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It's been *years* (probably since creating nostalgie.dev) that I haven't really written React code. It's *tough*. I just want to work with plain JavaScript state and have React *only* do rendering. But it feels like I'm swimming against the current trying to do so. What abstractions do folks use?

I mean, I know you’re using React but Preact signals kill it when it comes to state. I’d have a look if you haven’t already.

Preact signals (with the React bindings) could work as they're built to be framework agnostic and therefore work standalone. However, given React's model that "UI = fn(state)", I don't think you can separate the two entirely. At best, you're abstracting/hiding the ties between them.

I find React’s model makes it hard to abstract out in a meaningful way

Indeed, but that's largely the goal. The main problem the React model was trying to address is unpredictable UI born from state not being the only driver of UI; ordering, timing, etc. mattered too. It's totally valid to want them separated but you're going to be fighting against React to do it.