Things you forgot (or never knew) because of React
I hate to say this, but to me, it's quite clear that the author doesn't understand what is React much. And for some reason, it is very common to understand it this way, like it is some kind of a great web framework that defines how we make web apps. I believe it is completely wrong to look at it this way. React is a LIBRARY, to create USER INTERFACES. If you want to apply it to the web - you must use react-dom. You can also write native user interfaces which are not web-related at all. You can do native desktop apps with QT interface, or mobile app using Swift UI kit or Android native libraries.<p>You can write interfaces on the server, wrap them in HTML documents and send them to the user performing SERVER-SIDE rendering. But not any of this directly entitles React.js as a web framework, and it is utterly incorrect to start comparing it perpetually with what it was compared to.<p>React was a true revolution in the functional user interface development area. The concept of side-effects, hooks, and reactive renderer comes from the functional paradigm which is not so easy to grasp. This fact alone makes all these articles to come.<p>The author is true to his "it’s still not intuitive to me what" and "I’m still not exactly sure what the difference between" lines throughout the whole article, but with great confidence he compares React with jQuery and Vue. I would say it is still not intuitive to him what is React in its core, and how different it is from the web frameworks he is trying to compare it to.<p>React is a functional Javascript library to craft anything related to User Interface. It is incorrect to label it a Web framework exclusively and keep comparing it with others because there are 10 different frameworks based on React, but just a single React there are.<p>And the React is much more of a bundle of functional concepts than a full-fledged framework for doing anything. You can easily shoot yourself in the foot if you take it wrongly, as it doesn't provide you with clear instructions for making things work. It leaves you on your own with hooks until you understand 6 of them are all you need to create the interface in it's gorgeous simplicity. At some point, you understand that if your hooks are complicated and you cannot grasp your effects - then it is your interface that is complicated and your thoughts themselves went astray to entangle this monster.