The Rise of Recoil: A New Kid on the State Management Block

Solving the Global State Management Problem

Recoil, developed by Facebook engineers, is a new state management library that’s gaining attention for its simplicity and ease of use. Like its predecessors, Recoil tackles the age-old problem of global state management. But what sets it apart is its ability to work seamlessly with React, making it feel like a natural extension of the popular framework.

What Makes Recoil Shine

So, what makes Recoil stand out from the crowd? For starters, it feels like using a global version of React’s useState, making it easy to integrate into existing projects. Additionally, Recoil supports Concurrent Mode, a significant advantage in today’s fast-paced development landscape. With Recoil, there’s very little to learn, and its simplicity is hard to beat.

App-Wide Observation and Core Concepts

Recoil handles app-wide state observations with ease, although its tooling still lags behind more mature libraries like Redux. At its core, Recoil revolves around two key concepts: atoms and selectors. Atoms represent pieces of state, while selectors provide computed values based on that state. This simplicity is a breath of fresh air in the complex world of state management.

Building Your First Recoil App

So, how do you get started with Recoil? Let’s build a simple counter app to demonstrate the basics. First, wrap your root component in RecoilRoot, which acts as a global context provider for your entire app:

import { RecoilRoot } from 'ecoil';

function App() {
  return (
    <RecoilRoot>
      <YourApp/>
    </RecoilRoot>
  );
}

Next, create a global state value using Recoil’s atom function, and then consume that value using the useRecoilState Hook:

import { atom, useRecoilState } from 'ecoil';

const countAtom = atom({
  key: 'count',
  default: 0,
});

function Counter() {
  const [count, setCount] = useRecoilState(countAtom);

  return (
    <div>
      <p>Count: {count}</p>
      <button onClick={() => setCount(count + 1)}>Increment</button>
    </div>
  );
}

Selectors: Efficiently Computing Values

Selectors are an efficient way to get computed values from your application state. Instead of initializing separate state values, use selectors to compute values on the fly. In our example, we use a selector to determine if the count value is even or not:

import { selector } from 'ecoil';

const isEvenSelector = selector({
  key: 'isEven',
  get: ({ get }) => {
    const count = get(countAtom);
    return count % 2 === 0;
  },
});

function Counter() {
  const isEven = useRecoilValue(isEvenSelector);

  return (
    <div>
      <p>Count: {count}</p>
      <p>Is Even: {isEven? 'Yes' : 'No'}</p>
    </div>
  );
}

This approach keeps your state management tidy and efficient.

What’s Next for Recoil?

While Recoil is still in its infancy, it shows tremendous promise. As the library continues to evolve, we can expect to see more advanced use cases and features emerge. For now, it’s an exciting time to explore Recoil and discover its potential for simplifying state management in your React apps.