Creating a React App using ActiveRecord

ReactJS is a very popular Javascript library that is used to create flexible components that are easy to scale, plus they provide applications that provide interactivity with the client side user. On the journey of learning React I found how quickly working with a backend server can limit how useful an application can become, especially as your app grows larger and larger….

Luckily for me and the rest of the world ActiveRecord exists!

In the future, Ruby on Rails will be used for the server side of applications, but ActiveRecord is a great start to learning the basics. The main advantages of using ActiveRecord are:

• Easy to maintain as an application grows, instead of having to drill down into each React component, an application controller is usually the only thing you need to modify.
• Testing while in development, with the use of third party apps such as Postman, you can test your backend server before even creating your React frontend.
• Endless amount of tools and libraries, both React and ActiveRecord have a huge amount of things to choose from to help with your application. In my very limited time of working with both I was surprised how medial tasks are automated, which helps you focus on “what” you want to create and not “how” to create it.

The greatest part of learning how to use and create a Single Page Application using React and ActiveRecord is not just the ease of use and the scalability to grow with your database, but the fact that most large companies currently use React and Ruby on Rails. Learning these languages now prepares you for the future and what’s next to come!