[SketchySeaBeast]

That was my biggest eyeopener when I started using React - the piece I know just the tippy top of the iceberg. While that's true with a lot of languages (it's not as though I know what's going on with the whole .NET stack) it seemed especially egregious. I had a site up and running quickly, but it pretty much entirely magic.

Do you teach JavaScript first just because of how fast it is to get it up and running (ie. "Just open your web browser")? If I remember correctly it was much more vexing than a lot of compiled / strongly typed languages as the errors in those languages came sooner. In JavaScript there have been times where it loads and runs, but nothing happens, and I had no idea why, which proved frustrating.