redux-toolkit

Redux Toolkit is an opinionated library of batteries-included components and tools intended to assist react users by providing sane defaults. I have been asked to compare Variant to redux-toolkit on a number of occasions. It makes sense that readers would connect the two - createAction is almost identical to our variation().

Redux Toolkit attempts to resolve the confusion around redux by providing a set of tools that improve and streamline the developer experience. They have a strong focus on inferred typing to do this. In their efforts, they present an action creator, configuration tools, a tool to create reducers by writing look tables of action types. These are fantastic tools, in fact you'll find analogues to each of them here. I would argue the problem isn't a lack of clarity in redux, specifically. The problem is a lack of strong tooling around this in the language itself.

What if you could use createReducer on anything? What if you could model your entire domain, instead of just your actions, in unions and other types.

createAction

The full details of createAction are available at their documentation. Much like variation(), the first parameter is the relevant type.

The simplest use appears the same.

ts
const actionOne = createAction('test');
const actionTwo = variation('test');

ts
const actionOne = createAction('test');
const actionTwo = variation('test');

There is another

• createAction focuses on a singular action creator that may or may not get grouped into a larger set of Action types.

There are several key differences between our projects, but the two may work in harmony and (spoiler alert) I recommend that redux-toolkit users continue working with their preferred stack but integrate Variant in select places for its superior creation utilities and more general-purpose matching.

The first being I'm not here to sell you on redux. Don't get me wrong, I use and enjoy redux, but I have no affiliation with the project and Variant has tremendous utility with or without it. This tie to redux also influences their decision to provide utilities like createSlice.

The second is that Variant is unopinionated. Use as much or as little of the library as you wish and do so in whichever ways you find beneficial. I will demonstrate some useful patterns, but they are by no means mandated.

mapDispatchToProps

bindActionCreators, same as augment.

---

TODO:

• Exhaustiveness.