I think about React vs Backbone from time to time, too, but have drawn different conclusions.
Backbone was one of my first "JS frameworks". I thought it was neat, but when React came out, I thought "oh, something actually useful, unlike Backbone, which is mostly application framework glue code, but doesn't actually do all that much for me. Concrete huge wins for me from React were:
- Not having to regularly touch the DOM
- Reactive state management
These two things not only made my life as a programmer much easier, but they also developed my ability to build software that wasn't spaghetti.
Backbone was one of my first "JS frameworks". I thought it was neat, but when React came out, I thought "oh, something actually useful, unlike Backbone, which is mostly application framework glue code, but doesn't actually do all that much for me. Concrete huge wins for me from React were:
- Not having to regularly touch the DOM
- Reactive state management
These two things not only made my life as a programmer much easier, but they also developed my ability to build software that wasn't spaghetti.