so I have this block of code

lifecycleScope.launch {
    repeatOnLifecycle(Lifecycle.State.STARTED) {
        viewModel.uiState.collect { uiState ->
            if (uiState.authenticated) {
                setContent {
                    Home()
                }
            } else {
                setContent {
                    Authentication()
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

and the issue is that it’s collecting the stateFlow immediately before my viewModel gets the chance return the result, so it shows Authentication, then when the value comes back ti shows Home again I want it to…well observe like LiveData does

I'm not quite sure which behavior of LiveData you're comparing against

well it doesnt grab initial value the moment i start observing and acts on it immediately

oh the ambiguous initial state

yea authenticated will start as false

fwiw if we were designing it again today we'd probably make it work like StateFlow does instead, that behavior was kind of regrettable

so there’s something logically im not getting

authenticated

can't be a boolean because you're assuming that there's something special about, "not yet authenticated because I'm waiting on some sort of confirmation"

Loading

right. working in state is about modeling those assumptions as part of the state itself

i see

remove the elements of, "over time" from the system; the state unambiguously tells you everything you need to know

yea, that “while this is fetching that” is a state in itself

yep, exactly. if something is ambiguous, clarify it in the state

gotttt it

this is also why StateFlow and friends all

distinctUntilChanged

by default and "skip" intermediate values if an observer isn't responding fast enough: it should never matter to an observer so long as the state is being modeled fully. The latest, current state is all you ever need.

works 🙂