Tell me about optimizations in React. Why is React better compared to plain JavaScript?

React is optimized for efficient UI updates through the virtual DOM — an abstraction of the real DOM that minimizes operations by updating only the changed parts.

Main optimizations in React:

• Component memoization using React.memo to avoid unnecessary re-renders.
• Using hooks like useCallback and useMemo to cache functions and computations.
• Splitting the application into small components for local updates.
• Lazy loading (React.lazy) for loading components on demand.

Advantages of React over plain JavaScript:

• Declarative approach simplifies UI description.
• State management and component lifecycle control.
• Large ecosystem and support.
• Cross-platform capabilities (React Native).

Example of component memoization:

const MyComponent = React.memo(({ value }) => {
  console.log('Render');
  return <div>{value}</div>;
});