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>Higher-order functions are extremely common and useful in all functional languages. Yes but higher order components as you call them, seem to be an abstractio

>Higher-order functions are extremely common and useful in all functional languages. Yes but higher order components as you call them, seem to be an abstraction that you would only use because the base unit of organization is a React component. I'm of the opinion that design patterns emerge due to deficiencies in the language or abstraction level, and that they can be avoided.

danabramov 10y ago
>Yes but higher order components as you call them, seem to be an abstraction that you would only use because the base unit of organization is a React component. I don’t really see the issue here. “How do you parameterize Y by X?” “Create a function that takes X and returns Y.” Doesn’t really seem React-specific. The unit of organization is indeed the component. Again, I’m not sure I understand why it being a first-class thing indicates a deficiency. By this logic, functions are deficient in JavaScript because you can pass a function to [].map(), or Promises are deficient because you can resolve() a Promise to another Promise. I think the opposite is true. The abstractions are more powerful when they afford building higher level abstractions on top of them. Obviously you shouldn’t overuse this, just like you shouldn’t overuse higher order functions, but it’s a nice property to have.
- daliwali 10y ago
  >“How do you parameterize Y by X?” “Create a function that takes X and returns Y.” Doesn’t really seem React-specific. I'm not talking about the what, but why would anyone think of using higher order functions to build user interfaces in the first place. It complicates the use case: building and mutating DOM Nodes. >I think the opposite is true. The abstractions are more powerful when they afford building higher level abstractions on top of them. And what may I ask requires so much power for building web front-ends?
  - pka 10y ago
    Higher order functions are not such a complicated concept. Just a function passed to a function. You use functions, right?
    - daliwali 10y ago
      Yes, but why is the question. I think that is seriously not given much thought and people just accept man-made complexity as essential. It seems tautological to say that higher order components extend components, but it is only due to the design decisions of the React authors that application code must fit its own paradigm, not the other way around.
      - pka 10y ago
        On the contrary, it's about reducing complexity. You don't have to worry about mixins, classes, prototypes, inhertiance. Just plain old functions. Can't get simpler than that.
  - danabramov 10y ago
    >I'm not talking about the what, but why would anyone think of using higher order functions to build user interfaces in the first place. It complicates the use case: building and mutating DOM Nodes. Why are you using a higher order function to `[].filter()` an array? It complicates the use case: iterating over items. >And what may I ask requires so much power for building web front-ends? I don’t know what kind of apps you are building, but use cases for React at Facebook are very complex. You may create an Ads account and go through the ad campaign creation flow to see what I mean.

danabramov 10y ago

>Yes but higher order components as you call them, seem to be an abstraction that you would only use because the base unit of organization is a React component. I don’t really see the issue here. “How do you parameterize Y by X?” “Create a function that takes X and returns Y.” Doesn’t really seem React-specific. The unit of organization is indeed the component. Again, I’m not sure I understand why it being a first-class thing indicates a deficiency. By this logic, functions are deficient in JavaScript because you can pass a function to [].map(), or Promises are deficient because you can resolve() a Promise to another Promise. I think the opposite is true. The abstractions are more powerful when they afford building higher level abstractions on top of them. Obviously you shouldn’t overuse this, just like you shouldn’t overuse higher order functions, but it’s a nice property to have.

daliwali 10y ago
>“How do you parameterize Y by X?” “Create a function that takes X and returns Y.” Doesn’t really seem React-specific. I'm not talking about the what, but why would anyone think of using higher order functions to build user interfaces in the first place. It complicates the use case: building and mutating DOM Nodes. >I think the opposite is true. The abstractions are more powerful when they afford building higher level abstractions on top of them. And what may I ask requires so much power for building web front-ends?
- pka 10y ago
  Higher order functions are not such a complicated concept. Just a function passed to a function. You use functions, right?
  - daliwali 10y ago
    Yes, but why is the question. I think that is seriously not given much thought and people just accept man-made complexity as essential. It seems tautological to say that higher order components extend components, but it is only due to the design decisions of the React authors that application code must fit its own paradigm, not the other way around.
    - pka 10y ago
      On the contrary, it's about reducing complexity. You don't have to worry about mixins, classes, prototypes, inhertiance. Just plain old functions. Can't get simpler than that.
- danabramov 10y ago
  >I'm not talking about the what, but why would anyone think of using higher order functions to build user interfaces in the first place. It complicates the use case: building and mutating DOM Nodes. Why are you using a higher order function to `[].filter()` an array? It complicates the use case: iterating over items. >And what may I ask requires so much power for building web front-ends? I don’t know what kind of apps you are building, but use cases for React at Facebook are very complex. You may create an Ads account and go through the ad campaign creation flow to see what I mean.