There's been quite a bit of hyperbole thrown around about React lately (both positive and negative) but one thing that can't be overstated is the fact that the virtual DOM + React's diffing algorithm and the performance and architectural elegance it brings to frontend development is pretty amazing.

I see parallels in the transition from c, to a Ruby/Python/C# development experience (where a lot of low level and error prone details are abstracted away, giving a developer a lot more expressive power in a higher level language)