Use real persistence, not useState

Celine Soeiro shares insights from revisiting an old to-do list application she created using React and TypeScript, reflecting on her initial overuse of the useState hook and her evolved understanding of state management. She highlights the useState hook in React as a tool for storing and retrieving data within functional components, noting its limitations when it comes to persisting data across sessions or components. Soeiro contrasts her earlier approach, which relied heavily on useState and local storage, with a more efficient method using Convex—a backend platform that simplifies data storage and retrieval via API queries and mutations. By integrating Convex with technologies like Next.js, TypeScript, and TailwindCSS, she demonstrates a more streamlined to-do app, reducing the number of client states and enhancing data persistence and accessibility. The article underscores the importance of thoughtful state management in application development and suggests that while Convex doesn't entirely replace useState, it significantly minimizes the need for client states and facilitates API setup.