Managing State In A React Application

In my opinion, state management is one of the most important aspects of building a front-end web application.

WHAT IS A STATE?

In ReactJS, a "state" is an object that represents the current state of a component. It is used to keep track of data that may change over time and to trigger re-renders when the data changes.

State is an important concept in React because it allows a component to manage its own data internally, without relying on data passed down from its parent component. This can make the component more modular and easier to reason about. Consider a state as the central processing unit of a react application, it stores data needed for the application.

To use state in a React component, you can define an initial state object by using the 'useState' hook, like so:

import {useState} from 'react'

const StateManagement = () =>{
   const [apple,setApple] = useState({})
}

As your application grows, the need for proper management of the state arises, and improper management of the state can lead to a whole lot of hassle, that's where state management comes in.

WHAT IS STATE MANAGEMENT?

State management in ReactJS refers to the process of managing the state of an application or component in a way that makes it easy to read, update, and share data between different parts of the application.

As applications grow in complexity, managing the state can become more difficult. For example, if multiple components need to share the same data, it can be challenging to ensure that the data stays in sync across all components. Similarly, if a component needs to fetch data from an external API or database, it can be challenging to handle all the different states of the request (e.g., loading, error, success).

To make state management easier, there are several libraries and tools available in the React ecosystem, such as Redux, MobX, and Context API.

Redux is a popular state management library that provides a centralized store for managing the state of an application. With Redux, all components that need access to the state can subscribe to the store and receive updates whenever the state changes. Redux also provides a set of tools for managing asynchronous actions, such as middleware for handling API requests and thunks for handling complex logic.

MobX is another state management library that uses a different approach to state management. Instead of a centralized store, MobX allows components to define their own observables (i.e., state variables that can trigger re-renders when they change). When a component updates an observable, all components that depend on that observable will automatically re-render.

The Context API is a built-in feature of React that allows components to share data without having to pass it down through multiple levels of props. With the Context API, you can create a "context" object that holds the shared data, and then any component that needs access to that data can subscribe to the context.

Each of these State management tools comes in handy depending on the complexity and structure of the application. I use the Context API approach for storing small chunks of data that would be needed across one or two components (3 max), while I use Redux for managing complex/large states that would be shared across multiple components in my application.

In my opinion, Redux is the most powerful state management tool, for managing state in a React Application, because of how robust, scalable, and efficient it is. Redux also has a Developer tool, for which developers can easily visualize the changes in the state, this feature has helped me a lot of times. A lot of times state can be mismanaged due to the complexity of data, redux devtools help in visualizing the state to ease the developer the stress of managing the state.

The ability to manage complex states in a React Application is a skill that every React Developer should have.