[Go Make Things] State-based UI is an anti-pattern

By rahmat hidayat

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

​ Yesterday, I had a few conversations on Mastodon around when Web Components are appropriate versus a state-based UI library. I generally prefer to handle my interactivity in two ways… For stuff that gets saved or sent somewhere, an old-school form submit that gets progressively enhanced with JS when available. For stuff that only lasts for the current session, old-school DOM manipulation. For both of these approaches, I really like web components. I started wondering when I would reach for a state-based UI tool instead. My go-to example used to be something like a todo list. They start simple, but get complicated quick. But that complexity comes, frankly, from trying to manage too much of the UI with JavaScript. I started digging through examples of various apps and demo code from the big state-based UI websites. In pretty much all situations, traditional DOM manipulation or forms and Web Components would, in my opinion, be a simpler, easier, more resilient way to build things. I'm increasingly of the belief that state-based UI is an anti-pattern, with a very specific but limited use case. Cheers, Chris ​ Want to share this with others or read it later? View it in a browser.​ ​

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