React Best Practices for 2024

Component Composition Over Inheritance

React favors composition over inheritance, and for good reason. Instead of creating complex inheritance hierarchies, build your components by composing smaller, reusable pieces together.

// Good: Composition
function Card({ children, title }) {
  return (
    <div className="card">
      <h2>{title}</h2>
      {children}
    </div>
  );
}

function UserCard({ user }) {
  return (
    <Card title="User Profile">
      <p>{user.name}</p>
      <p>{user.email}</p>
    </Card>
  );
}

Use Custom Hooks for Logic Reuse

Custom hooks are perfect for extracting component logic into reusable functions. They help keep your components clean and make testing easier.

// Custom hook for API calls
function useApi(url) {
  const [data, setData] = useState(null);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(true);
  const [error, setError] = useState(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    fetch(url)
      .then(response => response.json())
      .then(setData)
      .catch(setError)
      .finally(() => setLoading(false));
  }, [url]);

  return { data, loading, error };
}

Optimize Performance with React.memo

Use React.memo to prevent unnecessary re-renders of functional components. This is especially useful for components that receive complex props or render expensive content.

• • Only use React.memo when you have performance issues
• • Be careful with object and function props
• • Consider using useCallback and useMemo for optimization
• • Profile your app to identify actual bottlenecks

State Management Best Practices

Choose the right state management solution for your needs. Not every app needs Redux or Zustand - sometimes useState and useContext are enough.

Error Boundaries and Error Handling

Always implement error boundaries to catch and handle errors gracefully. This prevents your entire app from crashing when a single component fails.

Additionally, handle loading and error states explicitly in your components to provide better user experience.

Conclusion

Following these best practices will help you build more maintainable and performant React applications. Remember that best practices evolve with the ecosystem, so stay updated with the latest React developments and community recommendations.