[danielvaughn]

I've been writing React for a long time, and I loved it for the first few years. I thought ui=f(state) was brilliant. But over time I've come to realize that what I really loved was JSX, and I was merely putting up with React's rendering model so that I could use it.

As I see it, React has the following problems:

  1. The web is inherently imperative. Using things like setTimeout or autofocus is a real pain with React.  
  2. The state of your application is orthogonal to the structure of your UI, and coupling the two causes a ton of headaches.  
  3. React takes complete control over your UI, so adding UI plugins usually requires specific integrations. The google maps SDK comes to mind.  
  4. By taking complete control over the rendering process, React creates a barrier between you and the DOM. You stop thinking about the web platform, and you start "thinking in React." This degrades your quality as a professional engineer and causes your platform expertise to deteriorate over time.