[leodriesch]

I actually think that useEffect is an amazing abstraction. It lets you group related functionality like subscribing and unsubscribing into one place and makes it very difficult to leak stuff or use stale values.

I didn’t write many class components beforehand though, so my mental model didn’t have to change all that much.

[mlajtos]

I wrote a lot of class components and getting used to effects was a 2-week-long headache for me. But then it clicked and I can't go back ever again. Hooks are really nice abstraction. However, sometimes I would like people to name their effects: `useEffect(function clickHandler() {})`, but I understand it looks ugly.

[el_dev_hell]

I don't disagree that useEffect is a great extraction overall. But the mental load to understand it vs. explicit lifecycle methods is significantly worse.

The ability to subscribe is indeed amazing (this was much more verbose in class components).

[_hzrk]

Same experience, I've started working with React when Hooks were introduced in a greenfield project. My last experience with JavaScript was jQuery and Angular 1. I was blown away by the functional-declarative approach of React Hooks, I can't believe that people haven't used it before.

[marstall]

agreed. transition from classes to hooks and useEffect was confusing at first but it now seems very predictable and sensible (does get a little hairy when you have one effect dependent on another).

just started writing my own named effects (eg useAuth() for encapsulating firebase auth) and still in a bit of an uncanny valley with doing that - but again it's very logical once you get used to it and actually in the end a simpler mental model of component state.

never want to go back.

junior devs, start with useState, it'll all flow from there.