Did... did he really call React "minimalist"?! I'm not sure this guy has ever attempted to build any actual webapps with React, because that's certainly not a term that anyone would use that had.
You can probably use 90% of React's functionality with like, four or five functions and four or five component lifestyle methods. What's not minimal about that?
> jQuery doesn't include any of that stuff, either.
That's a really important point. I still often use jQuery because I don't need 'any of that stuff' and for a bunch of different reasons (other developers, client already using jQuery, etc.).
But it's surprising how often these days my clients want/need stuff where jQuery would not be ideal and React can take care of it all.
React is nice and it's on the right track, but it still has a ways to go before it takes jQuery's crown. JQuery is absurdly useful, it's downright silly how much you can get done with jQuery.
Agreed, even though I prefer using React as much as possible, I have to admit that there are times where, even on a React project, I am tempted to just use jQuery as well. Which is not a great idea.
Having worked on a project recently where we chose jQuery (because it was already on the page and we didn't want to delay page load), what I missed about React was the luxury of re-rendering the view from state.
Doing so with jQuery blows away the DOM (causing inputs to lose focus), so we ended up with the usual jQuery soup referencing the DOM for state.
My rule of thumb is that React is a good solution for any site that needs something more complex than simple, slideshow-level js, or a site that more than one slideshow-level widget (slideshow + order basket, etc.).
Google trends and the job market say otherwise. React still has a long way to go to match jQuery. Plus it's just a view layer, hardly something compelling.
