[mattgreenrocks]

> clever

Virtual DOM qualifies as clever in my book. :)

Better question to ask is why so many libraries/frameworks proliferate in webdev and not as much in native apps. JS is a suitably powerful language these days.

Also, the attitude of “just use jQuery like everyone else” (paraphrasing the last paragraph and substituting for React) would have precluded the development of React.

[benbristow]

The cleverness is abstracted from you as a developer and the cleverness is maintained by an open-source community and a huge corporation (Facebook).

With native apps you definitely have frameworks available now. React Native for an example. But the languages and toolkits available basically serve as a framework anyway.

[mattgreenrocks]

Is cleverness only allowed for the FAANGs of the world? I cannot subscribe to such a nihilistic view of computation.

SICP should be required reading for any serious dev if only to expand their imagination beyond an industry that is intensely focused on boiling the difficult and creative endeavor we call software development into a discrete, repeatable process.

[benbristow]

I mentioned the open-source community in my comment. So a collective of knowledge of many talented developers from the public, and also the stewardship of a FAANG and their developer talent pool also.