Npm Redux Libraries

When are Redux Libraries Useful?

Redux libraries are particularly useful when building JavaScript applications that require complex state management. Larger applications often have numerous components that need a consistent and easily accessible data structure.

There are a few situations where the usefulness of Redux libraries become apparent:

• You have large state that needs to be shared across numerous components. Redux centralizes all of the state in your application making it easier to keep track of changes and manage global state.
• Debugging state changes become difficult. When a business logic gets complicated, tracking where and how state is updated can be tricky. In Redux, all state updates are centralized to the store, which makes debugging easier.
• You need a more predictable state structure in complex UI. Redux enforces a unidirectional data flow making the state updates predictable.

What Functionalities do Redux Libraries Usually Have?

Redux libraries typically provide several core functionalities aimed at simplifying state management for JavaScript applications:

• Store: The Redux store is a single JavaScript Object which represents the state of the entire application.
• Actions: Actions describe the events that occur in the application. They are dispatched to change the state of the application.
• Reducers: Reducers process actions and create a new state.
• Middleware: Middleware extends Redux with custom functionality, such as handling asynchronous actions.
• Bindings: UI bindings connect Redux to the UI library, such as React.

Gotchas/Pitfalls to Look Out For

While Redux libraries have many benefits, they also have several gotchas and pitfalls to watch out for:

• Overhead: Setting up a Redux store with actions, reducers and potentially middleware can add a significant development overhead to a project, especially for small scale project.
• Verbosity: Redux can be verbose, requiring the definition of both action creators and reducers for each state mutation.
• Connection complexity: Connecting Redux state and dispatchers to components can become complex in a larger application.
• Immutable updates: Redux requires that updates to the state must be done immutably. This means creating a new copy of every piece of state that is affected by an action rather than modifying it directly. Using an incorrect update method can introduce subtle bugs.
• Async handling: Redux does not handle asynchronous actions out of the box. You will need to add a middleware to be able to deal with actions asynchronously.
• Size increase: Including Redux and related libraries will increase the bundle size of your application, which may affect load time, particularly on slower networks.