It can be for fetching data: https://beta.reactjs.org/learn/you-might-not-need-an-effect#...
However most modern frameworks use something like React Query, GraphQL, etc which handles synchronizing local state with remote data for you.
However most modern frameworks use something like React Query, GraphQL, etc which handles synchronizing local state with remote data for you.
This "3rd party library by default" bullshit is killing me. I just read that link, it's basically "here's a general problem with data fetching that every front ender should thoroughly understand OR actually you know what just use a fucking library and forget all about it".
The React docs have been full of this rubbish for a few years now and it's just straight up irresponsible. Worry about what your own library does, and if there's footguns or complexities then explain them thoroughly. Don't just handball them off and treat your API consumers like children.
The one talking about fetching data recommends a 3rd party library to make it simple but tells you how to avoid certain issues if you want to go the route of implementing your own fetching.
The POST example talks about how some people will modify a state variable to tell useEffect to send a POST request when you can just do it directly.
Maybe it's not to the depth of your liking but I wouldn't call them rubbish.
yeah, making it into a custom hook lol.
When did something that was originally worth 5 LOCs turn into 20 LOCs
When you want it to work properly in all the cases. That includes when new data is being fetched and you don't want to show the old data. Or when you want to not refetch data if the conditions for refetching are not met. Or when you want to cancel an in-progress data fetch if the data shall no longer be shown after fetching it because the user closed the component tasked with showing the data.
I bet your 5 LOC can't do some of these things.
This only really happens when you have race conditions
> Or when you want to not refetch data if the conditions for refetching are not met.
This only happens when you fetch based on state update on the same component
> Or when you want to cancel an in-progress data fetch if the data shall no longer be shown after fetching it because the user closed the component tasked with showing the data.
you can do this with certain conditionals and a cleanup function
over 3 quarters of my data fetching is just a simple fetch on onComponentDidMount
do you mean to tell me I have to bring in a library just for that?
Or when the network is unpredictable, you retry because it's taking too long, then the second request succeeds, then somehow the first request succeeds.
> This only happens when you fetch based on state update on the same component
Or on props update.
> you can do this with certain conditionals and a cleanup function
That's no longer 5 LOC.
> over 3 quarters of my data fetching is just a simple fetch on onComponentDidMount
Congratulations. Do you also do that for authenticated requests? If so, either you are using some kind of hardcoded global variable, or you are not using 5 lines of code.
> do you mean to tell me I have to bring in a library just for that?
Of course not. You can implement your own library for that. Or copy-paste it all over the place.
What I'm saying is that for things that are more advanced than basic data fetching, you may want to bring better tools than just fetch + 4 extra LOC.
This has an atomically low chance of ever happening, and never happening on single threaded monolithic servers.
>That's no longer 5 LOC.
Okay cool, 7-8 LOC, better than abstracting it into a whole new custom hook.
>Congratulations. Do you also do that for authenticated requests? If so, either you are using some kind of hardcoded global variable, or you are not using 5 lines of code.
You need to be more specific about authenticated requests, because cookies that are sent back as a response will have directions on how they should be sent back to the server on each request that requires no javascript at all.
If you're using token auth with localStorage, which probably isn't a wise idea because you're now susceptible to XSS attacks, then you should already be abstracting that away.
>What I'm saying is that for things that are more advanced than basic data fetching, you may want to bring better tools than just fetch + 4 extra LOC.
here's a pastebin of my wrapper around requests
it is already highly configured and abstracted.
All i want to do in the useEffect is await api.getGamesByDate(), and this should be fine.
What you're suggesting is that you support the React team's decision in that I have to have an additional wrapper around my apiCalls just to avoid two fetch calls in Strict Mode.
Does that sound logical to you?
Once you have setup that library (or hook) yes, using it it's indeed 4 lines of code. That also happens for libraries constructed by others.
I've noticed that new developers tend to think of libraries are indivisible units. They never stop to think what React Query uses, it's an atomic unit that you use to do queries, duh.
In reality React doesn't expose public APIs for creating your own useEffect; just the base hooks you can compose into "composite" hooks.
imo most projects do not need and are made worse by that bloat.
It's light enough to be worth it from a very small amount of API calls. Having caching and loading states is a significant UX bonus very quickly.