Directual and React

Why React is so Popular?

React is an open-source JavaScript library for developing user interfaces. It was delivered by Facebook^* engineering team and nowadays such companies as PayPal, Uber and Netflix use React.

Let’s have a look at the figure from Stateofjs 2019 research:

Stateofjs.com survey

React has attracted quite an army of fans (~150k stars on GitHub). Most of them are loyal—71.7% of all the web-developers have used React and would use it again. Let’s figure out why:

• Clean and readable code. Reusable components allow developers to build complex UI, keeping the flexibility.
• Easy to learn. A JS-dev can became a React-dev in a few hours.
• Outstanding rendering performance. React introduced Virtual DOM, that minimised re-render processes.
• React Native. The same codebase for crafting iOS and Android apps.

Perfect Combination

Indeed, React seems to be the right choice to create an app with sophisticated UI keeping the best possible performance. But any app (if it’s more than a landing-page) needs a backend part too!

And here we are! Directual covers all the needs in backend development:

• Database. Scalable NoSQL cloud-hosted database with clean UI for setting it up.
• Authentication. Full Role-based Access Control (RBAC) plus built-in Google authentication.
• API-methods. These are the ‘gates’ between UI and backend;
• Backend logic. It includes data transforming, calculations and real-time actions.
• Integrations. An app hardly lives in a vacuum.

One might say that there are some JS-frameworks for setting up a backend as well. Yes, there are. That is why Directual turns out to be much better:

• Outstanding flexibility and speed of development. Directual is a low-code platform. That means that you apply high-level building blocks in a visual manner. Most of routine work is performed under the hood.
• No infrastructure headache. Directual is built on AWS-cloud infrastructure and scales automatically.
• Built-in RBAC and Security. Authenticate your users simply and securely. Visual API-builder allows you to configure new methods in minutes.
• Powerful scenarios. Directual scenarios include tools for data transforming, integrating, reporting and document generating. You don’t have to code for it!
• Easy to learn. Directual visual approach is comprehensible even for non-developers. Video tutorials are available in Directual Academy.

Open-source Boilerplate-project for React

We prepared boilerplate-code for ReactJS. You can investigate its code on GitHub (it uses React hooks). Feel free to use this boilerplate in your projects, it is open source.

There are following pieces of functionality which could help you to get up and running quickly:

• Connecting to Directual API and setting up middle-proxy (explore files auth.js and setupProxy.js)
• Routing based on RBAC (file App.js and MainMenu component)
• Authentication (LoginRegister component)
• Components that get data from Directual (Cards component, for example)
• Forms that post data to Directual (Form component)

These pieces of functionality are reusable for any React template as well!

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