I think people are getting too hung up on the "implicit ordering" thing. The only thing that really matters about the ordering of hooks is that the call pattern

I think people are getting too hung up on the "implicit ordering" thing. The only thing that really matters about the ordering of hooks is that the call pattern remains stable between render passes. This code: const [foo, setFoo] = useState("abc"); const [bar, setBar] = useState("123"); ...is functionally the same thing as const [bar, setBar] = useState("123"); const [foo, setFoo] = useState("abc"); The feature is _declarative_ in the same way element rendering is declarative.