react-component-composition.md

React Component Composition

Higher-Order Components

• Mixins Are Dead. Long Live Composition
  https://medium.com/@dan_abramov/mixins-are-dead-long-live-higher-order-components-94a0d2f9e750
  A look at some of the issues with using mixins, and reasons why higher-order components are (usually) an improvement.

• Mixins Considered Harmful
  https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2016/07/13/mixins-considered-harmful.html
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12087796
  Dan Abramov explains why the React team discourages use of mixins, and prefers HoCs

• Higher Order Components: Theory and Practice
  http://engineering.blogfoster.com/higher-order-components-theory-and-practice/
  Gives practical use cases for HOCs, such as authentication, routing, and data management, with samples.

• Sharing and Testing Code in React with Higher Order Components
  http://blog.carbonfive.com/2016/02/02/sharing-and-testing-code-in-react-with-higher-order-components/
  Demonstrates extracting HOCs from existing code, and testing them.

• Higher Order React Components
  http://natpryce.com/articles/000814.html
  A solid explanation of what HoCs are, with examples and use cases

• Higher Order Components: A React Application Design Pattern
  https://www.sitepoint.com/react-higher-order-components/
  A discussion of how to use Higher Order Components to keep your React applications tidy, well structured and easy to maintain. Also, how pure functions keep code clean and how these same principles can be applied to React components.

• Connected Higher Order Components with React and Redux
  http://www.avitzurel.com/blog/2016/08/03/connected-higher-order-components-with-react-and-redux/
  Demonstrates creating HoCs that are connected to Redux

• React, Higher Order Components, and Legacy Applications
  http://browniefed.com/blog/react/
  Examples of how to integrate React into an existing application using HoCs

• React Higher Order Components in depth
  https://medium.com/@franleplant/react-higher-order-components-in-depth-cf9032ee6c3e
  A very detailed article looking at some advanced HoC patterns

• Real World Examples of Higher Order Components
  http://rea.tech/reactjs-real-world-examples-of-higher-order-components/
  Explanations and examples of HOCs and their uses

• ReactCasts: Higher Order Components
  https://youtu.be/LTunyI2Oyzw
  A screencast that walks through the idea and usage of Higher Order Components

• Annotations about React Higher-Order Components
  https://blog.codeminer42.com/annotations-about-react-higher-order-components-e3561bc7c27a
  An explanation of what HOCs are, what they can be used for, and when to use them.

• What are Higher Order Components?
  https://benmccormick.org/2016/12/14/what-are-higher-order-components/
  A short, simple explanation of what an HOC is, and how they can be used

• Higher Order What?
  https://dev.to/kayis/higher-order-what
  A quick introduction to the concept of Higher Order Functions and Components

• Reusable State with Higher Order Components
  https://daveceddia.com/extract-state-with-higher-order-components/
  An easy-to-read explanation of how HOCs work, and examples of how to extract common logic into a reusable HOC

• Why you should keep your React components pure by using HOCs
  https://medium.com/@DjamelH/why-you-should-keep-your-react-components-pure-by-using-hocs-67e5c7f80c81
  Walks through extracting stateful behavior into an HOC so that it's more reusable and the wrapped components are simpler.

• A gentle introduction to Higher Order Components
  https://www.robinwieruch.de/gentle-introduction-higher-order-components/
  An excellent article demonstrating several ways to use HOCs to manage conditional rendering logic in a reusable way.

• Why Higher Order Components Make Sense
  https://medium.com/javascript-inside/why-higher-order-components-make-sense-fe4145b4e305
  Several examples and some discussion of how HOCs can be used to compose and transform behavior.

• Simple explanation of Higher-Order Components
  http://blog.jakoblind.no/simple-explanation-of-higher-order-components-hoc/
  A short, easy-to-read explanation of the basic concepts and examples of HOCs.

• Real World Higher-Order Components
  http://blog.jakoblind.no/real-world-higher-order-components-hocs/
  Several useful examples of actual HOCs, such as adding a hidden prop, providing toggle functionality, and only showing a component if a feature flag is turned on.

• Composing React components through props transference
  https://blog.echobind.com/composing-react-components-through-property-transference-d8bc2dbecef5
  Quick examples of how to use React.children.map() and React.cloneElement() to pass props onto arbitrary child elements.

• Higher Order Components in React
  https://www.sitepen.com/blog/2017/08/15/higher-order-components-in-react/
  Shows an example of a React app that needs to authenticate routes, and how a HOC can help handle that in a reusable way. Also includes example HOCs for A/B-testing features, collecting metrics, and injecting props.

