[dustingetz]

While I have been using React since it launched in May 2013 and I agree with a lot of what you said, using words like "right" and "wrong" doesn't help. React is a great way to write applications but it isn't the most mature library ever, and the junior developers I worked with had quite a bit of trouble working with it for a while because functional programming is so different. The ecosystem is filling in, things are great, but "you are wrong and I am right" harms as much as it helps.

[danabramov]

Of course there isn't a “right” or “wrong” way. I'm sorry I didn't write it more clearly.

Approaches like jQuery soup or making SQL queries from PHP templates aren't “wrong” either. They are friendlier to beginner, too.

When I wrote “wrong” I meant “in my experience, inferior for building applications with complex stateful user interfaces and later maintaining them for a period more than several months in the face of changing requirements”.

Also, I'm not talking specifically about React. Of course it has its own shortcomings. All I'm saying is that relying on `Object.observe` and giving out global state to all components to mutate is the same as using global variables throughout the program. I don't know whether it is helpful to call global variables “right” or ”wrong” but I'd certainly stay away from them when there are ways to achieve the same without future maintenance nightmare.

[wereHamster]

You don't need to understand functional programing to use React.