Next.js as a React developer: We should all agree on one thing, React is one of the most common solutions to create interactive web applications out there – small as well as large. It’s used by so many startups and businesses that to have these days is a very valuable skill.
Although We should all agree on one thing, React is one of the most common solutions to create intyou have zero or little knowledge of Next.js, you’ve used React in the past, and you’re looking forward or plunging further into the React ecosystem, particularly server-side rendering.
What is a React.js developer?
React.js Developers prototype and build user interface elements for JavaScript-based web and mobile applications leveraging the React open-source software ecosystem. Such professional front-end developers are engaged in all phases of interface system design, from creation through to final testing.
For this position, you will be liable for utilizing React.js principles and workflows such as Redux, Flux, and Webpack to develop and implement user interface components. You will also be responsible for debugging and optimizing the performance at the front end and recording codebases at the backend.
Next.js as a React developer – What do you need to succeed as a React developer?
You will need a comprehensive knowledge of JavaScript and React principles, outstanding front-end development skills, and a firm grasp of modern web applications to ensure effectiveness as a React.js Developer. Finally, a top-class React.js Developer will be able to design and build modern user interface components to optimize the performance of an application.
Further requirements include:
- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, IT or a related area.
- Experience in working as a Developer for React.js.
- In-depth experience of the languages JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and front-end.
- REACT platform experience including React.js, Webpack, Enzyme, Redux, and Flux.
- Experience in creating user interfaces.
- Knowledge of frameworks for performance testing including Mocha and Jest.
- Experience with browser-based debugging and applications to check results.
- Excellent aptitude for troubleshooting.
- Strong experience in managing projects.
Next.js as a React developer Above all these keys to success in this hemisphere, there is another important aspect to be considered. It is the adaptation and acceptance of something more useful and efficient. Next.js is such a paradigm. I discovered Next.js a few years ago and was intrigued by what the folks were attempting to achieve. I’ll summarize my experience with Next.js throughout this article, and also why I think it ‘s the perfect time to make a move to Next.js, or technically not a move but an extension to your React stack.
History of Web
Let’s start by jumping down to the core or the root of everything. Back in the 2000s, when the web was young and developing, developers switched from static only HTML pages to more flexible and fluid solutions, such as using PHP, which gave us the golden opportunity to construct dynamic content pages (this time, JavaScript was very new and inefficient). You can have a single profile.php page and Alice, Bob, John, Mehul and all 15,000 verified people on your web server will be taken care of-how convenient!
Soon emerged the era of JavaScript, users started to understand that the web-supported language is something that can be used for so much! Dynamic form submission, HTTP background requests, wonderful scrolling effects, even developing on-fly webpages! The emergence of JavaScript and libraries such as jQuery enabled web designers to develop nice, fully customizable interfaces with JavaScript.
Every web developer soon started moving JavaScript more and more down the network to the application. Yes, technology has changed, cell phones and PC have developed-more RAMs and cores, but JavaScript has begun to evolve more rapidly. More functionality, more themes, more frameworks have implied better experience and web app-like feeling. Yet this involved gradually moving JavaScript down the network on devices that couldn’t keep up with changing JavaScript limitations.
The web was created for HTML
Weak and outdated mobile devices were beginning to give up-high load periods, several lags, less efficient JS engines, and too much JavaScript to parse! With methodologies like React and Angular, you are pushing huge bundles of JavaScript to clients who have to download the tiny HTML pages first.
Web developers moving from the age of PHP (server-rendered HTML) to the age of JavaScript (client rendered HTML) soon began to realize they were screwing up big time. Reacting is amazing for interactivity and high-performance elements but the fact that most people were using such tools to create everything was causing customer problems. A simple Us page that could be a quite simple code HTML / CSS page is now a page with a JS bundle that the browser needs to download first, then parse, then execute, then change the DOM to display the content.
It is terrible for all-clients to have higher load times, browsers have to work hard to run JS (browsers read and execute HTML / CSS very efficiently), and search engines like Google, Bing have a hard time knowing what your website is about, as the source code never includes the actual content-it ‘s hidden somewhere in the JS package.
People loved Reacting and the like. But then they also acknowledged the risks of executing too much JS user-side. And they already adored how PHP functioned but they didn’t like the architecture PHP ushered with them. What was the remedy, then?
Server-Side Rendering (SSR) – Better than even your imagination of perfection
Once developers discovered that trying to push too much React code on the client was a problem, they thought: “Hey, can we code in React, but send HTML documents to customers?” Well, because all you have when the React code is executed is an HTML document anyway. And they just did it! Server-side rendering (SSR) was created for React.
You can now write React code with SSR, somehow run it on the server (which was more powerful than your usual client computer-like a cell phone), and then send it to the client! Win-win to anyone. You, as a developer, get to code in React-the technology you love, and the visitor on your site, get a simple HTML document (with visible content and a bit of JS rehydration) that gets a huge boost in efficiency. Plus, now Google loves you. Who wouldn’t wish for that?
Read More: THE NEWEST ELITE IN WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT: NEXT.JS
The difficulty that followed
The solution to this issue is undoubtedly server-side rendering. But the issue has been that setting up correctly was too difficult. Proper and cache-busting caching? Can you develop static HTML files for unchanged pages? How do you build flawless browsing experience on your website even though you have Javascript made on the server-side? How to ease the loading on your servers, create content on request? And how do you bring together this whole system on top of that? Yes, Respond and the web has all of these APIs, but they’re pretty verbose and typically a one-time setup.
When you’re someone who is constructing something useful, after a while, you’d want to focus the full time on the application ‘s business logic, not the underlying logic.
Then came Next.js
Next.js is a heaven-born Framework. With a traditional React app, it abstracts all the performance and development setups you need and enables you to concentrate more on what counts-your strategic logic code. Two years ago I had my first encounter with Next.js when he was young. It comes packed with the following distinguishing aspects:
- Good Practices in SEO
- Built-in caching and automatic static optimization
- Completely made pages on the server
- 100% Help Response
- Help for the Lambda feature (API Routes)
- Perfect change your webpack / babel configuration if necessary
- And even more!
However by 2020, with Next.js 9.5 published with several features, it’s reasonable to conclude it’s among the most effective tools available in the ecosystem for web development, particularly if you’re a developer of React.
If you’re a developer of React by 2020, Next.js is one of the best skills you might have.
The benefits of having Next.js as a skill are:
- Surely a new technology-more job prospects and incentives
- Pages made on a server mean more output-means more clients for you
- SEO Baked in for your websites-Search engines love you
- All the advantages of getting a server in place-API paths, fetching dynamic content and stale-while-revalidating functionality (oh, I love this one)
- One major technical ability on your CV!
Conclusion statement
Apart from all these benefits, some key features also derived my attention. I have listed the best of them further.
- Stability of Incremental Static Regeneration
- Support of Webpack 5
- Revoking of getInitialPops
- Systemic Caching for Page Bundles
- Along with tray support for TypeScript and Sass Modules
A framework packed with such a lot can be done anything but neglected. It is something you cannot lack while writing your skills on your CV. So what are you waiting for?
Get up and learn it!
