[ng12]

Sure, what I mean is you'd never use a React.Component like you would a class in Java or another OO language. You never instantiate it, pass instances of it around, or call any of its public methods. It serves just as a container for some functions and provides a binding for `this`. Dealing with `this` caused things like componentWillRecieveProps to be buggy so hooks allow you to use a function as the container and remove the need to reference `this`. The move from classes to functions was not a paradigm shift just a different implementation of the same approach.

[mikewhy]

You can definitely pass them around and call public methods on them using refs, that's what useImperativeHandle is mimicking.

Was the issue with `this` in componentWillRecieveProps not solved by using an arrow function? If so, that just sounds like normal JS binding woes.

[kuschku]

Actually, you can pass instances of it around just fine, if you know how it works. It’s not any different than a view subclass on Android, or a widget in Qt.

[acemarke]

Instantiating it does nothing useful, though. `React.Component` is basically an empty shell with a marker flag on it so that the React renderer recognizes it, and the `setState` method just delegates to the actual renderer implementation. There's no reason to ever instantiate it yourself.

[kuschku]

But that's the point. All UI frameworks are like that.

You can't `new MyRecyclerView(...)`, you've got to `LayoutInflater.inflate(MyRecyclerView, parent)`, which isn't any different from `React.render(MyApp, parent)`.