Agreed. I was kind of shocked to open up the comments and see people taking this at face value. I know this isn't reddit, but "upvoted because React" seems to be just as much in play over here.
1. Much of it reads as"are you taking this approach? yes? don't take this approach. no? take this approach."
2. There are also a couple of flowchart errors ("are you working on a production app" appears twice for no reason).
3. The main reason React makes me sad is the need for excruciating flowcharts like this.
As a result, the entire thing comes across as self-parody. For context, I'm a developer who works on a large enterprise app with a full build toolchain (npm, babel, webpack, sass, etc ad infinitum).
If you work with such a large build chain, how did you not realize that the flowchart is really about tooling complexity in the javascript ecosystem, in general?
Also, the "are you working on a production app?" has two nodes so that it can model the fork into {yes bundle, no bundle}, common in flowcharts.
If you take a close look at both flows you will see that point 1 and point 2 actually explain each other. :-)
If you use React in production and don’t use a bundler, you should. If you don’t use React in production and do use a bundler, perhaps you shouldn’t because it will distract you from learning process. Does that help?
The “need” for flowcharts like this comes from lots of misleading information on the internet about React, not from React itself.
Dan: I did not mean to offend, truly. As someone who has been working in this field for only ~ 2 years, it's just still kinda surprising to see such a thing. I wasn't sure at first if it was serious.
But I also understand the reality of our field, where such things are very serious, and yet always verging on self-parody. I'm getting used to it.
I talk to a lot of people on Twitter and I see real people turned off from React because they saw complicated boilerplate projects and assumed all of this is necessary just to get started. I’m just trying to counter the misinformation.
