All things design and code.
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·4 min read
useRef: The Hook That Remembers Without Re-Rendering
If you've been following the React Foundations series and seen useRef appear in custom hooks and component implementations without a clear explanation of what it actually holds — this is that explanation. With a real autosaving text editor widget you can build and use today.
Featured
·3 min read
Make Use of useMemo Like You Mean It
If you've been following the React Foundations series and kept seeing useMemo appear alongside useCallback without a clear explanation of when it actually helps — this is that explanation. With a real filterable product list you can build and use today.
Featured
·3 min read
Did You Know useCallback Can Actually Do This?
If you've been reading the React Foundations series and kept seeing useCallback appear in custom hooks and effect dependency arrays without a clear explanation of what it actually does — this is that explanation. With a real dropdown component you can build today.
Featured
·4 min read
useEffect, What Is It Really?
If you've been reading the React Foundations series on DesignDev.io and kept seeing useEffect appear without a full explanation of what it actually is — this is that explanation. Real examples, real UI components, no hand-waving.
Featured
·5 min read
We're Not a Blog. We're a Team.
DesignDev.io isn't one person's opinion column. It's nine writers covering everything from React internals to freelance rate cards — and one founder explaining what they all missed. Here's who we are and why we built this.
More Stuff
·4 min read
Stop Colocating Everything — A Better Way to Structure React Features
Colocation is good advice. "Colocate everything" is how you end up with a feature folder that imports from six other feature folders and nobody can delete anything without breaking something else. Here's the structure that actually scales.
Alex Chen
·3 min read
How to Build a Custom Hook That Actually Earns Its Abstraction
Custom hooks are one of React's best patterns — and one of its most abused. Here's the test that tells you whether extracting a hook is genuinely useful or just indirection with a use prefix.
Alex Chen
·3 min read
The key Prop Is Not Just for Lists — Here's What You're Missing
Most React developers know key stops the "each child should have a unique key" warning. Far fewer know it's also the cleanest solution to a whole category of reset and remount bugs — no useEffect required.
Alex Chen
·5 min read
React Server Components Explained Without the Hype
React Server Components are one of the most significant shifts in React's model since hooks — and one of the most poorly explained. This is the mental model that actually makes them click, without the marketing language.
Alex Chen
·4 min read
Why I Stopped Using useEffect for Data Fetching (And What I Use Instead)
useEffect data fetching is the pattern every React tutorial teaches and almost no production codebase should use. Here's what the race conditions, missing cache, and waterfall requests look like in practice — and the tools that solve them properly
Alex Chen