10 Important Tools for React Developers in 2021
Tags: javascript, react, node, webdev
Published: 2020-12-28 17:20:01

React has been growing at a very fast pace since it was introduced by Facebook. But as the popularity grows, the complexity for developing bigger apps keeps getting harder for developers. So here are some essential React tools to help you navigate easier throughout building apps with React.

1. Hooks

GitHub Stars: 157,000 +
Developer: Facebook.

You might not call it a tool but any developer working on React Application in 2021 needs to be familiar with Hooks in React, For Example, the useState hooks allow a function component to have its own state & useEffect allows you to perform side effects after initial render (Data Fetching). Hooks can also be used to share code between specific components.

The following are the most common Hooks:

useState: Mutating state in a functional component without lifecycle methods.

useEffect: Useful for firing Ajax requests.

useContext: Accessing components context data, even outside of component's props.

Pros:
1. Better state management complexity.
2. Supports functional components.

2. Create React App

GitHub Stars: 82,000 +
Developer: Facebook

Create React App another essential tool when getting started with creating a fresh React project, it manages all the dependencies via a single npm package. You don't have to waste a lot of time dealing with Babel, webpack & the rest of it. Not just that, you just have to stick with a single command which will create a local development environment with React, JSX & ES6 support, you can easily work with your projects and able to observe changes in real-time (hot module reloading- your changes immediately appears in the browser when developing).
To get started you have to just run the following command in your terminal window:

npm create-react-app Your App Name

3. PropsTypes

GitHub Stars: 3,600 +
Developer: Facebook

This tool declares the type implemented for React components and shows its intent, it will show with a warning in the dev environment if the types don't match. It supports all the primitive types such as Boolean, Number, and String, it uses isRequired to document which props are required.

Pros:
Documents component intent.
Shows all JavaScript primitives.

4. Redux

GitHub Stars: 54,000+
Developers: Dan Abramov & Andrew Clark

There is still nothing like Redux when we talk about state management in React, this state management tool comes with a predictable state management container for JavaScript Apps. It keeps everything in the app in a single store, redux have one-to-one relation between input parameters and output state which makes reducers pure functions.

Pros:
Multiple reducers in a single store.
Predictable state management.

5. React Router

GitHub Stars: 42,000
Developer: React Training

React Router is yet another great tool for routing between multiple views in the case of real-world apps, React Router is a standard routing library for React that keeps the application UI and the URL in sync.
This library comprises 3 packages: react-router, react-router-dom, and react-router-native.
The core package is react-router and the rest is environment-specific, For example, we can use react-router-dom for web apps & react-router-native for React-Native apps. In the recent updates in React-Router hooks have also been introduced which gives access to the state for the router and performs navigating from inside of our components.

Pros:
Fast and easy routing between components.
Connects components to a single store.


read this full post at: https://medium.com/javascript-in-plain-english/10-must-have-tools-for-react-developers-in-2021-b063426b43fd