State Management

The "state" describes the condition of an application at a given time. In a way, the UI is the visual representation of the state of an application. The UI must therefore be updated when the state is updated. State change is primarily due to user interaction.

React takes care of re-rendering the UI when the state is updated. To that aim, React has a "Reconciliation" process with an efficient "Diffing Algorithm." Thus, you don't need to worry about updating the UI. Instead, you should focus on the logic and process of managing the state.

Unfortunately, React falls short when it comes to state management. The latter is a broad term that describes how you store the state and how you change it. In response to the shortfall of React in state management, the community created many third-party state management tools such as Redux, MobX, Recoil, XState, Akita, Hookstate, Jotai, Zustand, and many more!

Here's a brief section on Zustand!

Zustand

Zustand is a minimalist state management solution for React that simplifies the process of creating and managing application state. It's a small, fast, and scalable bearbones state-management solution using simplified flux principles. Zustand is particularly praised for its simplicity and the absence of boilerplate code, making state management straightforward and more readable.

The Philosophy of Zustand

The philosophy behind Zustand is to provide a small API that doesn't dictate architecture patterns. It's not based on Redux, Context, or hooks API, but it works well alongside them. With Zustand, you can create a store with a simple set of functions that will allow you to update the state from anywhere in your application, without complex configurations or the need for additional libraries.

Creating a Store with Zustand

To create a store in Zustand, you define an initial state and actions to mutate that state:

import create from 'zustand';

const useStore = create(set => ({
  bears: 0,
  increasePopulation: () => set(state => ({ bears: state.bears + 1 })),
  removeAllBears: () => set({ bears: 0 })
}));

export default useStore;

In the above code, useStore is a custom hook provided by Zustand that lets you access and manipulate the state anywhere in your React application.

Using Zustand in React Components

To use the state in your React components, you simply call useStore:

import React from 'react';
import useStore from './store';

function BearCounter() {
  const bears = useStore(state => state.bears);
  return <h1>{bears} around here...</h1>;
}

function Controls() {
  const increasePopulation = useStore(state => state.increasePopulation);
  return <button onClick={increasePopulation}>One up</button>;
}

Advantages of Zustand

Simplicity: Zustand allows you to manage state with minimal setup, which makes it easier to learn and use.
Flexibility: You can break your state logic into separate stores or combine everything into one store based on your preference.
Performance: Zustand only causes re-renders in components that use a piece of state that has changed.
DevTools: Zustand supports state history, persistence, and the ability to rehydrate state from somewhere else, which is handy for debugging.

Zustand offers a straightforward approach to state management in React applications. It doesn't enforce any specific architecture pattern, which provides a lot of freedom and flexibility. For developers who find Redux or Context API too complex or verbose, Zustand can be an excellent alternative for managing state with minimal fuss.

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