Saying "React is all about composable components" is just as incomplete as saying "React is all about performance." Here's my attempt: React is about making co

Saying "React is all about composable components" is just as incomplete as saying "React is all about performance." Here's my attempt: React is about making composable UI easy using stateless components which can still update fast because of the virtual DOM optimization. (OK looking again you did say "functional" which implies something similar) It's a bit harder to understand than the simple API indicates, especially coming from other kinds of stateful architecture. What I like best about React is how yoy can optimize stateless components incrementally, all the way up to where you're doing everything with raw DOM manipulation in the lifecycle methods. And how it's fast enough that you usually don't have to optimize at all.