> A React application can be thought of as modeling a state machine. Each render takes a state and produces the UI for that state. This is the famous UI = f(state) mental model of React. But, for complex applications, formally enumerating a transition table is often not feasible. When the number of possible states is not finite, a table will not suffice and we must instead define a mapping: a conceptual function which takes in a state and returns the set of valid transitions for that state.
Not really, though. While you can model any program as a state machine, doing so typically adds nothing to your understanding of the program.
State-machine diagrams are especially useless. A diagram is only useful if it has about a dozen things in it, maybe two dozen, maximum. But that doesn't mean you can model a dozen states in a state-machine diagram; in these diagrams, the transitions, the arrows between the states, are at least as important as the states themselves. So the diagrams are useless when the number of states + the number of transitions between them are greater than a few dozen. Typically that means state diagrams are only with a handful of states with a few transitions hanging off of each.
But, if your problem is simple enough that you can represent it with a handful of states with two or three transitions each, then you have a very trivial problem, so trivial that the state-machine diagram likely added nothing at all to your understanding of it.
This is why no popular UI frameworks actually do model UI as a set of states with transitions. It's easier to model the state diagram as a function and then just forget about the state diagram.
That's what React is all about! A pure function, UI = f(state). It's better than a state diagram.
This article is saying: "Hey, you could think of React, something conceptually simple, as something unnecessarily complicated, instead!" Gee, thanks?
Not really, though. While you can model any program as a state machine, doing so typically adds nothing to your understanding of the program.
State-machine diagrams are especially useless. A diagram is only useful if it has about a dozen things in it, maybe two dozen, maximum. But that doesn't mean you can model a dozen states in a state-machine diagram; in these diagrams, the transitions, the arrows between the states, are at least as important as the states themselves. So the diagrams are useless when the number of states + the number of transitions between them are greater than a few dozen. Typically that means state diagrams are only with a handful of states with a few transitions hanging off of each.
But, if your problem is simple enough that you can represent it with a handful of states with two or three transitions each, then you have a very trivial problem, so trivial that the state-machine diagram likely added nothing at all to your understanding of it.
This is why no popular UI frameworks actually do model UI as a set of states with transitions. It's easier to model the state diagram as a function and then just forget about the state diagram.
That's what React is all about! A pure function, UI = f(state). It's better than a state diagram.
This article is saying: "Hey, you could think of React, something conceptually simple, as something unnecessarily complicated, instead!" Gee, thanks?