When I first started...
When I first started, basically everyone told me to use React for our project - we have it installed for future compatability just in case, but honestly, so far we've used it very seldomly even as our project goes along. The advantage of React usually is told as:
- It's easier to learn, especially for beginners. I found this to be untrue - I had to go back and re-learn Javascript from scratch to get started (a pre-requirement) and this thing just adds another layer on top of that. My brother (a professional developer) often laments the fact that people who come out of bootcamps are often taught React without the JS basics and end up being terrible developers in practice since they don't have the fundamentals there. (Our first dev hire was one of them - never again, honestly.)
Something is off about the way React is pushed and taught, either way.
-
The "components" idea behind React assumes that websites use the same code blocks over and over and can be streamlined as such. Incidentally, this is also why most websites look exactly the same now, and is boring to look at. Components stifle creativity and prevents local customization that gives websites that little extra charm that's needed for interest. This is particularly a problem for our project since we're trying to attract creatives, not "creatives".
-
React seems to have popularized the idea of mixing HTML/Javascript together to make it, again, "easier". In practice, this makes it more difficult to assign specific files to roles since everything just starts blending together, creating more merge conflict opportunities. This more benefits people who are used to working alone.
-
React does nothing for organizational or workflow management - it makes things worse in a lot of ways since the functionality of the code gets hidden behind component names, which you often have to search manually in multiple files in order to see what's going on.
-
One thing React has going for it is that it is more speed efficient. But for smaller sites and small business use, this doesn't matter. It's optimized to solve problems that most people will never need, nor never encounter. If they ever get to the point where they're serving millions of users, there are other options out there that can help with that. But most startups needs bottom-up help, not top-down. Keep in mind React was created by Facebook because they were unhappy that they had to pay these "developers" soooo much money and they wanted a better way to get help on the cheap. That didn't happen since they still get paid the same and as far as I can tell, and it didn't really improve the ease of managing tech projects, either.
I feel like React is "easier" for a particular type of dev - who learned how to code in a particular way during a particular time, works alone, and probably came of age around the same time Mark did. It's kind of its own bubble which gets pushed onto newer devs because of FB/Meta's massive marketing machine behind them. But I'd say overall, it's probably mostly overrated and unnecessary in most cases - probably will start lose favor once Meta cuts back on its marketing efforts, imo.
Javascript's new features with ES2015/16 are pretty nice, though, gotta admit. They solve real issues in the language and makes things a little bit smoother. But that has nothing to do with React - that was done by ECMA non-profits that has been around much longer than any of these packages have.
One thing I think about is whether Web3 is going to give birth to a new coding language that makes a lot of these decentralized stuff easier. Solidity, Michelson, etc. feels clunky and not really realistic for most people to learn, even if they're technically inclined. If it happens, it'll probably come out of a non-profit DAO, similar to Javascript, is my guess.