I started using React over 4 years ago because I was interviewing for a job where I would be using it for all new projects. Up until then, I'd mainly used jQuery, Ember and plain old JavaScript.
Today, I still use React and I still enjoy it over the cumbersome mess of trying to build interactive apps with jQuery. I remember hours of frustration finding the root of bugs caused by manually keeping track of UI on the page.
It felt like banging my head against a brick wall, hoping to break through.
As a developer using React today, why did you start using it and what problem did React solve for you?
Latest comments (35)
Because 85% of the companies out there are using it, if I don't then it'll be so much harder to find work. It's a tolerable framework. A lot of annoying things about it, a lot of nice things also. I like redux-observable okay and immer. Vue 3 seems to have a much better version of hooks but unless more companies adopt it then we're all still stuck with React.
It’s always good to keep your mind open to new things.
It’s interesting you noted React was more clear cut than React in certain situations. I haven’t considered that but I haven’t used Vue enough to get a food idea of its limitations.
The first thing is that I was getting bored and I found a React Course from my friend and in order to get rid of boredom, I started to learn to React.
The second thing is that I am doing Angular Development for a While, so I wanted to know difference between React and Angular so I learned due to that reason as well.
It’s always fun to try something different!
Yes for Sure :)
I switched from Angular, since React bundles were in general much lighter.
Was this during the massive change between Angular versions?
Additionally, have you tried Preact at all?
It was around angular 5 or 6. It is fair to say, that even bare-bones Angular app gives you more tools, than React does.
Yes, I did try Preact! It is my go to for personal builds. I also prefer htm over jsx for simple projects.
I got an offer fron a company that's using react-native. I coded in vue prior to that.
How did you find the change? Do you still prefer or miss anything from Vue?
It was alright, i got used to react pretty quickly. I miss vue's elegant syntax, like conditional rendering and loops.
It’s funny how things pan out. I remember a lot of buzz around Angular because of its backing by Google. When Angular 2 was announced, a lot of devs just jumped ship and decided to move on like yourself.
It was taught in my web development course. I found a love over how much it made sense over jQuery to me. Current plus is that I've learned a lot of it at my current internship since my company uses it (almost) entirely for their frontend.
Great to hear! I’m happy you learnt something that was immediately applicable to you.
I was dabbling with AngularJS (yes, version 1).
Found it hard to understand/use.
Found Angular 2 even harder to set up (than even use).
Found React.
Solving problems at work and sometimes personal stuff.
Great! I’ve heard some similar stories of developers finding Angular difficult to work with in the beginning and instead opting for something like React or Vue.
Well, it's a modern and best solution. I can easily create apps with the use of state, I can map elements and build components. It is very comfortable when coding - In React it's easy to fetch data and display conetnt.
"Best" is subjective, I'd like to think that we can come up with something with less annoyances than react. Or rather, I think it already exists, it just didn't get popular enough yet.
Och, yeah, That's true. I haven't though about that. Let me fix my mind -
In my opinion, react is very good and nice tool, which allows you to do your projects in easy way. But of course it all depends on your feeling - You may come into Vue, Angular, Svelte or even another, not popular framework.
The point is to find your most comfortable code environment. Later, everything should go fine :D
I don't think so, people get hung up on things just because they don't realise that life can be better and they suffer for them. Millions of people think React is amazing, and in reality it might be a very poor framework, but just because so many people jumped on the bandwagon, it got bigger and bigger. Millions of projects got delayed, cancelled, people got demoralised. All because of reasons that don't make sense.
I personally started because it was easy to learn and have something working in minutes. It clicked much faster than angular did.
To get a job easier on dev' (professional retraining) and because 2 years ago it was easier to self-learn the framework React than Vue (more videos, tutorials, community..). However even if i realy love React today i'm working on Vue and i'm doing a lot more things on this last one than React.
Twice are realy good tools however each one got strenghts (React for easy self-train and learn basics features, Vue for his incredible cosy environement)
I appreciate the honesty 😂
Is there another library/framework you'd prefer to work in but it doesn't pay as well?
For reactivity and better front-end apps architecture mainly.
I remembered struggling maintaining the code on a jQuery application. React feels a lot more complicated at first sight but you just can't go back once you used it.
I agree, for simple things plain JS or jQuery is actually a good choice but React makes most dynamic UI much easier to read, create and maintain.
I recently did a poll on this topic on Twitter and guess what?
job opportunities got the most vote, popularity been the second and simplicity the last.
I knew a bit about React but you're right, the driving force behind really learning it was for a job.
"How long have you been working with JavaScript? "
10 years
Your experience with React?
None.
I am sorry, we can't offer you this position.
If that’s happened, it’s probably for the best. If they can’t see you’re an experienced JS developer who could pick up React in a week, they probably won’t be great to work with.
Yes the situation applies to when the interviewer is a recruiter with no tech experience whatsoever (it happens a lot)
My favourite is when I get LinkedIn messages about jobs requiring 10 years of Java experience because “you’re an expert at JavaScirpt”...
Lol! I bet they'd still looking up till now.
Cause it combines data and functionality so well