What is a Virtual DOM?
Table of Contents
How Does a Virtual DOM Work?
”Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.” – Rich Cook-
React’s Virtual DOM is an integral concept behind the success of the library. A Virtual DOM (VDOM) is a virtual representation of the HTML DOM structure, which works inside the memory and updates faster than actual DOM, thus resulting in an enhanced rendering process. React’s VDOM is a JavaScript-based solution dealing with HTML nodes and elements as objects.
Understanding the Main Objectives
The main objective of a Virtual DOM is to target only the changes that are needed, leading to a faster and efficient UX. Whenever there is a change made to an object, the entire DOM is not reloaded but instead the JSX is used, which essentially creates a virtual DOM. When React re-renders a Virtual DOM object, the new and old virtual DOM objects are compared using a diff algorithm to check the changes, rather than recreating the entire DOM tree. This data is taken and updated into the actual DOM, resulting in the actual changes to be visible in the UI.
Gaining High Performance
As such, React uses a single-direction data flow and not a two-way flow as seen in some popular PHP frameworks like Angular. This leads to high performance due to the application being re-rendered on state change rather than on user input directly. This simplicity leads to immense performance gains and it makes the code easier to follow and debug.
React’s Virtual DOM sets the place for the library to arrive at high performance to optimize an application’s speed and offer a delightful user experience. It allows us to write code with ease and still be able to target the changes rather than dealing with minor details due to declarative coding approach. This also saves the resources needed to render the DOM. Thus, React continuously out performs itself and evolves to lead the market in user experience and performance.
Benefits of Using a Virtual DOM in React
Conclusion
We have all heard of virtual DOM in React but what are its implications? Is it a game changer? Most React developers have embraced the concept of the virtual DOM which is essentially an abstract representation of Real DOM which is used to update and reconcile the changes made in the DOM.
The virtual DOM is essentially a copy of the actual DOM, which is stored in the memory and used by the React application to determine what parts of the DOM need to be updated when a change is made. Thanks to this great technology React applications run faster and smoother than traditional implementations of the DOM.
Given its advantages, it is easy to wonder what the future holds for virtual DOM. Will React developers start relying on the Virtual DOM more than the actual DOM? Will it become the standard for creating applications for React more quickly and efficiently? As the React community grows more and more, these and many other questions will need to be addressed in order to understand the real impact of the virtual DOM on React development.
If you would like to stay in the loop and be one of the first to know the answers to these thought-provoking questions, make sure to bookmark this blog. We will keep our readers informed of the latest updates and developments related to virtual DOM and React. Plus, we will continuously post interesting information as well as useful tutorials for making the most out of virtual DOM React implementation. So, stay tuned and wait for the newest releases!