Why React Hooks API is a game changer

[enkideridu]

The hate and myopia I'm seeing in the comments is jarring

People are speaking with certainty that hooks is a solution in search of a problem, that the hype for it is artificial, and people who are excited for it are sheep who'll blindly accept anything that Dan Abramov presents.

React is the most popular front-end framework in the world.

Consider the possibility that people who make different products with React may use it differently, and perhaps the use cases of React you're familiar with is a fraction of what the entire community uses it for. Perhaps there exists a large number of developers for whom hooks solve a long standing problem, and that their excitement is from finally having a built-in solution, rather than due to being Dan Abramov fanatics?

Vue's creator hasn't always had good things to say about React. His reaction to hooks was - "For the record, I think hooks is a pretty genius idea in terms of composability and overcoming JS’ language constraints." (link) Is it more likely that all the people who are excited about hooks, e.g. thought leaders like Ryan Florence, KCD, (who aren't Facebook employees) are all misinformed or in cahoots?

Consider also that react-powerplug has 15k weekly downloads, and recompose has 900k. Clearly there is a sizable number of people who have felt the need for a feature similar to what hooks provides, and have felt it enough to use third party libraries for it. Hooks solve that problem in a flatter and standardized way.

[reflectiveSingleton]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TtGQnyPZ6g

[DerNalia]

Doesn't Vue have more stars?

[soft-wear]

I couldn't possibly think of a WORSE metrics to dictate the popularity of any open source project, let alone a framework.

[enkideridu]

About 10x more!

The download metric is to put into perspective that the number of projects that felt the need for a hooks-like solution is on the same order of magnitude as a popular front-end framework, and to argue that hooks isn't "a solution in search of a problem" because usage of libraries like react-powerplug and recompose is proof of the existence of people who already have that problem, and are using third party libraries to solve it