On: React JS Best Practices

[STRML]

This is the right answer. This will effectively keep React from touching the element ever again after the initial render.

[talldan → STRML]

I'm intrigued as to why you think this approach is better than using a key? The 'shouldComponentUpdate' way of doing things means any changes to props or state on the component have to be handled manually, which can introduce a lot of non-trivial and overly complex code.