On one project, we started with a few genuinely useful custom hooks, but over time some of them grew into these giant “do everything” abstractions that are now harder to understand than the components using them.
I still like hooks as a pattern, but I’m starting to think teams often keep extracting logic past the point where it stays helpful.
How do you decide when a hook is a good abstraction vs when it’s becoming its own little framework?
I’m a frontend developer and lately I’ve been feeling pretty uncomfortable with what’s happening on my team.
I originally built and structured the frontend repo I created reusable components, set up patterns, and tried to keep everything clean and scalable. Recently, one of the backend devs started contributing directly to the frontend using my repo.
The issue isn’t that they’re contributing ,I actually welcome that. But the way it’s being done is worrying. There’s very little thought around structure or scalability. I’m seeing files going 800+ lines, logic mixed everywhere, and patterns that don’t really fit the architecture I had in place.
What bothers me more is that I know this could’ve been done much simpler and cleaner with a bit of planning. Even when I use AI, I don’t just generate code blindly , I first think through the architecture (state management, component structure, data flow), and only then use AI for repetitive parts. Then I review everything carefully.
It feels like AI is being used here just to “make things work” rather than “make things right,” and the repo is slowly becoming harder to maintain.
I don’t want to gatekeep frontend, but at the same time, I feel like the code quality and long-term scalability are getting compromised.
Is this something others are experiencing too? How do you handle situations where non-frontend devs start contributing in ways that hurt the codebase?
I've been working solo on a realistic fishing MMO on UE5 for over a year now. I knew realistic graphics, dynamic weather systems, ultra realistic wake and wave systems, fish migration patterns, etc. were a tough bite to chew but I'm slowly getting there.
After I spent nearly 3 months just on a ship's wake system I was getting so frustrated.
Then I realized I had actually gathered so much data for fishing that I could make a simpler but very detailed strategy game based on my already collected data.
And Reel & Deal is just that!
I took the database from my main project and built a smaller indie roguelite card game around it, entirely solo, built from scratch with React and Tauri rather than a traditional game engine.
You have to match the right fishing methods, baits and gear based on your location and the dynamic weather conditions to catch the most profitable fish in the area. It also features an Endless mode if you want to keep pushing your build as far as it can go.
Here's what's in the game:
600+ fish and sea creatures to catch
20+ real world locations, each with their own unique species
Dynamic weather conditions that shift the fish pool mid run
20+ bosses each with unique abilities and phases
A huge variety of gear, baits and consumables to combine in endless ways
Reel & Deal launches on Steam on May 19 as Early Access. The game includes colorblindness support, controller support, and is available in 11 languages. If it sounds like your kind of game, wishlisting it would mean a lot!
P.S. I used Claude Code as a coding assistant during development. The game design, mechanics, creative direction, and artwork were made by me and my talented friends.
