The Tyranny of Tiny Modules

#513 – July 06, 2025

How Over-Modularity Is Hurting Frontend Development

The Tyranny of Tiny Modules
15 minutes by Alvis Ng

React and Next.js developers commonly adhere to a "small components" philosophy, breaking down larger files into micro-components and using barrel files to manage imports. While this practice comes from principles of readability and reusability, it has become an unquestioned orthodoxy in many teams, with larger files automatically viewed as problematic regardless of context.

Instantly Mock and Intercept APIs in Your Browser
sponsored by BrowserStack

Building a React feature but stuck waiting on an API? Requestly, an open-source browser extension, lets you intercept, mock, and modify HTTP requests instantly - no proxies, no SSL hassles. Now part of BrowserStack, it helps you debug APIs faster, test changes locally, and keep your sprint moving. Built for developers who hate waiting. Try now for free!

Build your own personal voice AI agent to control all your app
30 minutes by Shrijal Acharya

What if you could talk to your AI model and have it control Gmail, Notion, Google Sheets, or any other application you use without needing to touch your keyboard?

MultiSelect Component
less than a minute by Chamsedin Azouz

Explore different use cases of the MultiSelect component. Select multiple options, search through items, and see how it handles various scenarios.

Data fetching in React
3 minutes by Corina

Learning to fetch data in React is one of the first things you'll learn as you get started with React. But it's not so straightforward – do you use React Query out of the box? Or just stick to useEffect? And even after you're built an app or two, there are still some tricky parts to be aware of like race conditions, network waterfalls and more.

What you need to know about frontend design patterns
10 minutes by Julia Albuquerque

This article explains design patterns as general solutions to common programming problems that can be adapted to specific situations. Julia focuses on React design patterns, particularly custom hooks, which allow developers to extract and reuse logic across components.

javascript

webdev

And the most popular article from the last issue was:

newsletters