Integration with Redux devtools

[joshburgess]

What do you all think of providing some out of box integration with the Redux devtools?

A number of js state management alternatives do this. Libraries like ngrx, react-waterfall, react-automata, an unreleased library I'm currently working on, etc.

I could help work on a PR if people are interested in this.

[quicksnap]

I would LOVE that, however, we are currently limited by the Bucklescript's internal memory representation of records/variants as arrays; we don't have record keys available for serialization.

Related: rescript-lang/rescript#2690 and rescript-lang/rescript#2556

[joshburgess]

Interesting. So, I guess this a really practical example of this being a problem, like you were describing in the interview before.

FWIW, PureScript records compile to plain JS objects. I think that's the right way to go, purely for simplicity & interop reasons...

[quicksnap]

The reasoning behind records as arrays is that Bucklescript is very performance optimized, and working with arrays has a lot of performance benefits.

From what I'm aware, debug output (which should cover this use case) is an upcoming focus of the Reason core team.

I am also not as concerned with lightning-speed performance than I am with great debugging experience, but given that they're working on the debugging story soon, maybe it will be the best of both worlds?

[quicksnap]

Re: interop, there are mechanisms available for userland Records=>JS.Object: https://bucklescript.github.io/docs/en/generate-converters-accessors.html#convert-between-jst-object-and-record

These require opt-in by the user, however, and aren't good for the general case such as this.

[joshburgess]

New BuckleScript features should help with this https://bucklescript.github.io/blog/2018/05/21/release-3-1-0.html

[ambientlight]

@joshburgess: It does help. Here is quite an experimental but working example.
Once "bsc-flags": ["-bs-g"] is added to bsconfig.json, Symbol(BsRecord), Symbol(BsVariant) available inside our records/variant objects that we exploit to extract record keys/variant name. Variants need to be parametrized though, plain variants are still compiled to number with -bs-g flag and thus have no meta attached to them.

module ReduxDevTools {
  [@bs.deriving abstract]
  type serializeOptions = {
      symbol: bool,
      replacer: (string, Js.t({.})) => Js.t({.})
  };
  
  [@bs.deriving abstract]
  type composeOptions = {
      name: string,
      serialize: serializeOptions
  };
  
  type extension = Js.t({.});
  type connection = Js.t({.});
  
  [@bs.module "redux-devtools-extension"]
  external _devToolsEnhancer: extension = "devToolsEnhancer";
  let devToolsEnhancer = _devToolsEnhancer;
  
  [@bs.send] external _connect: (extension, composeOptions) => connection = "connect";
  let connect = (instance, options) => _connect(instance, options);
  
  [@bs.send] external _send: (connection, Js.t({.}), Js.t({.})) => unit = "send";
  let send = (instance, action, state) => _send(instance, action, state);
};

type action =
  | Increment
  | Decrement;

let counter = (state, action) =>
  switch action {
  | Increment => state + 1
  | Decrement => state - 1
  };

type appActions = CounterAction(action, Js.Dict.t(string));

type someSubstate = {
  magic: string,
  someMoreMagic: string
}

type appState = {
  counter: int,
  substate: someSubstate
};

let appReducer = (state, action) =>
  switch action {
  | CounterAction(action, _) => {...state, counter: counter(state.counter, action)}
  };

let sarializer: Js.t({.}) => Js.t({.}) = [%raw {|
  function _serialize(obj) {
    const symbols = Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(obj);
    const variantNameSymbolIdx = symbols.findIndex(symbol => String(symbol) == 'Symbol(BsVariant)');
    const recordSymbolIdx = symbols.findIndex(symbol => String(symbol) == 'Symbol(BsRecord)');
    if(variantNameSymbolIdx > -1){
      const variantName = obj[symbols[variantNameSymbolIdx]];
      return {
        ...Object.keys(obj).reduce((target, key) => ({
          ...target,
          ['arg_'+key]: _serialize(obj[key])
        }),{}),
        type: variantName
      }
    } else if(recordSymbolIdx > -1) {
      const keys = obj[symbols[recordSymbolIdx]];
      return keys.reduce((object, key, index) => ({
        ...object,
        [key]: _serialize(obj[index])
      }), {})
    } else {
      return obj
    }
  }
|}];

let serializeWithRecordKeys = (_, value) => sarializer(value)
let options = ReduxDevTools.composeOptions(
  ~name="ReductiveTests",
  ~serialize=ReduxDevTools.serializeOptions(
    ~symbol=true,
    ~replacer=serializeWithRecordKeys
  )
);
let connection = ReduxDevTools.connect(ReduxDevTools.devToolsEnhancer, options);

let devToolsEnhancer = (store, next, action) => {
  let returnValue = next(action);
  ReduxDevTools.send(connection, sarializer(Obj.magic(action)), Obj.magic(Reductive.Store.getState(store)));
  returnValue
};

let store = Reductive.Store.create(
  ~reducer=appReducer,
  ~preloadedState={
    counter: 0, 
    substate: {
      magic: "...",
      someMoreMagic: "well..."
    }},
  ~enhancer=devToolsEnhancer,
  ()
);

ReduxDevTools.send(connection, Obj.magic("INIT"), Obj.magic(Reductive.Store.getState(store)));
let dispatch = Reductive.Store.dispatch(store);
dispatch(CounterAction(Increment, Js.Dict.fromList([("foo", "foo"), ("bar", "someTest")])));

@quicksnap: It would be great to have this kind of devToolsEnhancer available out-of-the-box in reductive. What do you think?

[ambientlight]

Integration with Redux devtools is now available with ambientlight/reductive-dev-tools

[ambientlight]

now with upcoming: What's new in release 7, having records compiled into JS objects may results in cleaner representation in devtools monitor, as currently reductive-dev-tools carries __internal (displayed in the monitor) around to help serialize / deserialize ocaml types into js-objects and back.

I will be updating ambientlight/reductive-dev-tools to accommodate that, and will be very happy if any feedback or suggestions