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A Critique of React Hooks

dillonshook.com

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Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#151

Post by orange8 »

lucasmullens wrote: post #143
orange8 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the major complaint I have about hooks, which is that it's no longer Javascript Are you saying that hooks are implemented in a way that needs a compiler (e.g. like CoffeeScript or TypeScript) for them to work? I've always assumed they were implemented using closures or a similar pattern.

It is JavaScript, but it doesn't feel like JavaScript. What looks like a pure function isn't actually, and can do a different thing depending on where and when you run it, all hidden in some magic within the React library.

JS is one of the most un-opinionated, flexible language around, I do not believe there is a one true way™ of doing JS. For example, React and Angular have very different approaches (functional vs OPP) on how to JS.

I do agree that having something do a different thing depending on where and when can be counter-intuitive.

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#152

Post by contigo »

IMAO hooks are just a dirty hack, but sold very well. Internally in React the state of a hook is being kept and updated when you call the set function, kinda similar to vtables and context in OOP. There is no other way to do this AFAIK. It only mimics functional programming, and that's why you see the restrictions about hooks, you cannot use them outside React, cannot nest, etc..

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#153

Post by iLemming »

Scarbutt wrote: post #107
jwr wrote: post #57

ClojureScript user here, with a big SaaS app using React, developed over the last 4 years or so, using the excellent Rum library, https://github.com/tonsky/rum . It seems to me that React Hooks, like so many things in the JavaScript world, solve a problem I do not have. To this day, despite being a heavy user of React, I don't even fully know what they do. I've read the "Motivation" section of the React Hooks Intro,…

Yeah, that's why rum recently added support for hooks...

Rum and Reagent added support for hooks mainly for compatibility. Never needed them before.

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#154

Post by csmiller »

lhorie wrote: post #48
dcre wrote: post #28

An important point I don't see being made in the article or the comments is that hooks are meant as a more faithful (or at least less misleading) representation of what was going on under the hood in React already. The problem with the JS class representation is that people already understand what classes and instances are, and that leads to incorrect inferences about how React is working. In addition to better-organ…

It's interesting that the original appeal of React was that it was "just a view library", but now apparently it's more like a "language". It really shows the biases of the maintainers (the "just a library" thing being a philosophy I liked from vjeux, and the "language-likeness" being very obviously a heavy influence from sebmarkbage). The thing w/ "language-ness" (as opposed to "library-ness") is that additions and c…

I thought Jordan Walke created React, not Sebastian Markbåge, in which case he already moved on (to ReasonML)

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#155

Post by nammi »

parley wrote: post #92
deckard1 wrote: post #42

Hooks elucidate everything I've felt wrong about React, but have not been able to put my finger on it until recently. Hooks reveal two major things with React: 1) React developers did not understand the component paradigm that they originally went with. If they did, then they would understand how silly it is that components cannot reuse logic. This was an entire debate many years ago. Composition vs. inheritance. You…

> React developers do not understand functional programming As some sibling comments note, this is not a fair conclusion to draw. And not that it disproves your statement, but Reacts original creator Jordan Walke wrote the first React prototype in SML. Not understanding functional programming is not on the list of things I would ascribe to him. He's a smart guy. On a slightly different note, I'd recommend anyone try…

Do you have any good resources for getting started with Reason? I've tried a couple times, but it seems like there's a schism between https://reasonml.github.io/ and https://reasonml.org/

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#156

Post by desc »

I'm going to express something a lot of people are thinking and are being far too diplomatic about.

React Hooks are a fucking stupid idea and always were.

They're basically just adding dynamic scoping to a language and framework which doesn't need it, in one of the most 'magical' and confusing ways possible. You have to care about execution order to understand exactly how they'll all work and that will bite you eventually if you're building anything without knowledge of all the contexts in which it's called.

There's a reason that most languages stick to lexical scoping: you can see the dependencies, in the same file.

And a large portion of the value of functional languages is that they avoid state, making magic-at-a-distance impossible.

Boilerplate is not the problem. Magic is the problem.

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#157

Post by jonny_eh »

desc wrote: post #156

I'm going to express something a lot of people are thinking and are being far too diplomatic about. React Hooks are a fucking stupid idea and always were. They're basically just adding dynamic scoping to a language and framework which doesn't need it, in one of the most 'magical' and confusing ways possible. You have to care about execution order to understand exactly how they'll all work and that will bite you event…

I never understood what was wrong with class components anyways. What did Hooks bring that couldn't be done in an easier to understand way with class components?

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#158

Post by Gehinnn »

desc wrote: post #156

I'm going to express something a lot of people are thinking and are being far too diplomatic about. React Hooks are a fucking stupid idea and always were. They're basically just adding dynamic scoping to a language and framework which doesn't need it, in one of the most 'magical' and confusing ways possible. You have to care about execution order to understand exactly how they'll all work and that will bite you event…

Yes. Except mobx ;) I like to use function components together with class based observable view models. Only a single hook wires them up. Works like a charm and avoids all the IMHO confusing hook complexity.

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#159

Post by sibeliuss »

untog wrote: post #137
stevebmark wrote: post #136

Hooks have unlocked so much power in React but still deserve critiquing. However I think the author only hinted at the major complaint I have about hooks, which is that it's no longer Javascript. It's not a function, it's sort of like type system magic. Hooks can't be nested, order matters, can't be conditionally called, and you have to understand trickier memoization to avoid bugs. It also isn't portable knowledge t…

> React is great because it's vanilla Javascript What about JSX? It’s very useful but it’s also an absolutely huge departure from vanilla JavaScript and hides a fair amount of complexity behind what your code is actually doing.

= Foo({ bar: "baz" })

Re: A Critique of React Hooks

#160

Post by searchableguy »

lhorie wrote: post #48
dcre wrote: post #28

An important point I don't see being made in the article or the comments is that hooks are meant as a more faithful (or at least less misleading) representation of what was going on under the hood in React already. The problem with the JS class representation is that people already understand what classes and instances are, and that leads to incorrect inferences about how React is working. In addition to better-organ…

It's interesting that the original appeal of React was that it was "just a view library", but now apparently it's more like a "language". It really shows the biases of the maintainers (the "just a library" thing being a philosophy I liked from vjeux, and the "language-likeness" being very obviously a heavy influence from sebmarkbage). The thing w/ "language-ness" (as opposed to "library-ness") is that additions and c…

isn't react created by jorde walke?
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