React: Building Modern Web Applications

Considerations before starting

Whew! I think we're ready to start, but before we dive into the code I want to impart how I believe you should think about the render step in the React component lifecycle as well as a way to approach browser support and form validation.

React and rendering

The way you should think about the React render function is much like the definition of a mathematical function: f(state) = UI. React treats the DOM as a rendering target, much like a computer program or game treats the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). State is kind of like the arrays of object data (vertices, and so on). That data is prepared for shipment to the GPU, and the rendering portion of the component lifecycle is kind of like the OpenGL rendering pipeline ...