🚀🪝 A MINIMAL useFetch HOOK (GREAT FOR DEMOS, NOT A FULL DATA LAYER)

February 13, 2026

🔸 TLDR 🧾

▪️ A clean “starter” useFetch: great for small UI pieces and learning — but production apps need loading/error/cancel/cache. ✅⚠️

🔸 THE TINY HOOK (CODE) 🧩

🔸 WHAT IT DOES ✅

▪️ Fetches JSON whenever url changes 🔁

▪️ Stores the response in React state (data) 📦

▪️ Returns data so components stay clean 🧼

🔸 WHEN THIS IS PERFECT 🎯

▪️ Quick prototypes / demos / coding katas 🧪

▪️ Small widgets: dashboards, lists, simple panels 📊

▪️ Learning useEffect + async flows in React 🧠

🔸 THE GOTCHAS (WHY IT’S “SIMPLE”) ⚠️

▪️ No loading state ⏳

▪️ No error handling ❌

▪️ No request cancellation (can set state after unmount) 🧨

▪️ No caching / dedup / retries 🧱

▪️ Assumes “JSON always works” (no r.ok check) 🤞

🔸 HOW TO LEVEL IT UP (STILL LIGHTWEIGHT) 🔧

▪️ Return { data, loading, error } 🧰

▪️ Check response.ok and throw on errors 🚫

▪️ Use AbortController to cancel on unmount / url change 🛑

▪️ Consider a real data-fetching lib for production (React Query / SWR) 🏗️

🔸 TAKEAWAYS 🧠

▪️ Minimal hooks teach the pattern fast 🏎️

▪️ Production needs resilience (errors, cancellation, caching) 🛡️

▪️ Keep it simple… until your UX depends on it 😉

#React #JavaScript #TypeScript #WebDev #Frontend #Hooks #useEffect #fetch #CleanCode #DeveloperExperience #UIEngineering