Summary

In this chapter, we have covered a really interesting part of React. The reality is that Refs are not something you are regularly going to encounter unless you are responsible for creating component libraries or working with more design-focused elements.

It is an interesting part of React because, as you might have noticed, Refs do not really fit into React's declarative style. Every time we use Refs, we use them to tell the browser how to do things instead of what we want to see. While not necessarily a problem, it can get complicated and we need to be clear about our intent when using Refs.

The best we can do is to hide most of what we are doing with Refs and ensure that anyone using our code only interacts with our components via props. If we need to access details more closely related to how the browser renders the component (such as focus, scrolling, or dimensions), that will require Refs because React can't handle it without them, but ultimately, the consumer...