.

2)  NPM

NPM(Node Package Manager) comes by default with your Node.js installation and gives support for package management. NPM’s concept is similar to Ruby Gems. The most popularly used NPM modules are:

• Mongojs and MongoDB
• connect
• moment
• bluebird
• pug
• socket.io and sockjs

Here are the other pros and cons of NodeJS:

Advantages of NodeJS

• The same piece of code is shared with both client and server side
• Big files can be easily streamed
• NPM has already become deep and rising at a fast rate
• Simple to learn
• Large support community

Drawbacks of Node JS

• Not scalable because one CPU is not sufficient to take advantage of multiple tasks
• Deep understanding of JavaScript is required to work with NodeJS
• Relational database issues
• Particularly suited for web servers and not meant for CPU-intensive tasks
• Nested callbacks

Summing up

All the above-mentioned JavaScript frameworks enjoy their own fame and are widely used across the world. They are advanced and deliver high performance. The major factor that will affect the choice of JavaScript framework is your business needs and desired app goals.

ReactJS requires you to write less code and perform more. Also, ReactJS is better than AngularJS when it comes to performance.

But AngularJS is a fully featured framework and ReactJS is just a library. AngularJS has a vibrant and large community support while React is just in the inception stage.

On the other hand, Nodejs is mainly created to build scalable and fast network apps. It is simply a JS runtime which is fast and lightweight.

We hope that this helps in the decision you are about to make.

At GoodWorkLabs, we have an excellent team of JavaScript developers who can bring great value to your project. Let us help you with your next project, contact us here.