Smashed a few tutorials together, threw spaghetti at the wall and got Spring Boot working with React, without any REST nonsense. This is the way forward.
RESTful snottiness
Good lord I tried a Spring Boot/React tutorial that also dealt with REST, and what a headache that is. It strikes me as very academic, with people arguing about what is proper and pointing fingers at others who aren’t “doing it right”. Just the notion of trying to implement a search on the server side opens this whole pandora’s box of whining and arguments. Sometimes it’s okay to just get something done! I think I am going to learn one thing at a time and leave RESTfulness for another day.