[smoochy]

Let me settle this debate: as I originally stated, the young developer was not stupid at all. She knew about HTML and forms and everything. She just didn't know how to work with it and, more importantly, she didn't want to get into that at the time, explaining that she didn't "want the site to look ugly" and that it was "a project for the portfolio" (implying that she needed to demonstrate her React skills).

So that's what's really troubled me. The companies responsible for producing this piece of garbage are actually getting into the heads of the younger generation, rendering them helpless without said garbage. I repeat, this is indeed garbage, especially React: in early 2000s we used to laugh at people mixing JavaScript and HTML, but some of them, apparently, decided it was their time to strike back.

The more important issue is, of course, that we have a generation of young people working with these "tools" which isolate them from learning things that actually matter. These levels of abstraction DO NOT add any value. These are "cargo cults" of abstractions, which without their authors knowledge (because those who invented them weren't very smart anyway) serve the purpose of keeping potentially talented and intelligent people ignorant and average. This is probably good news for somebody out there, but certainly not for us as a society.

[joshmanders]

> serve the purpose of keeping potentially talented and intelligent people ignorant and average

Man I think you're thinking wayyyyy to deep into stuff.