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> evolved to be a very functional approach Is this actually advantageous though over class components? The creator of React said he thought moving to functiona

by erlich 6y ago

> evolved to be a very functional approach Is this actually advantageous though over class components? The creator of React said he thought moving to functional components would make it harder for people to learn. I've found that sometimes hooks can make things less flexible, more verbose, more error prone, and harder to reason about. Sometimes a class might have made things easier to understand. I loved the fact that `useEffect` could modularize code that was otherwise split between `componentDidMount/Unmount/Update`...but couldn't a new class API also have solved this. Maybe I just need to read the docs again to remind me. I'm all in for hooks, but it's rare that I think about what life could have been like if we kept class components.

filoeleven 6y ago
The trouble that React has to deal with is that JavaScript lacks good built-in support for pure functions and immutable data. Hooks are an opinionated way to make React work more like FP, and there are still gotchas because of JS’s lack of enforcement. “Advantageous” does not necessarily mean “easier to learn.” I’d say that for people coming from OOP, FP style is certainly unfamiliar and takes more getting used to. But for a front-end program that must always receive/send data to hand wave some other systems in order to do anything useful, it makes things much, much simpler. A whole class of problems disappears. The closer it gets to (state) => UI the easier it is to reason about and debug. I still think that Reagent, the Clojurescript wrapper for React, is the best version of React available. All of the state management is handled by CLJS itself, and the language design prevents accidental mutation. You can still mutate things where appropriate, but it is always an intentional choice. A framework like re-frame takes this even further, with similar ideas as Redux but with better language support for and enforcement of the paradigm.
dmt0 6y ago
> > evolved to be a very functional approach > Is this actually advantageous though over class components? The creator of React said he thought moving to functional components would make it harder for people to learn. At the end of the day you just end up thinking of the chunks of JSX and how they map to parts of the DOM, and who cares if those chunks of JSX are wrapped into a function or a class...

by erlich 6y ago

filoeleven 6y ago

The trouble that React has to deal with is that JavaScript lacks good built-in support for pure functions and immutable data. Hooks are an opinionated way to make React work more like FP, and there are still gotchas because of JS’s lack of enforcement. “Advantageous” does not necessarily mean “easier to learn.” I’d say that for people coming from OOP, FP style is certainly unfamiliar and takes more getting used to. But for a front-end program that must always receive/send data to hand wave some other systems in order to do anything useful, it makes things much, much simpler. A whole class of problems disappears. The closer it gets to (state) => UI the easier it is to reason about and debug. I still think that Reagent, the Clojurescript wrapper for React, is the best version of React available. All of the state management is handled by CLJS itself, and the language design prevents accidental mutation. You can still mutate things where appropriate, but it is always an intentional choice. A framework like re-frame takes this even further, with similar ideas as Redux but with better language support for and enforcement of the paradigm.

dmt0 6y ago

> > evolved to be a very functional approach > Is this actually advantageous though over class components? The creator of React said he thought moving to functional components would make it harder for people to learn. At the end of the day you just end up thinking of the chunks of JSX and how they map to parts of the DOM, and who cares if those chunks of JSX are wrapped into a function or a class...