I've been thinking about banning useState from my React codebase entirely.
Not deprecating it. Not "discouraging" it in code reviews. Banning it. Like how France banned TikTok on government phones. Zero tolerance. Constitutional amendment level commitment.
Here's what happened: I spent three days debugging a component that had seventeen useState hooks. Seventeen. The thing read like a transcript from a hostage negotiation. Every re-render was a new threat.
My colleague Priya said I was being dramatic.
Priya has never stared into the abyss of
const [isLoading, setIsLoading] = useState(false) at 2am while a production server quietly dissolves.
Zustand exists. Jotai exists. XState exists for people who genuinely enjoy drawing state machines on whiteboards at 11pm. The tools are there.
useState is fine the way sugar is fine. Technically harmless in small quantities. Catastrophic when your entire architecture is built around it.
I'm writing the RFC this weekend.
Nobody will read it.
#React #useState #FrontendDevelopment #JavaScript #StateManagement #WebDev #ReactJS #SoftwareEngineeringcommit 67a1166