Thanks for the reply.
I guess programmer's mind are wired different :)
I getby copy/pasting JS snippets or fork fully made apps or follow tutorials etc to make my stuff move, behave & work. Good enough for prototypes and explaining my designs interactively.
But React feels like Level:10. I do get the "concept" of React (tell the overall endstate, the code redraws the page to that, instead of focussed DOM targeting). It feels like something which can be one only after MASTERING JS.
I started learning Vue - it felt more natural & simple. Like Python. Conceptually add a <CDN script> & go. It does all the magic and works right away (loved typing lazyload to lazyload). No nodeserve npm -v or bower -x, .git, command-line cd mkdir launch serve localhost. It maybe second nature for programmers, but it is daunting.
It is not specific to React, but to toolkits like Polymer as well. It was supposed to be simple webcomponents:
<googlemaps zip=02891></googlemap>
...but "importmodules", "server start", various little files to make it work & the localhost it needs to run. Uff! too much overload. Just discovered AMP, loving the fact that it has no JS :) :) so it kinda levels the playing field :)