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Matt Smith

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Modern Web Engineering, Front-End First

You probably don't need to lift state

1 min read
0 views

This comes up a lot, and it’s easy to get wrong. It’s really easy to default to “lift state up” in React. I’m guilty. But that’s not always the right move. Quick rule of thumb Keep state as close as possible to where it’s actually used. Lift it when: Multiple...

  • React

Native JSON modules are finally real

3 min read
1406 views

For a long time we got used to writing this: import config from "./config.json"; It looked like native JavaScript module syntax. But it wasn’t. Your bundler stepped in at build time, read the JSON file, turned it into a JavaScript module, and made it feel native. The browser itself wasn’t...

  • JavaScript

From instanceof to Error.isError: safer error checking in JavaScript

3 min read
1334 views

For a long time, JavaScript developers have relied on instanceof to figure out, “Is this an error?” err instanceof Error // true...usually In normal code, that works fine. You rarely think about it. But once values come from other realms, things get weird, and the failures are silent. Everything “works”...

  • JavaScript
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