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Helitha Rupasinghe
Helitha Rupasinghe

Posted on

Explain JSX like I'm five.

#discuss #explainlikeimfive #javascript #beginners

Top comments (27)

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posandu profile image
Posandu • • Edited on

JSX is just fancy HTML (With some rules) that compiles to pure JavaScript. So if you write something like this:

 <div>
    <h1>Hello World</h1>
 </div>
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It will compile to something like this:

React.createElement("div", null, React.createElement("h1", null, "Hello World"));
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So now you can generate HTML with JavaScript. This is the basic idea behind JSX.

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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

Great example! 👏

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jfbrennan profile image
Jordan Brennan •

If someone offers you JSX, just say no!

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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

Certainly!

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andrewbaisden profile image
Andrew Baisden •

Some of these answers are too complex for a five year old to understand 😂

My attempt... JSX is like the instructions you get inside a box of lego that shows you how to build stuff. The lego box is your container and the blocks are you being creative and building something with it.

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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

Thank you for posting this! 👍

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️ •

An abomination

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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

Very informative! 👍

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hanufu profile image
Eduardo Ribeiro •

lol

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy 🎖️ •

👍

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lexlohr profile image
Alex Lohr •

JS is a language describing logic and interaction. HTML is a language describing content, based on XML, which is meant to describe arbitrary data.

JSX, a shorthand for JS+XML, is these two languages put together into one. In JS, you can use numbers, strings, etc, but HTML code would cause errors. In JSX, HTML Code becomes a valid value that represents the actual HTML.

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matijanovosel profile image
Matija Novosel • • Edited on

JSX is a combination of HTML and Javascript to put it simply, or as the official React site says: "a syntax extension of Javascript". It offers the functionality of writing Javascript expressions inside HTML elements which is then processed to create the UI.

e.g. this...

const navBar = (<nav className="bg-yellow"> Home </nav>);
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... gets converted into:

const navBar = React.createElement("nav", { className: "bg-yellow" },  "Home");
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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

Thank you for sharing!

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pengeszikra profile image
Peter Vivo • • Edited on

Fo me JSX is a first selling pont of react (and nextjs). Because I can create any HTML releated stuffs at no time with simple js (ts) function, without need to know any template language syntax. I can use any js controll sequence for put together the view.

JSX also give good abstraction for view declaration.

// nextjs also can declare head elements

const FooGameFrame = () => {
  const [state, dispatch] = useSagaReducer(mainSaga, gameReducer, initialState);
  const army = getDispatchedActions(getActionsLookup(), dispatch);
  const {game, hero} = state;

  return (
    <section className='portal-root m-2'>
      <MobilFrame>
        <Head>
          <title>Foo Game</title>
          <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1.0, width=device-width" />
          <link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json"></link>
        </Head>

        {game === GameMode.ROLL_CHARACTER && <CreateHero state={state} army={army} />}
        {game === GameMode.ADVENTURE_ON_MAP && <SingleAdventure state={state} army={army} />}
        {game === GameMode.BLOG && <Blog name={hero?.name} avatar={hero?.avatar} />}
      </MobilFrame>
      {game === GameMode.ADVENTURE_ON_MAP && <CombatZone state={state} army={army} />}
    </section>
  );
};
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codingjlu profile image
codingjlu •

JSX allows you to write HTML in JavaScript and is treated as a value, which is then compiled to JavaScript in which a function is called to represent the element specified. This code is usually then used in the browser to create virtual DOMs.

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dylanwatsonsoftware profile image
Dylan Watson •

To a 5 year old? That's tough! Ok here goes:

JSX helps us tell the computer where all parts of a web page should go and what they will look like. It also lets us easily give the computer the information we want to show on the web page.

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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

Amazing!

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allisongarner profile image
AllisonGarner •

JSX stands for JavaScript XML. It is mostly used with React to describe what the UI should look like.

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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

Love this! 🔥

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icyjoseph profile image
Joseph •

JSX is an extension to the JavaScript language, which aims to give a way to fully represent named objects, with their attributes, and their role in a hierarchy, all in one go.

It is not HTML, strictly speaking, but it does carry a lot of similarities, and, perhaps, even creates certain expectations that are not true.

Since JSX just represents an object, we can use that information to do a variety of things, from CLIs, Word Documents, Videos, Web UI, Mobile UI, etc., I for once have used it to make, albeit useless, forward calculation networks, that then I blend with React to render the results to a web UI.

It is pretty cool what one can achieve with JSX syntax.

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zhouyg profile image
zhou-yg •

JSX is a syntax candy created by React

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yosipmikecolin profile image
Yosip Mike Colin •

Se denomina JSX a la combinación de HTML y JS para dar lugar a un código mucho mas compacto y elegante.

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hr21don profile image
Helitha Rupasinghe •

bien dicho hermano

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jamescurran profile image
James Curran •

JSX takes HTML, a simple straightforward way to describe formatted text, and made it verbose, complex and confusing.

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wudixer profile image
Steffen Lips • • Edited on

JSX or TSX (for TypeScript) can be used in pure Javascript/TypeScript. It works perfectly without React.
It eases the creation of dynamic code e.g. filling a table with new rows

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