I'm just getting my feet wet with react - but my impression from various blog posts and a bit of coding - is that in the beginning there was reasonml (ocaml dialect - mostly (but not only) targeting compilation to js target) - and react sort of "fell out" as a set of patterns/framework from doing functional programming of dom/gui/state.
And react for js, ("react") is those patterns + patterns for js to make everything (sort of) work without as solid a language to steer one away from various cliffs.
Which is one reason why I don't quite understand why there are class based components at all.
At any rate - my current goal is to try some reasonml+react - and I think it'll feel better. And I'm not surprised cs+react feels more sane than js+react.
> Which is one reason why I don't quite understand why there are class based components at all.
Classes in js are just syntax sugar, so even if you're writing classes you're still actually writing function prototypes. As such there's little reason not to support them, and they're very welcome when you have a team of developers that are adapting to modern js development almost exclusively from traditional OO languages.
Hm. I might have to have another look at the implementation of classes in js. I still don't see the benefit of the syntax - but if it really amounts to just convoluted closures over variables, I guess I'll view them with a little less grumpiness :)
It's an interesting podcast, but wanders a bit, and there's no transcript. But does mention Jordan Walke who wrote the first prototype of react for Facebook ads. Jordan is currently working on reasonml:
I do wonder if it'd be easier to port sml syntax to ocaml rather than make reasonml - I guess not. But it might give similar benefits: a pleasant syntax dialect for ocaml, a mature compiler for js and native, and bringing in th js and ocaml library ecosystems.
[ed: but not, perhaps, 90% overlap with js syntax.]
As I mentioned - I haven't really played with reasonml/reason-react - I think maybe some of the impressions alluded to in my first comment came in part from this:
"When using ReasonML, we don’t need Redux anymore. ReactReason stateless components already come with the concept of a build in reducer, which is meant to take care of the problems Redux used to address."
You might not need this library, especially so in a language which provides good enough construction blocks out of the box. ReasonReact already comes with reducers!"
And react for js, ("react") is those patterns + patterns for js to make everything (sort of) work without as solid a language to steer one away from various cliffs.
Which is one reason why I don't quite understand why there are class based components at all.
At any rate - my current goal is to try some reasonml+react - and I think it'll feel better. And I'm not surprised cs+react feels more sane than js+react.