create-react-app

t one for now. Going from imperatively poking around at the DOM and toggling things to simple declaring what the UI output should be based on props this component was given and state this component controls is a huge improvement. It takes some time to switch your mind around to thinking in that style, but once you do, your code becomes much more predictable and straightforward. [0] https://facebook.github.io/react/ [1] https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/5gt2c4/you_dont_ne... [3] https://www.fullstackreact.com/30-days-of-react/

oing to need to package/deploy your App and if you go off-script you'll need to manage and understand how all the different moving parts work together which you'll also need to know when wasting time chasing down dependency conflicts and tooling integration issues after package updates. Your point about their being only 2 dependencies is completely inconsequential for development and shows inexperience in the recommended state of the art React SPA development. [1] https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app/blob/m...

standardize behavior, share code, and run full-blown compilation pipelines that parse, transform, link, and optimize, and use all that to build complex applications. That's a completely different world than just using jQuery to toggle some divs. In addition, these pieces have really only come together in the last 6 years or so. The C ecosystem has been around since the late 70s, Java is over 20 years old, and so on. Those ecosystems have had time to build out tools and conventions, and the underlying platforms have been more stable as well. In the front-end world, browsers and runtime capabilities are constantly changing, and as people are pushing the limits of the language and ecosystem, others are inspired by those ideas. So, there's a lot of catch-up and iteration going on. I'm not going to say that it's easy to keep up with or that everything about these changes is perfect and wonderful. That said, I _do_ think that the rate of change is slowing down somewhat, and that the situation is stabilizing. I think the last year and a half of "Javascript Fatigue" complaints have also raised awareness of the churn, and that there's a big emphasis on improving developer experience going on right now. For example, the Webpack team has made a huge effort to rewrite their docs from scratch ([0]), and there's several utilities out there that try to make it easier to write Webpack configs without having to fiddle with every last option yourself ([1], [2]). There's also tools like Create-React-App ([3}), which try to encapsulate the entire build tool process for you ([4]). So, yeah - everyone's still trying to sort things out a bit, but ultimately the tools and technologies now available are letting people do a lot of things they couldn't do before. [0] https://webpack.js.org/ [1] https://github.com/andywer/webpack-blocks [2] https://github.com/webpack-flow/webpack-flow [3] https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/5gt2c4/you_dont_ne...

ch is a set of chat channels dedicated to talking about React, Javascript, and React-related tools [4]. It's a great place to hang out, ask questions, and learn. Finally, part of what's going on here is that people are trying to write highly complex and powerful applications in the browser, not just "pages" with some interactivity. Complex applications mean some meaningful amount of complexity in the project setup. These tools are basically the web equivalent of a C++ compiler toolchain and standard library. So, there's several aspects here: the tools are somewhat big, the libraries are sophisticated to enable you to manage your application's complexity, and your own app code is going to be more than just a couple click handlers. The other thing to remember is that you don't have to use everything all at once right away. Focus on learning one or two tools and concepts at a time. Hopefully this helps! [0] https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links [1] https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links/blob/master... [2] https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app [3] https://facebook.github.io/react/ [4] http://www.reactiflux.com

e the following component in Ember/Angular/Backbone/jQuery/FoobarJs with less boilerplate and verbosity? Header.js: import React from 'react'; import Icon from './Icon'; export default ({ icon, title, subTitle }) => ( <header> <h1><Icon name={icon} /> {title}</h1> <p>{subTitle}</p> </header> ); > I hate the lack of conventions — every project I look at looks different, every blog post looks different. React is just a library to build views, so there is not a single way to build your app in the React world. You can use Redux, MobX, Flux or whatever you want to manage your data. You can even do it in 100% raw vanilla JS. I think it's great. --- [1] https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app