Prior to 2018, React, an already powerful and widely-used javascript library for building user interfaces, had 3 cumbersome issues:

1. Reusing logic: in order to to create dynamic interfaces where state is manipulated, logic was constantly being copied for seemingly simple tasks like updating the state from a form field. This often would lead to complicated and bloated data structures.
2. Giant components: logic often times gets split amongst various lifecycle. methods in order to keep your application working.
3. Confusing classes: invariably with reused logic and oversized components, our classes themselves can become confusing for both user and the machine.

As Dan Abramov of the React Dev team describes it, these are really three separate issues, but rather systems of the same problem: before 2018, _React did not provide a stateful primitive that is simpler than incorporating a class component and its associated logic. _At one point, React used mixins to pseudo-resolve this issue, but that ultimately created more problems that it solved.

How did the React team resolve this seemingly singular, but hugely impactful inconvenience? Hooks to the rescue.

#software-engineering #react-conf-2018 #hooks #react #react-conference #react native