OK I may be off point here - but why do people who know just enough JQuery need to know about React ?
Wasn't React developed as a tool to manage complex data flow patterns inside of a big web app like Facebook ? Why does your average JQuery developer need to know or care about this whole new abstraction layer ?
Even though I've seen it a 100 times by now I'm still amazed by how fad driven programming culture is and I feel like this is a perfect example : React - come learn this complex peace of technology to solve problems you never had (and probably never will).
I thought the linked article actually made the most convincing case I've seen yet for using React for "simple" UIs that you would normally build using jQuery. It demonstrates that even something simple like a tweet box (textarea, character countdown, a couple of buttons) benefits from the React methodology.
Its aimed at JS beginners, a lot of us started with simple web development picked up some JQuery and are looking for something more powerful. This looks like a great segue to building rich front-ends.
In fact if you look at the URL the site is called reactfordesigners.com.
>In fact if you look at the URL the site is called reactfordesigners.com.
You would want your designers to write frontend code that is complex enough to require React ?
The way I've worked with designers is they create sketches and prototypes just to demonstrate the concepts with whatever they are familiar with and then developers turn that in to actual maintainable code with feedback.
My educational roots are in graphic design but I have taken on more and more front end development as my career has progressed to the point that I'm mostly coding these days.
With Web design, I started with simple HTML sites, learned CSS, then learned some JS to manipulate the DOMs I created.
Having run into some of the jQuery pitfalls that the author describes, This tutorial meets me where I'm at and takes me to a new place, using incremental, concrete, and practical examples to show me that React is a logical extension of JS in certain use cases.
Designers are visual people, so being able to see each step along the way and telling me why it's important is a really big deal. I have some projects now where I'm changing state quite a bit, and I can now see where React would be really useful. Designers also tend to get into the web coding stack from the front end first, so I think we end up thinking about coding a Web site in a really different way than back-end developers with a background in software engineering.
The title says
> React.js Introduction for People Who Know Just Enough JQuery to Get By
Unless you're working at a really big shop, designer these days is almost synonymous with UI/UX engineer or front-end engineer. Considering the target audience is JQuery users, React is not too far of a jump and doesn't have to be restricted to "complex" websites.
In order for benefits of React to outweigh the costs you need to have a web application with complex data flow. jQuery is proven to work and there is no problem with it in anything less.
At the point where you actually need React you also need to understand software engineer or you're going to get a mess no matter what the framework is.
I don't think anyone is saying people who know just enough jQuery NEED to know about React, just like jQuery, React is just another tool. To address your points though, React is "A javascript library for building user interfaces", it wasn't developed to be a tool to manage data flow patterns, it was built solely as a view library. Most people pick up jQuery as a means of manipulating their views/the dom so the target audience of both libraries as well as their use cases is very similar. Now I'm not saying the same thing will happen with React, but not too long ago people were saying the exact same thing about jQuery when it was introduced.
React has a significant learning curve and a different model from regular DOM. It has a significant cost over something like jQuery especially when you already know jQuery.
jQuery works just fine at small enough scale. Once you out-scale jQuery you will have problems that won't be solved just by using a different view library - you need to understand software engineering - which is why everyone who actually uses reacts also uses things like Flux, etc.
My point is jQuery works for what it's used, getting people to switch to React seems like a fad because "the cool kids are doing it".
As a front end dev, I love it when people I work with use the right tools, and the mindset encouraged by making React things is just... good. The lisp/scheme/clojure wisebeards would approve of how it makes you think about UI.
I feel as though the move from raw JS to JQuery is similar in significance to the move from JQuery to React. So in answer to your question, I would say a dev who learned React would be more appealing as a hire and as a colleague, and it'd be well worth the investment for any future career.
I've spent ~2-3 years programming in clojure and prototyped stuff in clojurescript. While I love it for the domains it applies and it has influenced my programming considerably - I would never recommend random 9-5 Java dev shop to go pick up Clojure - there's just no point - Java works fine for what they are doing and their developers know it - learning Clojure would be a huge investment and the benefits wouldn't really be there.
The same thing is true for jQuery -> React. If you're a front end designer who does some programming - you need to learn the DOM and CSS, jQuery is just a simple tool to leverage that more easily.
React is a fundamental change that requires a lot of relearning and more importantly the benefits are questionable unless you're dealing with the scenarios it was designed for. You need to have experience with existing tech (that is way more intuitive, like two way data binding) to see what problems it solves - that's not in the domain of a jquery programmer.
I also wouldn't call people who "just know jQuery" devs but rather designers who know how to code.
I don't know why you think React is complex. At its basic form you need to know render method. Its one of the simplist to pickup. I suppose you need to change how you view your page, as a bunch of components instead of dom tags.
I have used it on complex single page app with Flux and without Flux along with simple small components for rails app. Now i don't feel the need to use JQuery but for the very simple single line ops(like hide, show etc). OfCourse i still use JQuery it for ajax.
Novice programmers don't have the perspective to understand that the latest hot library may be old news in 6 months, and how the old adage of "hold a hammer and everything becomes a nail" can impact a project.
A year or so junior programmers figured out how to add Angular as a dependency into every single project whether it was needed or not, now people are teaching them how to do the same with React. The constant parade of new JS frameworks combined with the ease of package managers & compilers is creating a nightmare scenario when it comes to project bloat
I guess the idea is that maybe they'd like to do things that they can't currently do? I'd even argue learning React is more compelling for someone who's never used any of the competing products that for someone who has.
In all seriousness, I've already had to rewrite a codebase because an inexperienced programmer (less than 2 years professional) chose it for a use case that wasn't even appropriate, and he did a terrible job implementing it correctly. My team that took over wasn't happy.
If programmers didn't do stuff solely because it's cool, then that would have been a day back on that project.
Wasn't React developed as a tool to manage complex data flow patterns inside of a big web app like Facebook ? Why does your average JQuery developer need to know or care about this whole new abstraction layer ?
Even though I've seen it a 100 times by now I'm still amazed by how fad driven programming culture is and I feel like this is a perfect example : React - come learn this complex peace of technology to solve problems you never had (and probably never will).