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> The class syntax garden path is much nicer than the weed-filled hedge maze it mostly replaced. I agree. Honestly I don't understand the obsession some people

by pier25 4y ago

> The class syntax garden path is much nicer than the weed-filled hedge maze it mostly replaced. I agree. Honestly I don't understand the obsession some people in the JS world have against classes. React components with state made more sense with classes than hooks. And yeah some people argue hooks are composable yada yada but if you need a React expert to write a useInterval hook to use a fundamental language feature, then maybe the model is not a great idea to begin with. https://overreacted.io/making-setinterval-declarative-with-react-hooks/ https://overreacted.io/making-setinterval-declarative-with-r... Of course I know I'm in the minority here.

schwartzworld 4y ago
It's because they have been bitten by inheritance issues. Classes are great as long as you limit or avoid inheritance altogether. They work so nice with typescript.
- WorldMaker 4y ago
  Relatedly, it's also because of multi-inheritance issues specifically. React built hooks in part to handle cross-cutting concerns that needed some form of multi-inheritance (mixins and "higher-order components" which themselves were often something of a hack around the existence of strong JS mixin libraries/standards/best practices/meta-programming). The best hooks are an improvement over their HOC counterparts (and many of their mixin counterparts): better Typescript types, fewer footguns, fewer composability limits (HOCs had stack problems where stack them in the wrong order and they broke or interfered with each other), easier to reason about (even given the weird learning curve of hooks in general, as black box "units" they have simpler mechanics and APIs than HOCs ever did). To be fair, you can build a lot of React components without ever feeling a need for something like an HOC and never deal with some of the inheritance problems that Hooks were built to solve so some of that "classes are a better way to write components" feeling is that one has never quite before had the multi-inheritance itch to scratch that Hooks solves for. It's obviously hard to judge a tool when you don't know if you've had the problem it solves for or not.
  - schwartzworld 3y ago
    I was talking about classes as a design pattern, not just react classes. That said, I don't miss higher order components, but I do find myself reaching for renderprops sometimes. I think it's still a great pattern.

by pier25 4y ago

schwartzworld 4y ago

It's because they have been bitten by inheritance issues. Classes are great as long as you limit or avoid inheritance altogether. They work so nice with typescript.

WorldMaker 4y ago
Relatedly, it's also because of multi-inheritance issues specifically. React built hooks in part to handle cross-cutting concerns that needed some form of multi-inheritance (mixins and "higher-order components" which themselves were often something of a hack around the existence of strong JS mixin libraries/standards/best practices/meta-programming). The best hooks are an improvement over their HOC counterparts (and many of their mixin counterparts): better Typescript types, fewer footguns, fewer composability limits (HOCs had stack problems where stack them in the wrong order and they broke or interfered with each other), easier to reason about (even given the weird learning curve of hooks in general, as black box "units" they have simpler mechanics and APIs than HOCs ever did). To be fair, you can build a lot of React components without ever feeling a need for something like an HOC and never deal with some of the inheritance problems that Hooks were built to solve so some of that "classes are a better way to write components" feeling is that one has never quite before had the multi-inheritance itch to scratch that Hooks solves for. It's obviously hard to judge a tool when you don't know if you've had the problem it solves for or not.
- schwartzworld 3y ago
  I was talking about classes as a design pattern, not just react classes. That said, I don't miss higher order components, but I do find myself reaching for renderprops sometimes. I think it's still a great pattern.