> React has an unfamiliar syntax and the cognitive load to "get it" while not huge, was going to take time.
Maybe because I have a background in functional programming, it only took me an hour or two to get React itself. The basic concept is dead simple declarative programming: declare a React component some state, and it renders it. The lifecycle adds a bit more to understand, but most of us have dealt with lifecycles somewhere, whether in WordPress, Android, etc. And then there's local component `state`. But that's it.
However, what's commonly accepted as the React ecosystem (meaning webpack, babel, flux/redux, eslint, sometimes flow etc.) takes a lot longer to understand. And can be quite (perhaps overly) complex.
Maybe because I have a background in functional programming, it only took me an hour or two to get React itself. The basic concept is dead simple declarative programming: declare a React component some state, and it renders it. The lifecycle adds a bit more to understand, but most of us have dealt with lifecycles somewhere, whether in WordPress, Android, etc. And then there's local component `state`. But that's it.
However, what's commonly accepted as the React ecosystem (meaning webpack, babel, flux/redux, eslint, sometimes flow etc.) takes a lot longer to understand. And can be quite (perhaps overly) complex.