React Pros and Cons

[00:00 - 00:35] Lesson 3 - React drawbacks React is not very opinionated compared to some of its alternatives, which can be a blessing or a curse depending on your outlook, and is primarily focused on rendering data into the DOM. However, this can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's relatively lightweight and easy to learn the basics to get going quickly. On the other hand, by being so dumb-focused, we are missing some of the other vital puzzle pieces involved in web app development. For example, if you want users to navigate around your application or manage your application's state at a broader level, you got the need to use additional third-party libraries such as Redux and React Router. A common complaint with React is its learning curve.

[00:36 - 01:34] Whilst not as steep as a framework such as Angular, it does not have the simplest learning curve and can leave some aspiring React developers stumped with particular mechanisms such as updating state and passing data via the props object. Another issue is with the lack of strong opinions within React. React is known as an unopinionated library. This means that whilst it might come with some nuances and specific syntax that it prefers, it doesn't force a particular way of working on the developer, nor does it bring with it a raft of specific ways to implement common tropes such as navigation or talking to an API. For experienced developers, our teams using agreed development standards, this might be a less of a problem. However, for new comments to both React and front-end development in general, being let loose with the React library without a clear set of best practices or other guidelines can lead to poor coding standards, code quality issues, and frustration as you receive conflicting advice on how best to approach component development. Don't worry though, over the lessons in this course, we'll explore some of the most popular and most common approaches to fill in the blanks that React leaves us with out of the box.