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:

}
  getMountedInstance() {
    return this._instance;
  }
  getRenderOutput() {
    return this._rendered;
  }
  render(element: ReactElement | null, context: null | Object = emptyObject) {
    invariant(
      React.isValidElement(element),
      'ReactShallowRenderer render(): Invalid component element.%s',
      typeof element === 'function'
        ? ' Instead of passing a component class, make sure to instantiate ' +
          'it by passing it to React.createElement.'
        : '',
    );
    element = ((element: any): ReactElement);
    
    invariant(
      typeof element.type !== 'string',
      'ReactShallowRenderer render(): Shallow rendering works only with custom ' +
        'components, not primitives (%s). Instead of calling `.render(el)` and ' +
        'inspecting the rendered output, look at `el.props` directly instead.',
      element.type,
    );
    invariant(
      isForwardRef(element) || typeof element.type === 'function',
      'ReactShallowRenderer render(): Shallow rendering works only with custom ' +
        'components, but the provided element type was `%s`.',
      Array.isArray(element.type)