Dan Abramov on the dangers of doing DRY wrong:

Obsessing with “clean code” and removing duplication is a phase many of us go through. When we don’t feel confident in our code, it is tempting to attach our sense of self-worth and professional pride to something that can be measured. A set of strict lint rules, a naming schema, a file structure, a lack of duplication.

First you have to learn the rule of writing software. Then you have to learn how and when to let go of the rules.

Like so many of Dan Abramov’s posts, this blew my mind. He is incredible at breaking down complicated concepts and making them understandable, as well as showing the reasons behind the concepts. Should you read this post? I’d say yes, but Dan would say:

If you’re the kind of person who likes to learn about programming ideas several years before they hit the mainstream, it might be a good time to get curious about algebraic effects. Don’t feel like you have to though. It is a bit like thinking about async / await in 1999.

This post from Dan Abramov about why he moved off Medium summarizes both why we’re no longer linking to Medium and why we’ve never put our content there.

Some of my Medium articles unexpectedly got behind a paywall. I’m not sure what happened and whether that’s still the case. But I didn’t do it myself, and that caused a blow to my confidence in Medium as a platform. I respect their need to monetize, but it felt wrong when done retroactively.

At a 37 minute read time, this post from Dan Abramov on using React as a programming runtime is near book length and will give you a deeper understanding of React “than 90% of its users.”

We’ve touched on pretty much all important aspects of the React runtime environment. If you finished this page, you probably know React in more detail than 90% of its users. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

Dan Abramov, writing for Increment:

Unconstrained by a single vendor, the JavaScript ecosystem closely reflects human culture. It is inventive, incremental, messy, assimilating everything on its way, and ubiquitous.

I’ll be honest: I love the melting pot of JavaScript. And while there’s no denying that it’s harder for beginners now to get into it than it was for me five years ago, I believe there are a few things we can do to make it more approachable.

But first, let’s see how the JavaScript ecosystem came to be this way.

Whether are weighed down by JavaScript fatigue or revved up about the JavaScript renaissance, you’ll probably enjoy this insightful piece all about the melting pot that we call JS.

The documentation for “adding React to existing app” was updated this week by Dan Abramov to make the installation of React into any website a much simpler process.

Dan writes in the opening paragraphs of the updated docs.

React has been designed from the start for gradual adoption. You can use as little or as much React as you need. Perhaps you only want to add some “sprinkles of interactivity” to an existing page. React components are a great way to do that.

The majority of websites aren’t, and don’t need to be, single-page apps. With a few lines of code and no build tooling, try React in a small part of your website. You can then either gradually expand its presence, or keep it contained to a few dynamic widgets.

Here’s the GitHub issue that kicked things off which might provide a slight bit more context.

In this episode Michael Jackson talks with Dan Abramov, author of Redux and create-react-app, about the responsibility that comes with being an influential voice for React, how future versions of React will leverage requestIdleCallback to schedule work, and the possibility of a future API for React that makes it easier to do async work.

Dan Abramov, creator of Redux, joined the show to talk about his path to becoming a programmer, his introduction to open source, React, JavaScript, functional programming in JavaScript, his thoughts on looking outside of your bubble to other ecosystems and borrowing/sharing what you can.