Default props to empty list

[zepfietje]

Status

READY

Breaking Changes

NO

Description

Defaulting props to an empty list takes away some boilerplate.
Both null and const [] were options, but I'm not sure if either of those has advantages over the other.

[felangel]

Hi @zepfietje 👋
Thanks for opening an PR 👍

For context, I intentionally didn't provide a default for props because I wanted to force developers to override it so they don't forget. One common problem with the previous implementation was it was extremely easy to forget to override props and then developers would be confused about why all instances were being considered equal. Thoughts?

[zepfietje]

@felangel, that's exactly what I've been thinking about too. However, there's basically two steps in using Equatable: extending the equatable class and overriding the props. Therefore, I think it shouldn't be an issue if these 'installation' steps are documented clearly. I completely understand your point, but having to override props to be an empty list in e.g. every bloc state and event (abstract) class feels like a bigger flaw to me.

[felangel]

@jorgecoca thoughts on this?

[zepfietje]

@jorgecoca just a kind reminder to get your thoughts on this proposal. 😉

[jorgecoca]

My apologies @zepfietje for the delay!

I am with @felangel on this one: ideally, the language would support proper object comparison, so Equatable would not be needed; however, given where we are, I'd rather be explicit and provide an empty list than letting Equatable provide a default value for me, and then dealing with "unknown" issues; I agree it is tedious, but it is less error prone at the same time the way it is right now.

[zepfietje]

I've still got mixed feelings about it. However, I do fully understand the potential issue.

Thanks for your thoughts anyway @felangel and @jorgecoca!

[felangel]

@zepfietje I do too haha but it was a huge problem initially when props did not need to explicitly be provided. So many people opened issues saying Equatable wasn't working 😞

[zepfietje]

@felangel yeah, trade-off between convenience for new devs vs. people who've worked with Equatable before. Maybe the new EquatableConfig could offer a solution? Not yet sure how though.