Passing App Atom vs Ref-Cursors in Om

Question

Using Om, it seems like passing relevant parts of the app state to child components is effectively the same thing as not passing any app state but using ref-cursors. What is the use case for ref-cursors over passing pieces of the app state down the chain?

I've read through all three of the tutorials and conceptual overview on the Om github repository but I cant really find an answer to this question. It seems like one could use either one or the other and accomplish the same thing (one either defines a component with (defn blah [_ owner] ...) and uses ref cursors or defines a component with (defn blah [relevent-state owner] ...)

Can someone clarify when I would want to use a ref cursor inside a component as opposed to simply passing part of the app state into that component?

Answer 1

I used it because when you update it, all of the observers get called.

Answer 2

This question is pretty old, but I'll give it a shot.

I believe the main use-case for ref-cursors is to promote modularity and decoupling of the global application state from components. It limits the scope of components to just the data that they depend on, and nothing else.

Normally, you'd pass application state and any change callbacks down the component tree via props, as you say. A consequence is that the component hierarchy becomes tightly coupled with the "shape" of the application state. The components hierarchy will have to match the state 1:1, or else many components will receive big blobs of data and callbacks that only a few subcomponents depend on, which they themselves may never actually use -i.e you might find yourself passing down parts of the global state down the component chain just so that components further down can have access to it. These components are being used as a channel for passing down state, which is not ideal because it exposes them to application state that they have no business knowing about. You run the risk of coupling and lose modularity.

With cursors, component dependencies are explicitly specified by each component upon mounting. The cursors are a black box into the application state -the component itself never has to know where inside the application it is situated. You have the full flexibility of stating a component's dependencies from anywhere in the application state without having to worry about all the transient data being passed around. You get one-way data flow without having to pass update callbacks down arbitrarily deep hierarchies. The end result is excellent component compartmentalization and modularity. As a bonus, you now have a single point into the application state that you can observe for changes!