React hooks were released in version 16.8.0, and since then we’ve all been trying to figure out how to use them effectively and convert our components so that using newer versions of React is not an upgrade nightmare. In this article we are going to discuss the 6 steps for moving your React components to hooks using an example to-do application written in Typescript that starts with the controller pattern and commit by commit lays out my methodology for moving components.

Like a moth to the flame I keep coming back to the idea of maintaining a personal blog. I’ve spun up a Jekyll blog more than once and wrote some content only to abandon it days later. Until a bit ago cbelsole.github.com was still up and running. Since I haven’t touched it for 4 years it stood as a testament to set it and forget it infrastructure. So like, why do this again?

How do you choose? Generally, I ask myself 5 things when choosing a side project. Can this potentially make me money? Is this going to teach me something I don’t know? Is this useful to anyone? How long is this going to take? What does success look like? The general theme here is, “Am I wasting my time?” Human life is finite and your productive years are even less.