The incorporation of the REST API into core is bringing to the fore JavaScript as a key part of WordPress’ future. While there’s no shortage of JS frameworks out there for taking advantage of the API, the WP community seems to be gravitating toward React.js as the framework of choice — as typified by Calypso.
This session will provide a basic overview to React.js: what it is, what problems it’s built to solve, and how to get started working with it using simple examples. If you’ve mostly written PHP, or have written jQuery but not gone deeper into JS than that, this should be a good primer.