* **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 uses a *virtual DOM* diff implementation for ultra-high performance. It can also render on the server using Node.js — no heavy browser DOM required.
* **Data flow:** React implements one-way reactive data flow which reduces boilerplate and is easier to reason about than traditional data binding.
You'll notice that we used an HTML-like syntax; [we call it JSX](http://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.
We've also built a [starter kit](http://facebook.github.io/react/downloads/react-0.12.0.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.
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).