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This post is sort of just a bookmark for myself, as I know I will undoubtedly need to reference the React-Native/Redux boilerplate for years to come. However, maybe someone else out there on the internet will find this helpful as well! TLDR: Aligator.io has the best quickstart tutorial with all of the boilerplate code that you need to get up and running with Redux in a React-Native project.

Now for some more opinion and a quick rant: All of the boilerplate code that is necessary to get up and running with Redux is its biggest drawback. Personally, I hate boilerplate code. Maybe that’s because I’m a pretty messy and disorganized person, but I can’t stand having to write and learn tons and tons of boilerplate code just to get started with something. Take the Django web framework for instance. The first Python web-dev project I ever undertook I initially turned to Django after coming from a PHP background. But after 4 pages of “Getting Started” material I still had not gotten to “hello, world.” So I ended up ditching Django in favor of the much simpler Flask web framework, and haven’t looked back since.

With Redux I find myself in a similar predicament. I need some sort of state management for my React projects as the built in system just isn’t cutting it anymore, but is Redux really the best option? A much simpler solution is Unstated. So if you’ve made it this far in my post and are having similar feelings, I suggest checking out Unstated.

The only problem with Unstated is that employers are probably using Redux (or possibly MobX-State-Tree). So you kind of have to learn it, just because that’s what everyone seems to be using. In essence, I don’t think Redux is so bad. Actions, reducers, and a store. Pretty straight forward right? It sounds simple, but in practice it’s probably the most painful part of programming in React.