Video: Unleashing the Power of Duck-Typing in React: Crafting a Generic Application

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As React developers we spend countless hours creating pages and components to bring our applications to life. It's an exhilarating journey, but have you ever wondered what happens when you're faced with the challenge of not knowing the components your page application will have?
Join me in this talk where we'll dive into the realm of TypeScript duck typing. Discover how this powerful technique can transform your React development mindset, and effortlessly construct a generic application that can serve an unlimited number of pages.

This talk has been presented at React Summit US 2024, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

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Video summary
Hey, React Summit! Today I want to share my thoughts on creating a generic React application using TypeScript. I'll discuss the Type Build concept, generic application routing, and provide an example. What is the type build? It is a test that uses the characteristics or properties of an object to determine its type. Duck typing brings flexibility and simplicity, allowing for loose coupling and shorter code. Type guards are used to implement duck typing in TypeScript, enabling custom logic to determine the type of an object. This approach ensures type safety and better error checking. We use a switcher component to render components based on the CMP variable type. When working with React, create components as you would for any application. Use routers for dynamic routes with IDs to handle different pages. The outlet receives the valid page ID from the parents and uses a map to render components based on type. The object result can be seen in the next slide. Create a menu in your application with valid pages. This is an extensible approach for handling complex forms. Find the sample app on my GitHub.

FAQ

The main topic of David Villar-Marin's talk is creating a generic React application using TypeScript.

Models in a generic React application serve as simple templates with type properties to ensure all components have consistent type properties, such as input, checkbox, or button.

Routing in a React application provides flexibility to handle different pages dynamically, allowing for the creation of a platform with multiple applications by rendering components based on routes.

The outlet component is responsible for retrieving the valid page from the parent and mapping components using a switcher to render them based on their type.

The sample app discussed in David's talk can be found on David Villar-Marin's GitHub.

David Villar-Marin is an Ecuadorian developer and chess player who has worked at Stack Builders, a consultancy focused on functional programming, and is also an open source contributor.

Duck typing is a concept in programming that brings flexibility and simplicity by allowing code to be loosely coupled, enabling reusability, modularity, and maintainability.

Duck typing can be implemented in TypeScript using type guards, which are functions whose return type is a type predicate, checking if an object has a specific property or set of properties.

In a React application, a switcher component conditionally renders other components based on the type of a variable.

David Villamarin
David Villamarin
12 min
22 Nov, 2024

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