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35:25 · 75K views · May 26, 2014
Pete Hunt explains why React's virtual DOM was built, how it compares with databinding-style systems, and what it means for future browser technology. Recorded at FutureJS 2014 in Barcelona.
Commenters point to it as the clearest explanation of why re-rendering beats tracking data changes, and say it sold them on React.
3 comments from Hacker News
I'll try one last time: > Sorry none of this makes any sense to me. If you're not familiar with the MVC variants (MVVM, MVP, MVI, MOVE)[0][1] we should start there. Next you should read through some common mistakes of Backbone.js like applications [LINK] and some criticisms of MVC on HackerNews in 2012[0]. Finally if you haven't before these talks, they are the ones that sold me on React: - this video - [LINK] - [LINK] [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK]
I agree that calling it "React-like" seems misleading. When I read about a 'x'-like library I expect something that could actually replace 'x' and provide nearly the same features. Pete Hunt did a great talk on what actually makes React / virtualdom different from other databinding approaches.[1] Using this definition Riot.js looks a lot more like Angular, Ember et al. to me. [1] this video
Performance characteristics are that this increases expsense with the size of your data where as just re-rendering increases expense with the size of your UI. It's actually much more common to have lots of data but only render a small amount of it, so re-rendering is generally cheaper. The size and complexity of UIs have a natural limit because of screen size and usability, but the amount of data you use to generate a UI has essentially no natural upper limit. Pete Hunt gave a talk on exactly this almost two years ago. this video