Changing React code to use functional components

[filipesmedeiros]

Hey!

What do you think about changing the React code to functional components, instead of the current class components? I believe this would allow us to move faster in the future, with easier to maintain code, in addition to coming up to speed with the current React standard, of course.

I can open a PR for this!

[bpowers]

@filipesmedeiros I'm cautiously open to it, but would be interested in seeing an example. If there a ~ leaf react component you had in mind to try this on so we can see what it looks like? In particular, not being a frontend dev day in and day out, I dislike the combination of "functional" components with various hooks like useState -- in the past I've found it harder to keep track of "what is the full set of state this component cares about" compared to having a class where the state is an explicit typescript object. I have tried to avoid state where possible - Arrowhead.tsx and Auxiliary.tsx are React.PureComponent classes. To be clear: I'm open to having my min changed and adopting functional components, but want to be clear about my existing biases and would love to experiment on some small piece of the project to hopefully get on the same page (or find out otherwise) without a ton of work.

[filipesmedeiros]

Hey! I can open a PR that turns both a "normal" component and also a PureComponent into functional form, and we go from there. I will make sure to choose leaf components, and also components that are of simple-medium complexity (probably those are the best ratio of time cost <-> comparison benefit).