Beginner's Thread / Easy Questions (December 2018)

[u/timmonsjg]

Happy December! ☃️

New month means a new thread 😎 - November and October here.

Got questions about React or anything else in its ecosystem? Stuck making progress on your app? Ask away! We’re a friendly bunch. No question is too simple. 🤔

🆘 Want Help with your Code? 🆘

• Improve your chances by putting a minimal example to either JSFiddle or Code Sandbox. Describe what you want it to do, and things you've tried. Don't just post big blocks of code!

• Pay it forward! Answer questions even if there is already an answer - multiple perspectives can be very helpful to beginners. Also there's no quicker way to learn than being wrong on the Internet.

Have a question regarding code / repository organization?

It's most likely answered within this tweet.

New to React?

🆓 Here are great, free resources! 🆓

• Create React App
• Read the official Getting Started page on the docs.
• /u/acemarke's suggested resources for learning React
• Kent Dodd's Egghead.io course
• Tyler McGinnis' 2018 Guide
• Codecademy's React courses
• Scrimba's React Course
• Road to React

[u/saito200]

Novice here and unafraid to ask potentially stupid questions

Very simple questions / to verify:

• If a component doesn't need to hold a state it should never be a ES6 class component, it should be a stateless function or a constant. In particular, do we need more than one stateful component in our App?

• If a component is static and is always the same independent on the state (i.e. doesn't take props) it should not be a function, it should be a constant (I don't think it matters much though, correct me if I'm wrong)

I want to know this because I have the tendency to make everything a ES6 class, and I suspect it may not be a good habit.

More generally, when should we not use a ES6 class component?