Don't React • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't React

#21

Post by jacques_chester » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

I'd be more worried about the unusual license.

React is under BSD, but includes additional terms in a PATENTS file. Very generous terms. And yet ...

I'm not a lawyer, I couldn't even play one on TV. But it is profoundly bloody annoying that they didn't pick a well-understood, well-known license instead of baking up their own Frankenlicense.

I'm sure their lawyers have a reason for not just using the Apache 2 license. I'd love to know what it is.

In the meantime, every single company with fastidious lawyers is going to be dealing with Legal yanking the emergency brake when they see React, because it does not neatly fit into a known license.

Re: Don't React

#22

Post by toddmatthews » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:44 PM UTC

DigitalSea wrote: post #20

To me it doesn't matter what React likes to think it is, to me as a front-end developer all that matters is the tool that I choose can do the job. React is just another tool, in a way it is like jQuery: it doesn't do everything and it shouldn't be used for things that need something else more full figured or suited for the task at hand. I think Facebook do a great job explaining what React is and as far as I am aware…

typo: Facebook ARE dogfooding

Re: Don't React

#23

Post by Termina1 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

I think that author is completely right about the part, that React has the only one reactive part — its render function. But I don't see why it makes React bad. I think it is great, fast and easy to use.

By the way, virtual-dom is a little bit early to use for production application. For example, if you have some elements in your vdom, that are changing after you render it (i.e. like buttons, embeded posts, etc.), virtual-dom will be totally confused and unpredictable. For example, it can duplicate some elements on the page.

I believe it happens because vdom depends on its internal index to traverse real dom nodes. It is still a remarkably good piece of software.

Re: Don't React

#24

Post by Termina1 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:47 PM UTC

Termina1 wrote: post #23

I think that author is completely right about the part, that React has the only one reactive part — its render function. But I don't see why it makes React bad. I think it is great, fast and easy to use. By the way, virtual-dom is a little bit early to use for production application. For example, if you have some elements in your vdom, that are changing after you render it (i.e. like buttons, embeded posts, etc.), vi…

Also, React goes with Flux, and Flux is a reactive architecture. So, if you treat React a separate module, the whole flux architecture is pretty reactive.

Re: Don't React

#25

Post by jdkanani » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:48 PM UTC

impostervt wrote: post #3

For anyone else who, like me, didn't realize it - there's a little triangle on the bottom right to let you go through the presentation.

I had to come here to see what's going on. Thanks.

Re: Don't React

#26

Post by ryaniscool » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

This is a repost from a few months ago. Relevant because the author commented on the original HN post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8819115

Re: Don't React

#27

Post by adamb_ » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

ryannevius wrote: post #4

impostervt wrote: post #3

For anyone else who, like me, didn't realize it - there's a little triangle on the bottom right to let you go through the presentation.

What an awful UI decision. I wouldn't have even noticed it. EDIT: This apparently wasn't intended to be navigated by the general public, as explained by a comment below.

This is a standard reveal.js presentation: https://github.com/hakimel/reveal.js

Re: Don't React

#28

Post by augustl » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

I just want to say that this is the definition of "reactive" is amazing! Now I finally understand what "reactive" actually means.

Re: Don't React

#29

Post by tonyhb » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

Termina1 wrote: post #23

I think that author is completely right about the part, that React has the only one reactive part — its render function. But I don't see why it makes React bad. I think it is great, fast and easy to use. By the way, virtual-dom is a little bit early to use for production application. For example, if you have some elements in your vdom, that are changing after you render it (i.e. like buttons, embeded posts, etc.), vi…

Yeah, I agree. It doesn't necessarily make React bad. And, after years of Backbone and Marionette, having an hierarchical structure in which parents "pass down" methods and data makes more sense than events, which can be hard to manage, test and visualise. And I really, really, really want to be able to visualise the structure and interactions between components when developing.

Re: Don't React

#30

Post by ww520 » Fri, Apr 03, 2015, 1:53 PM UTC

It seems the author's notion of Reactive programming is listening for event. While event handling is useful, it has been in Javascript for the longest time and it's nothing new. Event based updates can have very poor performance, MxN problem.

Also Reactive programming is more of having a declarative way to structure data flow so that changes can happen automatically, like a spreadsheet.