React Hooks revolutionized how we write components, making code more reusable and easier to reason about. However, they come with their own set of best practices and potential pitfalls.

Best Practices

• Always call hooks at the top level of your component or custom hook.
• Use useEffect dependencies correctly to avoid infinite loops.
• Extract reusable logic into custom hooks.

Common Pitfalls

• Not providing a dependency array to useEffect (runs on every render).
• Mutating state directly instead of using the setter function.
• Using hooks conditionally (inside if statements or loops).

Example: Custom Hook

  import { useState, useEffect } from "react";
  function useWindowWidth() {
    const [width, setWidth] = useState(window.innerWidth);
    useEffect(() => {
      const handleResize = () => setWidth(window.innerWidth);
      window.addEventListener("resize", handleResize);
      return () => window.removeEventListener("resize", handleResize);
    }, []);
    return width;
  }
      

Conclusion

Hooks are powerful, but require discipline. Follow best practices to write clean, maintainable React code.