Kyle Shevlin

Recently, I helped a small team fix a performance issue involving React Context. It was a fairly simple fix that I want to share with you. I'm going to set up the problem, show you the small change we needed to make, and share a small library I made to help you out in the future.

People are often confused by useRef. Let's try and fix that confusion by comparing it with useState.

JavaScript closures are confusing for some, but they do not have to be. Learn what a closure is and why they are a powerful tool to have in your programming repertoire.

React state can be updated in two ways: replace the currentState with the nextState, or transform the currentState to the nextState with a function. Prefer the function.

I've been working on lessons for a new course recently, and one of the the lessons I created inspired me to share one of my favorite techniques for creating flexible functions: dependency injection and default parameters . Let's dig in. Dependency injection Now, I don't have a computer science…

Discriminated unions in TypeScript can go awry when you use object or array destructuring. Learn why it happens and what you can do to fix the problem.

Since the advent of React hooks, I have seen a pattern emerge that I think is less than ideal. I've started calling it the “naked state setter” pattern. Let's find out what it is and how to avoid it.

React and modern JavaScript gives you the freedom to structure your React projects however you want. Learn how I structure mine.

I recently did a code review for an aspiring developer and instructed them to “get rid of the ‘magic values’ in their code.” It dawned on me that it might not have been obvious what I meant, so I figured I would take a few moments, and paragraphs, to explain.

A short explanation on how I use `React.useMemo` to stabilize values for re-renders.

Symbolic logic, the study of reducing arguments to an algebraic notation, can be useful knowledge for debugging and reasoning about programs.

I find Sets and set theory to be a fascinating concept, and one that I find more and more useful as time goes on. I've wanted to write an introductory post on the topic for a while now and hope it might inspire a similar interest in Sets for you.

Learn the concept of a tuple, an ordered, finite list of items that represents an implicit key/value store, and where you might already be using them in JavaScript.

Learn how to conditionally use React Hooks by conditionally rendering a "renderless component".

Learn how to debounce or throttle a callback function with React hooks while avoiding an exhaustive deps ESLint error