If plain, idiomatic React so great, why does every semi-complex React app end up bringing in a separate state management framework like Redux or MobX?
The reason is that while you may be able to break up your HTML into a composable hierarchy of purely-functional components, the actual data and state you need to distribute to them has a structure that is completely unrelated to how its laid out in the DOM. In a complex web app, a component nested twenty levels deep may need to display pieces of information, like the user's date of birth and the current temperature on Mars, that none of its parent controls cares about.
At that point, you can either bite the bullet and pass state through layer upon layer of props, completely eliminating any semblance of separation of concerns in your component layering, or inject state into your components via some other mechanism, like Redux/MobX/Context. At which point, JSX is basically just another fancy HTML templating library.
"Idiomatic" React is a fun game to play when doing basic examples, using something like a todo manager, but as soon as you're in the real world, you hit its limitations very quickly.
The reason is that while you may be able to break up your HTML into a composable hierarchy of purely-functional components, the actual data and state you need to distribute to them has a structure that is completely unrelated to how its laid out in the DOM. In a complex web app, a component nested twenty levels deep may need to display pieces of information, like the user's date of birth and the current temperature on Mars, that none of its parent controls cares about.
At that point, you can either bite the bullet and pass state through layer upon layer of props, completely eliminating any semblance of separation of concerns in your component layering, or inject state into your components via some other mechanism, like Redux/MobX/Context. At which point, JSX is basically just another fancy HTML templating library.
"Idiomatic" React is a fun game to play when doing basic examples, using something like a todo manager, but as soon as you're in the real world, you hit its limitations very quickly.