- render() does not immediately render content to the DOM, more a suggestion of what the HTML should look like
- even if a prop does change and we should render the same result, render does not immediately hit the real dom and start rerendering
- it compares virtual DOMs first (old virtual DOM vs re-rendered i.e. futured virtual DOM)
- virtual DOM approach faster than the real DOM
- a DOM representenation in JavaScript. def: virtual DOM
- re-rendered dom gets created when the render() method is called - doesn't immediately update
- makes the comparision and checks for differences
- even then, react only updates the DOM in places where it has been changed
- if no differences were found, the real DOM is not touched
- accessing the DOM is very slow
- react makes sure the DOM is only touched when absolutely necessary