• Save the "zombines": How to add state and lifecycle methods to stateless React components
  https://codeburst.io/save-the-zombies-how-to-add-state-and-lifecycle-methods-to-stateless-react-components-1a996513866d
  A humorously-written look at how to extract state management logic into HOCs.

• Composing Higher-Order Components
  https://medium.com/@caseymorrisus/react-composing-higher-order-components-hocs-3a5288e78f55
  Gives examples of common use cases for HOCs, shows some example implementations, and demonstrates how to compose HOcs together.

• Use Default HOcs for Component Logic
  http://arianv.com/post/use-default-hocs-for-component-logic/
  Demonstrates how default behavior and logic can be put into a HOC to simplify code and enable reuse.

• Higher-Order Components: The Ultimate Guide
  https://medium.freecodecamp.org/higher-order-components-the-ultimate-guide-b453a68bb851
  An extensive look at how HOCs can be used to create composable single-purpose components that encapsulate logic like filtering and sorting.

Render Props/Function As Child

• Function as Child Components
  https://medium.com/merrickchristensen/function-as-child-components-5f3920a9ace9
  Explains the "function as a child" technique as an alternative to Higher Order Components

• ReactCasts: Function as Child Component
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE3XAt9P8Ek
  A screencast that introduces the idea of Functions as Children and demonstrates usage

• React Patterns - Render Callback
  http://leoasis.github.io/posts/2017/03/27/react-patterns-render-callback
  An explanation of the "render callback" or "function as child" pattern, including concepts and example uses

• Declarative Components in React
  https://blog.echobind.com/declarative-components-in-react-b21ced9895b5
  Demonstrates ways to make reusable flexible components using the "function as a child" pattern.

• Upgrade your React.js HOC with renderProps
  https://reactrocket.com/post/turn-your-hocs-into-render-prop-components/
  Gives examples of how to adapt HOCs for use with the render props pattern.

• Use a Render Prop!
  https://cdb.reacttraining.com/use-a-render-prop-50de598f11ce
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15651808
  Michael Jackson describes why he gave his "Never Write Another HOC" talk, looks at some of the problems with both mixins and HOCs, and how render props can help solve those. There's some related discussion in the HN comments.

• How to give rendering control to users with prop getters
  https://blog.kentcdodds.com/how-to-give-rendering-control-to-users-with-prop-getters-549eaef76acf
  Kent C Dodds describes how "prop getter" functions can be used with render props to provide more control over how rendering behavior is hooked together.

• Rendering a function with React
  https://blog.kentcdodds.com/rendering-a-function-with-react-ca3eaf0751e2
  Kent C Dodds looks at some unusual use cases for reusing React components, and a possible solution that uses a somewhat hacky approach of marking a function as an iterable.

• Achieving modifiability with your React Components
  https://medium.com/@josclovisramrezdelarosa/achieving-modifiability-with-your-react-components-2d99373fae74
  Looks at a use case for a customizable reporting component, and how render props can be used to enable disabling or overriding parts of the standard report UI.

Functional Composition

• Functional React Series - Part 1: Get your App outta my Component
  https://medium.com/@adamterlson/functional-react-series-part-1-get-your-app-outta-my-component-92656ae13e25
  Part 1 in a series about writing React applications by treating components as functions, not templates.

• Functional Components with React stateless functions and Ramda
  https://medium.com/@mirkomariani/functional-components-with-react-stateless-functions-and-ramda-e83e54fcd86b
  Examples of using Ramda functions to compose together components

• Composing React Components with Ramda
  https://medium.com/let-s-learn/lets-learn-composing-react-components-with-ramda-5db457997554
  Another set of examples showing how to use composition of small functional components to create a larger set of behaviors.

• Deconstructing the React Component: A Functional Approach to Building React Apps
  https://jaysoo.ca/2017/04/30/learn-fp-with-react-part-1/
  https://jaysoo.ca/2017/05/10/learn-fp-with-react-part-2/
  An excellent series that shows how to apply advanced Functional Programming techniques towards combining and composing React components together.

• How to add state to functional components using Recompose
  http://blog.jakoblind.no/2017/04/03/how-to-add-state-to-functional-components-using-recompose/
  Some quick examples of using the Recompose library to wrap components with additional behavior.

• Top 5 Recompose HOCs
  https://medium.com/@abhiaiyer/top-5-recompose-hocs-1a4c9cc4566
  A list of 5 useful HOCs provided by the Recompose library, including branch and withHandlers.

• ReactCasts #11: Recompose
  https://youtu.be/SQtrgiLy3Fo
  A screencast that introduces the Recompose library and explains some of its useful tools like withState and branch.

