Why I Don't Use React Router
jkk.github.io
Why I Don't Use React Router
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Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#2It's great to someone express this point. Though it's hard to beat the convenience of dropping someone else's library into your codebase, each new dependency adds more security surface area and bloat to your application. I wish people considered this balance more carefully.
In general I think a littlw NIH is a good thing. Even if there exists a library that does what you want, it might also include much more that you don't need, and perhaps the kernel of what you want fits into a small function you can write and vet yourself.
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#3It's great to someone express this point. Though it's hard to beat the convenience of dropping someone else's library into your codebase, each new dependency adds more security surface area and bloat to your application. I wish people considered this balance more carefully. In general I think a littlw NIH is a good thing. Even if there exists a library that does what you want, it might also include much more that you…
An idea of open source is that it's very likely that your own implementation is buggier, slower, and more poorly specified than the existing state of the art open source implementation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#4It's great to someone express this point. Though it's hard to beat the convenience of dropping someone else's library into your codebase, each new dependency adds more security surface area and bloat to your application. I wish people considered this balance more carefully. In general I think a littlw NIH is a good thing. Even if there exists a library that does what you want, it might also include much more that you…
An idea of open source is that it's very likely that your own implementation is buggier, slower, and more poorly specified than the existing state of the art open source implementation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
This is very true for a wide range of applications and projects and is definitely required in many contexts (for instance - don't roll your own crypto). But for simpler components, such as a router, it may preferable to write a small focused class instead of creating a new dependency.
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#5It's great to someone express this point. Though it's hard to beat the convenience of dropping someone else's library into your codebase, each new dependency adds more security surface area and bloat to your application. I wish people considered this balance more carefully. In general I think a littlw NIH is a good thing. Even if there exists a library that does what you want, it might also include much more that you…
An idea of open source is that it's very likely that your own implementation is buggier, slower, and more poorly specified than the existing state of the art open source implementation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Even if your code is better than the OSS alternative now, are you going to be able to maintain it at that level, given all of your other responsibilities?
I'm dealing with a bunch of people now who did something like that. At the time they made these decisions they might have had good reasons, but now they're doing other stuff and the custom things they wrote are a huge liability.
Don't write it unless you intend to own it.
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#6This is a very important dimension to consider when making technical decisions. I've never been able to find an easy way to assess this risk, beyond hearsay and word-of-mouth.
Is anyone aware of an easier way to assess these longer-term risks of a piece of technology? Things like API stability, community strength and responsiveness, backwards compatibility, upgrade paths, etc.
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
An idea of open source is that it's very likely that your own implementation is buggier, slower, and more poorly specified than the existing state of the art open source implementation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
This is very true for a wide range of applications and projects and is definitely required in many contexts (for instance - don't roll your own crypto). But for simpler components, such as a router, it may preferable to write a small focused class instead of creating a new dependency.
I would agree with this except that I know that 95% of everybody is laughably awful at tasks as simple as reliably parsing or constructing a URL.
The class of difficult problems that you rightfully include crypto into is a lot wider than people want to admit to themselves. Hell most people and a number of programming languages I have worked with can't fathom the idea that other spoken languages might put words in a different order than your native language uses.
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#8It's great to someone express this point. Though it's hard to beat the convenience of dropping someone else's library into your codebase, each new dependency adds more security surface area and bloat to your application. I wish people considered this balance more carefully. In general I think a littlw NIH is a good thing. Even if there exists a library that does what you want, it might also include much more that you…
An idea of open source is that it's very likely that your own implementation is buggier, slower, and more poorly specified than the existing state of the art open source implementation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
As programmers, we suffer from various maladies. NIH is one, laziness and shiny-chasing are others. As in life, balance is needed. Don't forget the cost part of cost/benefit analysis.
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#9We use React Router on our project. Looks like 4.0 does break pretty much everything.
My thoughts on the upgrade are pretty much:
- Do we actually need to upgrade? Old react router works fine.
- If we do need to upgrade - how long will it take? If it's just a few hours to shift some code around, maybe it's not that bad. Especially if it's moving to a cleaner more "react" API.
At the end of the day, we could write our own routing class, or another. We'll probably stick with react-router though - but save the upgrade for a day where we've got nothing else to do, or if an engineer has some free time.
Re: Why I Don't Use React Router
#10It's great to someone express this point. Though it's hard to beat the convenience of dropping someone else's library into your codebase, each new dependency adds more security surface area and bloat to your application. I wish people considered this balance more carefully. In general I think a littlw NIH is a good thing. Even if there exists a library that does what you want, it might also include much more that you…
An idea of open source is that it's very likely that your own implementation is buggier, slower, and more poorly specified than the existing state of the art open source implementation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Not all open source is the same. The language you use might come with an open source standard library which is likely very high quality. On the other hand, piping in a few dozen packages from github or npm does not come with the same sort of quality, and here the "crowd" could actually just be a single developer