Beginning ReactJS Foundations Building User Interfaces with ReactJS

14Deploying React

Now that you know how to build a React UI, implement routing, catch and log errors, and several methods for fixing performance problems, you're ready to move beyond the confines of your local development machine and make your app available to its audience. In software and web development, we call this step deployment.

In this chapter, you'll learn:

• The differences between the development and production versions of React.
• How to build your app for deployment.
• Different options for hosting a React UI.
• How to enable continuous integration with Git.

WHAT IS DEPLOYMENT?

Software deployment is the process of making software available for use. For web apps, this means putting an app on the web. For mobile apps, it usually means putting an app in an app store.

Deployment of a web app generally involves running the code through several steps to prepare it for the web, followed by actually transferring the processed files to a server where they'll become accessible through a non-local URL.

BUILDING AN APP

Building, or compiling, an app is the process of transforming your development, or source, files into a standalone app. In the case of a React project, this means your app must go through several steps, including the following:

• Linking to the optimized production version of the React and ReactDOM libraries.
• Bundling other linked libraries that are required for your app to run on a server (such as React Router).
• Transpiling your source files to a lowest-common-denominator ...