We're switching Atom to React, but we want to support backward-compatible shims to our previous view framework.

In the old framework, views were represented as jQuery-wrapped DOM elements. Ideally, we'd like to provide backward-compatible shims by simply rendering the React component and wrapping its root element in a jQuery wrapper with an API that's compatible to our old editor views. That would essentially look like this:

``` javascript
var editorRoot = document.createElement('div')
React.renderComponentWithRootElement(Editor(props), editorRoot)

// the element would actually be wrapped in a custom subclass of jQuery,
// but this is clearer for this example
var editorShim = $(editorRoot) 
```

Currently, this isn't possible because React components need to be rendered into a container. So instead we need to create a wrapper element and render the component inside it. This is sad because it adds an extra layer of markup which confuses styling, and also means that the editor has a wrapper when used via the shim layer but no wrapper when embedded as a child via React itself.

Is there something fundamental preventing React from adopting DOM nodes directly without the parent? Is this something we could even hack in in a way that would be somewhat maintainable?

:heart:

props,
        oldState,
      );
      if (partialState != null) {
        const newState = Object.assign({}, oldState, partialState);
        this._instance.state = this._newState = newState;
      }
    }
  }
}
let currentlyValidatingElement = null;
function getDisplayName(element) {
  if (element == null) {
    return '#empty';
  } else if (typeof element === 'string' || typeof element === 'number') {
    return '#text';
  } else if (typeof element.type === 'string') {
    return element.type;
  } else {
    return element.type.displayName || element.type.name || 'Unknown';
  }
}
function getStackAddendum() {
  let stack = '';
  if (currentlyValidatingElement) {
    const name = getDisplayName(currentlyValidatingElement);
    const owner = currentlyValidatingElement._owner;
    stack += describeComponentFrame(
      name,
      currentlyValidatingElement._source,