• Destroy All Classes: Turn React Components Inside Out with Functional Programming
  https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/destroy-all-classes-turn-react-components-inside-out-with-functional-programming/
  Demonstrates progressively refactoring a class component with logic into separate functional components, and then tying them together with Recompose

• A React journey: from vanilla, to type-safe, to monadic
  https://medium.com/@giuseppemaggiore/a-react-journey-from-vanilla-to-type-safe-to-monadic-41beaa386910
  Demonstrates adding TypeScript to a JS React app for type-checking, then using a specialized library called Monadic-React to perform complex and type-safe composition of React components and logic.

• Using Recompose to build higher-order components
  https://blog.bigbinary.com/2017/09/12/using-recompose-to-build-higher-order-components.html
  Examples of refactoring components using the Recompose library, including use of branch and compose.

• Curry away in React
  https://hackernoon.com/curry-away-in-react-7c4ed110c65a
  Examples of using currying to create reusable callback functions that can be passed to child components.

• Killing Switch Statements in React with the Strategy Pattern
  https://glcheetham.name/2016/05/20/killing-switch-statements-in-react-with-the-strategy-pattern/
  Describes why the author dislikes switch statements for determining which component to render, and gives an alternative using functions that return the right component type.

• Functional Approach to Higher Order Components and Recompose
  https://codebrahma.com/functional-approach-higher-order-components-recompose/
  Discusses approaches for composing components using functions

Comparing Composition Approaches

• Functions as Child Components and Higher Order Components
  http://rea.tech/functions-as-child-components-and-higher-order-components/
  Comparisons and examples for these two component patterns

• Simplifying life with React render callbacks
  https://medium.com/@adamrackis/simplifying-life-with-react-render-callbacks-cb37d58e55
  An overview of several different ways to wrap up components, including cloning children, HOCs, and render callbacks.

• "HOCs vs render callbacks / function-as-child"
  https://twitter.com/mjackson/status/890725796117176321
  https://twitter.com/acdlite/status/890727843302301700
  A short but interesting Twitter thread with some comments from Michael Jackson, Andrew Clark, and others, on the mental differences between using HOCs and render callbacks.

• Never Write Another HoC
  https://youtu.be/BcVAq3YFiuc
  Michael Jackson demonstrating that a component with render prop can do anything a HOC can do, and more.

• React Composition Patterns from the Ground Up
  https://hackernoon.com/react-composition-patterns-from-the-ground-up-8401aaad93d7
  Comparison of patterns such as Lifting State, Higher-Order Components, Render Callbacks, and "Renderless" State Providers, and how they relate to React's component model.

• Solving the problems of Higher Order Components without throwing the baby out with the bathwater
  https://hackernoon.com/solving-the-problems-of-higher-order-components-without-throwing-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater-40ddc72df5aa
  A response to some criticisms of HOCs, such as indirection and naming collisions, showing some ways to compose HOCs to avoid the issues.

• Randomness in React Props
  https://medium.com/@joshuawcomeau/randomness-in-react-props-3929c1669f8b
  Demonstrates several approaches to structuring logic for generating values and passing them to children, including initialization in a constructor, creating a wrapper component, and using a function-as-a-child.

• Simplifying life with React render callbacks
  https://medium.com/@adamrackis/simplifying-life-with-react-render-callbacks-cb37d58e55
  Compares several approaches for passing data from a parent component directly to a child, including cloning children, using a HOC, and using render props.

• React Developer's Everyday Struggle - Extending Big Applications
  https://blog.callstack.io/react-developers-everyday-struggle-extending-big-applications-84ec4e62e2ad
  Looks at different possible solutions to handling form inputs and validation logic, including existing form libs, a validation HOC, and a function-as-children approach.

• Seven patterns by example: the many ways to type="radio" in React
  https://techblog.commercetools.com/seven-patterns-by-example-the-many-ways-to-type-radio-in-react-bfe14322bb6f
  Compares multiple approaches for rendering and controlling a group of radio inputs, including passing a list of options as an array, creating a RadioOption component, compound components, context, function as a child, prop getters, and dynamic RadioOption creation.

• How "Controllable" React components maximize reusability
  https://medium.com/myheritage-engineering/how-controllable-react-components-maximize-reusability-86e3d233fa8e
  Gives examples of uncontrolled, controlled, and controllable components, looks at pros and cons of those approaches, and describes how controllable components improve reusability.

• Composing Reusable Components in React
  https://medium.com/@adamrackis/composing-reusable-components-in-react-de44d862fe5a
  Walks through the implementation of a reusable accordion component that supports several modes of operation, and demonstrates several useful techniques for composition.