State versus props

"Shawn, it's important to understand the difference between props and state and where to use what." informed Mike.

"Props are immutable. They should not be updated by the component to which they are passed. They are are owned by the component which passes them to some other component. State is something internal and private to the component. State can and will change depending on the interactions with the outer world." said Mike.

"State should store as simple data as possible, such as whether an input checkbox is checked or not or a CSS class that hides or displays the component." Mike added.

"Another thing to make sure is to not duplicate props in state." said Mike.

var App = React.createClass({
  getInitialState: function() {
    return {
      changeSets: this.props.changeSets
    };
  }
});

"It is possible to set the state based on data passed in props. However, the parent component can update the props and send them again. In this case, the state will be muddled up with...