
Our First 50,000 Stars - dchest
https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/09/28/our-first-50000-stars.html
======
hellofunk
I'm not a big fan of Facebook, but I'll admit that React was a real game-
changer for my own development life. I don't use JS any more but all the
idioms I learned using it I now adopt to other languages. I heard once that
React actually came out of the Instagram team, which Facebook acquired.
Regardless of the history, it's an amazing tool.

~~~
shaneos
No, React came out of the Ads team in Facebook where we used it build the Ads
Create Flow (facebook.com/ads/create), but Instagram were early adopters who
really helped push it forward (shout to the awesome Pete Hunt!) along with the
News Feed team who used it build post comments.

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drinchev
Congratulations, guys.

I'm being paid right now for working on React project, so it's pretty huge
impact for my life.

Anyway :

> Just three and a half years ago we open sourced a little JavaScript library
> called React. The journey since that day has been incredibly exciting.

I don't think that it's little [1], though.

[1] :
[https://github.com/facebook/react/tree/0.3-stable](https://github.com/facebook/react/tree/0.3-stable)

------
rvanmil
Thanks for creating and open sourcing React. I enjoy working with React a lot
and it's made me a lot more productive than before when I was using Backbone.
Recently one of our customers went live with a mobile app which we built with
React. The entire process of developing, as well as the app performance has
been a great success.

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eatbitseveryday
I don't know about you, but I use stars as a kind of bookmark, nothing more. I
see many instances where projects see the accumulation of stars as an
accomplishment, or milestone the project achieves. Does it mean more to other
people?

~~~
Ensorceled
I'm not sure why you think having 50K people think your project is worthy of a
bookmark ISN'T an accomplishment. Seems pretty noteworthy all by itself.

~~~
amorphid
I use stars as a metric in deciding which unfamiliar library seems to be real.
It's right up where with number of downloads, and most recent commits. Not a
perfect system. Just a sniff test.

~~~
mipmap04
I'd say it's a fairly reliable metric. Plus, it tends to lead me towards
thinking "If all these other people could use this for their needs, I bet I
can too".

~~~
ino
If you star the official fb php SDK for example, it's just to keep up with
having to rewrite the fb part of your app every couple of months because
you've composer updated the sdk (Best practice, lol).

It's unbelievable the number and pace of breaking changes.

As an advice, it's less work to disregard the sdk and implement using curl.

Very sloppy and unprofessional from a company that was born, grew and even
made their own php.

~~~
mipmap04
Well, they do carry the motto "move fast and break things". I suppose that's
the price of admission for playing with FB.

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NKCSS
Nice backstory :)

Now if only I was able to pick wich framework to use in the future (still
can't decide between React, Angular or Vue)...

~~~
blowski
Pick any of them at random. Once you've got the hang of one of them, it will
be easy (if necessary) to pick up another. Anyway, Angular and React will
probably have been replaced by another generation within 5 years, so focus on
the underlying skills and less on the syntax of a given framework.

~~~
NKCSS
I'm a .NET developer (which means ASP.NET MVC back-end; razor views) and
currently the front-end is just Bootstrap with custom javascript for
interactions. I've written components to allow easy paged table data (which is
usualy the only thing that is universally repeated; e.g. list data, have
server-side paging/sorting and formatting functions). I want to use typescript
for new development en eslint, but still haven't decided on the
templating/component system. Leaning towards Vue but enterprise-wise, it seems
smarter to pick Angular or React, where Angular seems to be the safest choice,
but form all I've read, React seems more flexible (which is also the problem,
since you can mix/match so many different pieces). I wished there was just 1
thing that was clearly better; would make my life so much easier :)

~~~
Pigo
I came from an MVC background, where we created hybrids putting Angular or
Knockout in the views. But lately I've been doing light-weight Angular
solutions now with Webpack talking to Web API. Anyways, Angular 2 is more of a
fair comparison to React, since your building components in both of them. The
biggest difference between them seems to be that Angular puts js into the
html, and React puts html into the js. So it really just depends on which
development experience you'd prefer. The Angular team has a lot of sibling
projects like Angular Material that I like using, but I'd like to experience
more with React.

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pan_w
Great excerpt from the article:

"While it might look like an overnight success in hindsight, the story of
React is actually a great example of how new ideas often need to go through
several rounds of refinement, iteration, and course correction over a long
period of time before reaching their full potential."

~~~
stockkid
I also think that it's a great excerpt. We often overlook the processes that
lead to an event.

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jtmarmon
maybe this is just me but what even is that t-shirt? it looks like two
unrelated images thrown on top of one-another in photoshop

~~~
throw20160915
Yeah, I'm not quite making the connection between React and what appears to be
a spring water or lava source.

~~~
NinoScript
It is a volcano with lava:
[https://www.behance.net/gallery/43269677/Reacts-50000-Stars-...](https://www.behance.net/gallery/43269677/Reacts-50000-Stars-
Shirt)

Probably something to do with being the powerful core of your application.

~~~
hackaflocka
I initially thought it was an egg being broken because of the reference to
"egghead.io".

------
evanular
The fundamental paradigms that React encourages have made me a better
developer. Thanks to the React team!

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mshenfield
_React is actually a great example of how new ideas often need to go through
several rounds of refinement, iteration, and course correction over a long
period of time before reaching their full potential_

The main point of the post. React has developed over time into the fulfillment
of its original promise - views as a function of state. Some really core
pieces that make this manageable and efficient weren't around at the start
(virtual DOM, a well defined lifecycle API).

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_alexander_
Congratulations! React is awesome, thanks guys!

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mkolodny
I'm curious - what's the significance of the volcano on the shirt?

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colmvp
HN tends to downplay every sort of achievement until it cures
cancer,government inefficiencies, and works on all devices including screen-
readers and morse code machines.

~~~
chimeracoder
> HN tends to downplay every sort of achievement until it cures cancer

Oh, don't sell HN short. If a cure for cancer topped the frontpage, one of the
top two comments would be someone remarking that "it's not really _that_
novel, because chemotherapy has been around for ages."

~~~
always_good
"Heh, I had this idea when I was eight years old. Color me surprised when I
saw it at the top of HN this morning. ;)"

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ihsw
There is a term used in the article -- latinx. I have never heard of latinx
before today. What's wrong with Hispanic? Why invent a new term?

~~~
derrasterpunkt
That's a new gender expression: Latinx = Latino (male) and Latina (female).

~~~
ihsw
But why? What is wrong with latino/latina?

~~~
ethanbond
I wouldn't say there's anything _wrong_ with it, personally. But there are
valid reasons people might opt to use Latinx (also my first time seeing the
term).

For one, there are people who don't fall into either of those categories but
are in fact of Latin descent. It's worth noting that some Latin cultures
actually have _specific_ notions of third gendered/non gendered/multigendered
people. Check it out, it's pretty interesting:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender)

Secondly, it started this very conversation we're having right here and now.
I'd say that's a good thing.

