I don't want to sound like a old grumpy man but here goes anyhow. I was looking into using node.js, react, etc after many years of writing web apps using Python and Quixote (obscure web framework like Flask). The whole Javascript technology stack looks pretty insane of me. Getting a working React environment requires a huge number of packages to be pulled down by npm. Browserify requires a bunch more. Recursive dependency resolution is nice and all but isn't this going to create a massive technological debt that needs to be maintained? Semver is not a magic bullet.
Also, seems like a security disaster waiting to happen (I don't use CDN because I like to make sure I review code before putting it on my important websites). Linux distributions like Debian have put in huge effort into making a packaging system that is secure and doesn't lead to dependency hell. You can argue how successful they have been but, and maybe I'm ignorant, I don't see the same effort and level of maturity in the Javascript/npm ecosystem.
As an alternative to React, I'm looking at Mithril. It's relatively small and has no dependencies. I'm quite a bit more comfortable building on that foundation as opposed to a giant house of cards.
Also, seems like a security disaster waiting to happen (I don't use CDN because I like to make sure I review code before putting it on my important websites). Linux distributions like Debian have put in huge effort into making a packaging system that is secure and doesn't lead to dependency hell. You can argue how successful they have been but, and maybe I'm ignorant, I don't see the same effort and level of maturity in the Javascript/npm ecosystem.
As an alternative to React, I'm looking at Mithril. It's relatively small and has no dependencies. I'm quite a bit more comfortable building on that foundation as opposed to a giant house of cards.