4 ms·
React DX is hot garbage. Words cannot express how much I LOATHE hook rules. Coming from a Solid JS background, where reactive primitives are just Javascript fun
by AlexErrant 1y ago
React DX is hot garbage. Words cannot express how much I LOATHE hook rules. Coming from a Solid JS background, where reactive primitives are just Javascript functions... I groan every single time I run into (yet another) hook rule.
I have to conditionally render empty fragments because React can't handle conditional hooks. It's the stupidest thing ever. "Oh hey let me allocate memory for this hook that will almost certainly never be used except under edge conditions! Sure, React can do conditional components, but conditional hooks are just too much for us!"
- dgfitz 1y agoI read things like this and think “I am so glad I don’t write JavaScript/ web-anything for a living”
- collingreen 1y agocries in ts backend, react frontend, react-mobile client
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y agoHooks are also just JavaScript functions...?
- thomasfromcdnjs 1y agoThey kind of are not though, you can't call them out of order and other things which is checked at runtime by the React "engine" and will stop script execution. If they were regular functions you could call them anytime.
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y agoMany "regular" functions are context dependent.
- DangitBobby 1y agoThey are context dependent, must execute in the same order every time, and must be called every time the component re-renders (i.e., they do not support conditional calls). They have enough gremlin rules that calling them "just functions" is unhelpful for reasoning about using them.
- slmjkdbtl 1y agoBased on how they are run they are completely not just ordinary JavaScript functions, hook era components are also not just JavaScript functions, it's a very complicated system. React calling them "just functions" is untrue, just marketing buzz words, and it leads developers into traps.
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y agoMany functions can only be called in a certain context. Calling them "not functions" is misleading imo because it implies those functions are compiled out or something, like `$state()` in Svelte.
- slmjkdbtl 1y agoYeah they themselves are functions but how they're called are managed by a complicated system, I think treating them as a separate new concept is less misleading than calling them plain functions
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y agoWell they aren't plain functions, they're like lifecycle methods for the component with an implicit `this`. Perhaps that's how they should be described.
- Izkata 1y ago> React calling them "just functions" is untrue I'm pretty sure this is also untrue. AFAIK React has never used that phrase (and at the very least, I can't find it anywhere official right now), it came from other people convincing newcomers that hooks aren't something more complicated like objects (comparing to class-based components). React has always treated them as special functions, hence always prefixing them with the word "use".
- slmjkdbtl 1y ago> it came from other people convincing newcomers Yeah I think you're right
- nosefurhairdo 1y ago> I groan every single time I run into (yet another) hook rule. There are only two rules: 1. Only call Hooks at the top level 2. Only call Hooks from React functions Per https://react.dev/reference/rules/rules-of-hooks https://react.dev/reference/rules/rules-of-hooks Not sure I understand the conditional beef, perhaps you can give example? I would assume if you want `if condition, useEffect(...)` you could simply replace with `useEffect(() => if condition...)`, no?
- AlexErrant 1y agoFair. My bitching would've been better expressed as "I groan every single time I attempt to violate a hook rule." Which is a lot, because I'm new to React. It's almost certainly a "skill issue", but hooks are NOT just "JavaScript functions", contrary to React marketing PR. My conditional beef: in my app, users can choose between using the built-in mic for speech recognition or a 3rd party service (LiveKit). If the user chooses the built-in mic, I still must allocate memory for LiveKit's services because it's exposed as a hook, even if the user will never use it. This problem compounds - every option that I expose that uses a hook requires that I allocate memory for an option that may never be used. Also TTS - users can choose to use the phone's TTS, or a remote service, etc. Every option I offer, if the library exposes it as a hook (and they virtually always do), if I naively implement the feature, allocates memory for a hook that might never be used. Fuck. React. Hooks. My workaround is to conditionally render empty fragments. These fragments wrap hooks, which I then inject into the context. This makes it so I can conditionally run hooks. This is why I complained that React can handle conditional components, but not hooks. Concretely: https://pastebin.com/sjc3vXTd https://pastebin.com/sjc3vXTd I'm using Zustand because god I need a lifecycle outside of React. Y'know how people complain about how Async "colors" functions? Hooks are also a type of function coloring. And they don't compose with Async.
- DangitBobby 1y agoYeah, this is a really annoying thing about how hooks work. For whatever reason (I'm sure they have a great reason) React can't do hook state book-keeping correctly without tying it to a function component lifecycle. I think you actually can conditionally render a hook but that choice has to last for the entire rendered lifetime of the component. But that doesn't really help you when your user can switch between them.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]