[acjohnson55]

I think your piece does a great job of highlighting the design principles behind React and friends, but in reality, I see nothing wrong with having your cake and eating it too: understand the principles but still use a battle-tested framework with a strong community around it. I don't see why everyone should reinvent the same abstractions. Your last sentence really nails it.

Great piece though. It's good for programmers to understand how powerful the concept can be of factoring state out of actions of your app.