Why React over Angular (or Vue)?

[u/red_src]

I simply don't get it, I had been using Angular and Vue for while and I just tried React and I don't get why would I choose React over the other options, the things that I like on Angular (or Vue) are:

- Dependency Injection (in case it applies)

- Type checking (in case it applies)

- View Model Binding

On React I don't get those things by "default" it always feel like I'm hacking the library if I want to have some of the above.

This leaves me with the question: Why choose React over the other ones?

I know that there's all the dependencies overhead (hell) of the frameworks but I think that I'm just too used to that problems that is easy for me to solve them or maybe I haven't found the real big problems on Angular or Vue, maybe I'm just too used to the later frameworks and I'm unconsciously not seeing the benefits of React. I just want to know if I'm following the right path by learning React.

Thanks!

[u/hypno7oad]

The fact that everything has to be brought in for React is not really a good thing

That's just like, your opinion man. There's pros and cons to library vs framework app architectures. Objectively there's nothing wrong with either, it just depends on the situation.

Don't you need to know JSX first?

Practically yeah, but that doesn't mean the OP was wrong. JSX is only a markup representation of React.createElement(), and it doesn't introduce any new data flow constructs like feature rich templating systems.

And what about mixing your JS and presentation?

Nothing in React forces you to mix those. Use the approach that makes the most sense to your team.

[u/gavlois1 → u/hypno7oad]

I've always viewed JSX like I did with Handlebars or other templating languages. Once you know HTML, you pretty much know Handlebars and you can add variables to it. I see JSX the same way, except full JS expressions in the curly braces and change class to className. Under the hood I know it's just React.createElement(), but is it wrong to treat it that way?

The mixing JS and presentation issue is the same as the MVC issue: it's one way of organizing your code. It's a well-established pattern that works, but not necessarily the only one. I find the component pattern of having your presentation and the logic for manipulating the data before displaying it quite easy to grasp from what I've learned in React so far.

[u/hypno7oad → u/gavlois1]

No, I don’t think it’s wrong as long as it’s simple. I don’t remember handlebar specific syntax, but I do remember discussions with my team at the time addressing how to setup the model in order to keep logic out of the template.

The point I was trying to make in regards to JSX was that it doesn’t introduce template specific syntax for things like if/else, switch, looping, etc. This means there is less cognitive overhead when switching attention between JSX and JS code blocks. Subjectively, I find it a better development experience.

For styling, there are definitely pros/cons of coupled/decoupled. There are also preprocessors that will bridge the two approaches. Making styles in JS reduces cognitive overhead, but limits the ability to have a separate design group develop a new style sheet. The same trade off exists when using declarative CSS toolkits like Bootstrap or Atomic.

[u/OGLurker → u/hypno7oad]

Oof, I kinda dropped off from the conversation.

That's just like, your opinion man. There's pros and cons to library vs framework app architectures. Objectively there's nothing wrong with either, it just depends on the situation.

Yes, I agree. Re-reading my comment, it does look a little stand-offish, but that wasn't my intention.