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I spent a few months learning HTML, CSS and JS because I thought they were the backbone of web development. I got decent at it and found it pretty enjoyable, be

I spent a few months learning HTML, CSS and JS because I thought they were the backbone of web development. I got decent at it and found it pretty enjoyable, because everything seems to make sense - HTML structures the page, CSS handles the design, and JS handles the functionality. React, on the other hand, I find very confusing. I don't understand what problem all that complexity and abstraction is supposed to solve. Aren't HTML/CSS/JS really good and time-tested tools for web development on their own?

noman-land 4y ago
React solves problems you don't often run into when making simple websites with simple functionality. Once you start trying to build complex, dynamic web applications that involve loads of state changing over time, and user and API interactions, it can get really messy and cumbersome. Think Gmail, Spotify, Facebook. Now if you try to add other engineers to the project, without some sort of framework, it's difficult for them to understand what's going on, or to change things without cascading consequences.