JSX in React: The Power Behind Declarative UIs

🚀 JSX in React: The Power Behind Declarative UIs 🚀

If you've worked with React, you've likely written some JSX. But what exactly is JSX, and why is it a big deal in React?

🧩 What is JSX? JSX is a declarative syntax used to describe what React components look like and how they work based on their data and logic. It looks like HTML, but it's actually an extension of JavaScript—a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in one place.

🛠 How does JSX work?

• Each React component returns one block of JSX. React then uses this to render the component in the UI.

• Behind the scenes, JSX is converted to React.createElement calls using a tool called Babel, which allows browsers to understand this JavaScript-based syntax.

🎨 Why is JSX Declarative? In the declarative approach, we simply describe what the UI should look like at any point, based on the current data (props and state). React automatically synchronizes the UI without needing us to manipulate the DOM directly.

This is in contrast to the imperative approach, where we would manually handle DOM elements with vanilla JavaScript—an unfeasible approach in complex apps.

✨ The Magic of JSX JSX allows us to focus on describing the UI, while React handles the rest. No need to worry about query selectors, event listeners, or DOM manipulation. React abstracts all of that away, simplifying our workflow.

In short, JSX is how we tell React what we want the UI to look like, not how to achieve it, and it’s this abstraction that makes React such a powerful library for building UIs.

Check out these Super helpful slides.