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They're low-level interfaces to a custom property and method lookup table in a language that already has that built-in. I guess it might just be me but I get a

They're low-level interfaces to a custom property and method lookup table in a language that already has that built-in. I guess it might just be me but I get a little chuckle every time I read/read-praise-about/use them. I dunno, the functions-or-bust crowd happily doing and championing manual OO machinery fiddling amuses me.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
Does that built-in method lookup table contain all the re-rendering and general state management work that React does with its hook?
- spanhandler 6y ago
  Nah, but that could have been build on traditional methods and properties just as well, without having to re-implement those first. It's not like every component doesn't resolve to an instance of an object anyway. [EDIT] what they couldn't have done, probably, would have been cleanly implementing that on top of class-based components without then having to tell their large and influential functions-are-the-only-way constituency that they'd need to write a lot more classes in the future. I suspect aversion to having to deliver that message is part of why we ended up with hooks as the solution, and classes left behind instead.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    I can understand why it may seem non-optimal, but I don't have much of a dog in the fight, and I refactored a hobby project to react hooks a little while ago and found it both much less code and much less complicated. But to each their own.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > what they couldn't have done, probably, would have been cleanly implementing that on top of class-based components without then having to tell their large and influential functions-are-the-only-way constituency that they'd need to write a lot more classes in the future. They were saying that for a long time before hooks when the only way they had it implemented at all was for classes, and functional components were usable for much narrower use cases. I suppose, if they could have done it cleanly with classes, they would have, whatever that meant saying to those downstream who aesthetically preferred functions. I don't know if it inherently worked better with functions, if the core devs themselves are just more proficient in that style, or if it was just a confluence of experience and the timing that the push to improve functional components occurred, but in the end functional components are just much cleaner.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

Does that built-in method lookup table contain all the re-rendering and general state management work that React does with its hook?

spanhandler 6y ago
Nah, but that could have been build on traditional methods and properties just as well, without having to re-implement those first. It's not like every component doesn't resolve to an instance of an object anyway. [EDIT] what they couldn't have done, probably, would have been cleanly implementing that on top of class-based components without then having to tell their large and influential functions-are-the-only-way constituency that they'd need to write a lot more classes in the future. I suspect aversion to having to deliver that message is part of why we ended up with hooks as the solution, and classes left behind instead.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  I can understand why it may seem non-optimal, but I don't have much of a dog in the fight, and I refactored a hobby project to react hooks a little while ago and found it both much less code and much less complicated. But to each their own.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > what they couldn't have done, probably, would have been cleanly implementing that on top of class-based components without then having to tell their large and influential functions-are-the-only-way constituency that they'd need to write a lot more classes in the future. They were saying that for a long time before hooks when the only way they had it implemented at all was for classes, and functional components were usable for much narrower use cases. I suppose, if they could have done it cleanly with classes, they would have, whatever that meant saying to those downstream who aesthetically preferred functions. I don't know if it inherently worked better with functions, if the core devs themselves are just more proficient in that style, or if it was just a confluence of experience and the timing that the push to improve functional components occurred, but in the end functional components are just much cleaner.