Virtual DOM is a concept used in React to efficiently update and render UI elements. It is a representation of the actual DOM (Document Object Model) tree structure in JavaScript. Instead of directly manipulating the DOM, React uses the virtual DOM to track changes and update only the necessary components, resulting in better performance and user experience.
Reconciliation: Diffing and Updating
Reconciliation is the algorithm used by React to compare and update the virtual DOM tree. It determines the differences between the old tree and the new tree, and applies the necessary changes to the rendering tree. React’s reconciliation algorithm considers components, different types of updates, and the use of keys for efficient diffing of lists.
The Role of Fiber Architecture
Fiber architecture is the core algorithm behind React’s virtual DOM. It is a reimplementation of React’s reconciler with the goal of improving performance and sustainability in areas like animation, layout, and gesture. With fiber, updates can be paused, aborted, and reused, allowing for more efficient rendering and prioritization of different types of updates.
How Fiber Works?
- When a React app is rendered, a tree of nodes describing the app is generated and saved in memory.
- This tree is then flushed into the rendering environment, such as the browser’s DOM.
- When the app is updated, a new tree is generated and compared with the previous tree to compute the necessary operations for updating the rendering tree.
- Fiber allows for incremental rendering, splitting the rendering work into chunks and spreading it out over multiple frames, resulting in smoother and more responsive user interfaces.
The Complexity of Fiber Architecture
Fiber architecture is a complex and low-level abstraction that goes beyond the typical understanding of application development. It involves concepts such as memorization, component types, and the internal workings of the diffing algorithm. While it may seem challenging at first, diving deeper into the documentation and exploring educational resources can enhance your understanding of React’s fiber architecture.
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The Power of React’s API
React’s API allows developers to think declaratively and focus on state management rather than worrying about the efficiency of transitioning between different states. Updates in React are treated as causing the entire app to rerender, but React’s optimization techniques create the appearance of rerendering while maintaining performance.
conclusion
React uses the virtual DOM as a strategy to compute minimal DOM operations when re-rendering the UI. It is not in rivalry with or faster than the real DOM. The virtual DOM provides a mechanism that abstracts manual DOM manipulations away from the developer, helping us to write more predictable code. It does so by comparing two render trees to determine exactly what has changed, only updating what is necessary on the actual DOM.
