Am I wrong in hating React JS?

I recall a few years back I hated Ember JS and kept trying to get into it and hating it then for some reason the 3rd time I did, it stuck and I LOVED IT. I mean really LOVED it. I have never been happier writing code in 20+ years of programming — that is something. So yes, I am a HUGE FAN of Ember.

I also felt the same way about VIM and it took 3 times to stick, now I want VIM everywhere.

React JS — for some reason I just f***ing hate it. I hate html in javascript. I hate JSX. I hate the lack of CLI. I hate the lack of conventions — every project I look at looks different, every blog post looks different. I hate the ridiculous amount of shit I have to do to simply get a project started. I hate the sheer amount of boilerplate code and the verbosity.

The problem is that I see many very SMART people, way smarter than myself that are praising React and using it. What am I missing? I mean, I am an expert dev and have been doing this for a while. What am I missing?

PS: I am a big fan of developer productivity and happiness and don’t give a shit if React is 5% faster than Ember. That might mean something for a website like facebook or twitter but it means nothing to me or any of my clients that will be lucky if they hit 1000 concurrent connections. I don’t want to optimize for a 1% use case at the cost of sacrificing happiness and dev productivity.

So, am I wrong? Is React a fad? Is it here to stay? Should I get into it?

Originally published at Emad Ibrahim.