recursive 14 hours ago

Not technically, but they sure don't have to make it easy. Getting an element reference is clearly not the optimized-for use case. The docs even warn against it.

> Refs are an escape hatch. Manually manipulating another component’s DOM nodes can make your code fragile.

https://react.dev/learn/manipulating-the-dom-with-refs

  • robertoandred 11 hours ago

    Using HTML features doesn't have to mean manipulating another component's nodes.

    • recursive 11 hours ago

      But sometimes it does.

      • robertoandred 10 hours ago

        And that’s different from the primary use case of refs

        • recursive 9 hours ago

          Indeed, and it's also the most practical way to use standard DOM operations from inside of react.