[flowerlad]

> It is merely "gluing" those things together.

That's pretty bad if you need "glue".

> Over-splitting things only makes them worse to read and understand, even though each sub-component is prettier to look at.

React is a UI technology, and only your view layer should know about the React stack. The model layer should be UI-technology agnostic (includes avoiding Redux etc.) and so should most of the controller layer. If something better than React comes along (and it will) only the view layer should need to be rewritten.

[ratww]

Once again, I suggest that you search what each of those HOCs is doing.

These functions are not part of what would be a controller or model layer in MVC. This code is not dealing with routing, fetching, managing state or rendering. They are merely gluing complex data coming from these other parts of the system into what is the view layer here. The logical separation still exists!

Sure OP could reimplement all of them by hand, but ultimately it doesn't matter: the code is still properly separated in the way you're mentioning. Libraries like those are free to have functions operating in multiple concerns, as long as the logical separation still exists, which it does.

[flowerlad]

Once again: UI should not be aware that routing is happening. It makes the UI less reusable.

[ratww]

You are still wrong. This portion of the UI in this case doesn't care about the routing mechanism itself, but it does care about the history, which page is the current, and it also wants to trigger route navigations. This is a navigational component after all!

If your app needs to show, say, a menu bar, you need those things. Maybe some apps don't, but most of them do.

How would you implement this communication in your ideal system?

Let's see:

This component lives around two or three levels down from the entry point of your React tree (the part which communicates with the router). Which way is simplest way to connect this to the router indirectly? One way is by passing values and callbacks via props, from layer to layer, until it reaches the menubar. This works and is completely isolated, you basically have plain-simple-Javascript-objects "injected" from the top level, or instances of an interface, if you're doing Typescript! This follows the I of SOLID: Interface Segregation Principle. It also provides you with the S, Separation of Concerns.

But the "prop-drilling" is way too cumbersome. Let's maybe use the Context API, which is a way of replacing prop-drilling? It's still properly isolated.

Congratulations, you just re-invented the wheel and re-implemented exactly what withRouter does.

Sure you could have your own homegrown interfaces. Or maybe you could have no menu at all in your app! It's your choice. But it doesn't matter: this is still following the rules you are calling for.