[luxphl]

This is what I meant by gatekeeping; there is common misconception that you have to go looking for a library to solve a problem. And it makes it seem like there's a higher barrier to entry than there is.

But the reality is that React is plain HTML and Javascript, in a less error-prone and maintainable package.

Everything you can do with vanilla JS you can do in React, but with React you benefit from being forced to separate the state of the DOM from manipulating it.

I don't buy the hipster-centric logic, for me it comes down to productivity. The bugs of yesteryear, tracking down which procedural code path led to modifying a variable, are mostly gone with React. And if you don't use it (or something like it), you end up implementing a subset of it anyway because it's a foundational part of coordinating UI with business logic. /shrug

[burlesona]

As a sibling comment notes, and as I noted in a reply to the OP, I agree with you that working with components is a nice approach and very useful. Using React as you describe is perfectly fine. The SPA craze where everything has to be done via React components is where we've jumped the shark IMO.

[luxphl]

That's fair. I have an app that is rendered server side (Node.js/Express) and the frontend is built with jQuery. Made sense at the time. But I ended up adding two very interactive modules and decided React was best for them and added it in piecemeal, and I was right. But now trying to integrate the new features with the older ones, I wish I started with React for everything. This happens more frequently than I'd like and it's why I'm skeptical of saying SPA's are bad. To me they make my life easier and are very flexible.

[bryanrasmussen]

Currently the site I'm building is a pretty static site of about 30-50 pages that is just brochureware for a non-profit scientific organization, on one hand I feel sort of embarrassed because it feels like I'm back in 2004 and I have a hard time justifying my salary for something like this, on the other hand I'm really super embarrassed at making the wrong solution because a React SPA with a service worker has been ordained as the way to make this thing.

[richthegeek]

Gatsby (static-site generator powered by React) was a massive timesaver for me. Sure, you spend a bit longer setting up some basic components, but the trivial ability to share those components between pages more than makes up for it...

[bryanrasmussen]

Yes of course I want Gatsby, but that is one of the things I'm not being allowed to do. I think I may have gotten overly sensitive these years to not getting my way on architecture.

[chrischen]

Doing things with react is mutually exclusive with SPAs. You could even do a purely server-rendered website using react on the server if you wanted to, and all the benefits of functional component design can still be utilized.

[TeMPOraL]

You probably meant "orthogonal" (a smarter-sounding way of saying "perpendicular", in the sense of "linearly independent"). A framework made and used primarily for doing SPAs can't be "mutually exclusive" with doing SPAs.

[emteycz]

Maybe they just wanted to say "isn't"

[ithrow]

React is not the problem, it's fine as a component in a page. The issue is the abuse of SPAs.

[mosdl]

You still have to debug those - if you set the wrong state/etc, things will break like before.

All react does is remove the need to modify the DOM directly when you want to modify things.

[richthegeek]

But setting the wrong state is someting that happens far less and is much more traceable, because the encapsulation of state changes into a single place massively reduces the side effects (and global state) that were the cause of 90% of those bugs in the bad old days.

[mosdl]

The OP said: "The bugs of yesteryear, tracking down which procedural code path led to modifying a variable, are mostly gone with React."

Which is wrong, React doesn't address that in any way, shape or form.

[rimliu]

> But the reality is that React is plain HTML and > Javascript, in a less error-prone and maintainable > package.

This is far form the reality. And the reality is, that more often than not you do not even need JavaScript, not to mention React.