My Take on REACT

I'll start with a basic definition: React is a JavaScript library for building interactive user interfaces (UI), mainly used in web development.

Since it's a library, it provides a collection of useful functions for developers rather than offering a complete framework out of the box. Over time, a wide range of third-party tools and libraries have been created to make the React development process more efficient. One example is Zustand, a lightweight state management tool designed specifically for React.

To me, React is both flexible and complex. It's like a puzzle piece — powerful on its own, but often needing to be combined with other tools to complete the full picture: a mature development environment tailored to an application's specific needs. It definitely takes some time and effort to configure React properly and get a project up and running, especially when starting from scratch.

What I love most about React, though, is its component-based structure.
When I first started learning web development, I had to copy and paste the same HTML blocks everywhere if I wanted to reuse the same UI. It was tedious and error-prone. With React, I can simply wrap an element — along with its JavaScript logic and CSS styles — into a reusable component and place it anywhere in the application without repeating the code. This makes development so much cleaner, faster, and more maintainable.

This post isn’t meant to be a quick course on React or anything like that. It’s more of a personal reminder — a way for me to capture what React is, and why I love it. (At least for now, it's still my favorite library for web development. In fact, the site you're reading this on was built with React, using Next.js!)