A GitHub repository has been created to host all the code we discuss in the book. For this chapter, you can find the code at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/React-Anti-Patterns/tree/main/code/src/ch1.

Unless you’re building a straightforward, document-like web page — for example, a basic article without advanced UI elements such as search boxes or modals — the built-in languages offered by web browsers are generally insufficient. Figure 1.1 shows an example of a website using HTML (HyperText Markup Language):

Figure 1.1: A simple HTML document website

However nowadays, most applications are more complicated and contain more elements than what this language was originally designed for.

The disparity between the language of the web and the UI experiences that people encounter daily is substantial. Whether it’s a ticket booking platform, a project management tool, or an image gallery, modern web UIs are intricate and native web languages don’t readily support them. You can go the extra mile to “simulate” UI components such as accordions, toggle switches, or...

Managing the state in modern frontend development is a complex task. Nearly every application has to retrieve data from a remote server via a network – we can call this data remote states. Remote state originates from an external source, typically a backend server or API. This is in contrast to local state, which is generated and managed entirely within the frontend application itself.

There are many dark sides of remote states, making the frontend development difficult if you don’t pay close attention to them. Here, I’ll just list a few obvious considerations:

• Asynchronous nature: Fetching data from a remote source is usually an asynchronous operation. This adds complexity in terms of timing, especially when you have to synchronize multiple pieces of remote data.
• Error handling: Connections to remote sources might fail or the server might return errors. Properly managing these scenarios for a smooth user experience...

When it comes to UI development, our primary focus is often on the “happy path” – the optimal user journey where everything goes as planned. However, neglecting the “unhappy paths” can make your UI far more complicated than you might initially think. Here are some scenarios that could lead to unhappy paths and consequently complicate your UI development efforts.

Errors thrown from other components

Imagine that you’re using a third-party component or even another team’s component within your application. If that component throws an error, it could potentially break your UI or lead to unexpected behaviors that you have to account for. This can involve adding conditional logic or error boundaries to handle these errors gracefully, making your UI more complex than initially anticipated.

For example, in a MenuItem component that renders an item’s data, let’s see what happens when...

Within the realm of software development, we often encounter practices and approaches that, at first glance, appear to offer a beneficial solution to a particular problem. These practices, labeled as anti-patterns, may provide immediate relief or a seemingly quick fix, but they often hide underlying issues. Over time, reliance on these anti-patterns can lead to greater complexities, inefficiencies, or even the very issues they were thought to resolve.

Recognizing and understanding these anti-patterns is crucial for developers, as it enables them to anticipate potential pitfalls and steer clear of solutions that may be counterproductive in the long run. In the upcoming sections, we’ll highlight common anti-patterns accompanied by code examples. We’ll address each anti-pattern and outline potential solutions. However, we won’t delve deeply here since entire chapters are dedicated to discussing these topics in detail.

In this chapter, we explored the challenges of UI development from its complexities to state management issues. We also discussed the common anti-patterns due to the nature of its complexity, and briefly introduced our approach that combines best practices and effective testing strategies. This sets the foundation for more efficient and robust frontend development.

In the upcoming chapter, we’ll dive deep into React essentials, giving you the tools and knowledge you need to master this powerful library. Stay tuned!