* **Just the UI:** Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.
* **Virtual DOM:** React abstracts away the DOM from you, giving a simpler programming model and better performance. React can also render on the server using Node, and it can power native apps using [React Native](https://facebook.github.io/react-native/).
**NEW**! Check out our newest project [React Native](https://github.com/facebook/react-native), which uses React and JavaScript to create native mobile apps.
You'll notice that we used an HTML-like syntax; [we call it JSX](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/jsx-in-depth.html). JSX is not required to use React, but it makes code more readable, and writing it feels like writing HTML. A simple transform is included with React that allows converting JSX into native JavaScript for browsers to digest.
The fastest way to get started is to serve JavaScript from the CDN (also available on [cdnjs](https://cdnjs.com/libraries/react) and [jsdelivr](https://www.jsdelivr.com/projects/react)):
We've also built a [starter kit](https://facebook.github.io/react/downloads/react-0.14.7.zip) which might be useful if this is your first time using React. It includes a webpage with an example of using React with live code.
The main purpose of this repository is to continue to evolve React core, making it faster and easier to use. If you're interested in helping with that, then keep reading. If you're not interested in helping right now that's ok too. :) Any feedback you have about using React would be greatly appreciated.
To help you get your feet wet and get you familiar with our contribution process, we have a list of [good first bugs](https://github.com/facebook/react/labels/good%20first%20bug) that contain bugs which are fairly easy to fix. This is a great place to get started.
There's only so much we can cram in here. To read more about the community and guidelines for submitting pull requests, please read the [Contributing document](CONTRIBUTING.md).