RRU 060: Linked lists in the Wild: React Hooks with Conlin Durbin

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Panel

Nader Dabit
Justin Bennett
Lucas Reis
Dave Ceddia
Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guests: Thomas Aylott, Conlin Durbin Episode Summary Conlin Durbin is a front end software engineer for a company called Lessonly and occasionally writes about React. Thomas Aylott is a web guy from the 90’s who was briefly on the React team, and he makes thingsthatdostuff.com and groovytiesquad.com. The panel discusses Conlin’s article Link Lists in the Wild: React Hooks. They begin by talking about the relationship between linked lists and React hooks. Linked lists are used under the hood to render hooks every time that they’re created and maintain integrity of the hook chain. They discuss the importance of knowing what goes on under the hood share their methods of learning. They give tips for learning on the job. The panel agrees that one of the best ways to learn is to teach. Conlin shares his experience working for Lessonly, a company that builds lesson-building software. The panel discusses WET (Write Everything Twice) vs DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) programming. They talk about when it is beneficial to have abstractions in code and when it is not. It’s also important to think about the humans that are going to be using it, and to write the code so that it’s humane. They praise good error messages that tell you exactly where you went wrong and how to fix it. They talk about the dangers of putting invariants everywhere, and finish by talking about ways to improve. Links