React dot JS, or simply “reaked”, is a not inconsiderable amount of JavaScript, written by some self-styled engineers, to help a website called Facebook undermine democracy, foment genocide, and do whatever else is needed to sell virtual advertising space.
The React logotype, depicting an atom, evokes the infamous Manhattan Project, wherein a number of very clever people created some extremely dubious technology just to prove they could.
React was first deployed on Facebook's newsfeed in 2011 and was officially open-sourced in May 2013. By 2017, Facebook had made itself the primary source of information in Myanmar where, as Amnesty International attests, its algorithms were responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against the Rohingya people. In 2020, React controversially introduced Hooks: an alternative to class-based React components.
React is useful for making complex interfaces like Facebook’s or for making otherwise simple interfaces, and their underlying codebases, complex like Facebook’s. Rendering the text “hello world” without React requires one text editor and exactly 11 bytes of code. Doing the same with React, via the popular “create-react-app” command line interface, requires over 200MB of Node modules. The continual maintenance and expert calibration needed to run a React application has created a thriving job market.
An important feature of React is the virtual DOM. As the state of a complex and “realtime” interface changes, React may need to make multiple and concurrent updates to the DOM. Since these changes are costly, it maintains a lightweight version of the DOM and makes changes to this instead. Since this virtual DOM does not itself represent any kind of user interface, the same changes must be made to the real DOM as well.
This doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to. That's because React is not a logic based tool but a faith based one. React's underlying technology, JavaScript, was originally created by a Roman Catholic who funded a campaign to rescind equal marriage rights.
React’s annual React Rally conference is held in Utah, a US state populated predominantly by Mormons.
If you attend a React conference, you may be offered a free copy of The Book Of Mormon. While this generous gesture is protected under the first amendment, it is entirely unnecessary. The Marriott Hotel you are staying in will have already placed a copy of the Book Of Mormon in your room.
In summary:
- Facebook is a [redacted] company with a terrible web interface.
- React is a technology created at Facebook to administer its interface.
- React enables you to build web applications and their interfaces the way Facebook does.
- I am not calling Facebook Meta
- JavaScript-first interfaces built on ecosystems like React’s are cumbersome and under-performing.
- React prevails because its evangelical proponents and apologists have convinced developers that Facebook’s success can be attributed to technological quality and not aggressive capitalism.
- Continuously evaluating which parts of your entirely JavaScript-driven interface need to be updated is not necessary, even in theory, when your interface is not made entirely out of f**king JavaScript. You know which f**king bits need updating because they’re the few bits that actually f**king use JavaScript.
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