1 Introducing Next.js
This chapter covers:
- The types of things that all React applications need to do
- A conceptual introduction to Next.js
- Why it can be challenging to build React applications without Next.js
Over the past few years, React has seen massive growth in popularity. One reason for this is due to its low barrier to entry. You don’t require several years of front-end development experience before you can pick up React, tinker with it, and make something useful with it. What enables this ease-of-use is the nature of React itself; it doesn’t have a lot of moving parts which simplifies building components and bringing them together to build functionality. Another ease-of-use factor for React is its tooling. For example, starting a new project is straightforward and doesn’t require that you understand how everything works behind the scenes. Because of Reacts popularity, there’s a huge ecosystem surrounding it. Chances are, that whatever your application needs to do, it doesn’t have to invent it from scratch – there’s probably a package out there with supporting components.