[jemmyw]

I don't mind how the view part of react works, but I don't like how it gets so complicated managing state. With a lot of state libraries for it now just providing lots of hooks you end up with so much in the view. Like you'll have more than half the component be hook code managing state. While I prefer functional view components, there was something said for the encapsulation class components gave you.

We've got our own state framework for react that adds controller classes: it makes it easier to write imperative code, but with ours for the business logic rather than the view. It works a lot like mobx but class based. https://github.com/aha-app/mvc unfortunately we haven't put as much love into the oss library as we should have. We use it extensively in our apps.

I find it makes writing react code much more like writing classical UI desktop UI code, with wired up controllers and models.

[jgalt212]

serious question: like writing classical UI desktop UI code

Why are front end app frameworks so different from desktop GUI frameworks?

[mdhb]

I think a big part of it is react specific which is also largely down to the functional approach which took over the community years ago.

That ends up with a very different set of patterns and whatnot compared to lots of various desktop approaches.

Something more traditional desktop looking might be Angular, Lit or Futter which to be fair is actually a desktop and mobile framework that also happens to target web.

If you’re looking for an interesting journey into what that looks like in practice I would suggest doing a couple of flutter tutorials and building a todo app or something. It’s very different looking from React for sure.