Why should you bother changing the way you develop new stuff? Is it really worth your time? Maybe…

Writing one component is easy. Conditionally rendering two different ones is still not hard. But what if you face an "n" number of permutations. "n" number of different UI elements and scattered business logic? Switch statements all over the place. Might not sound scary when we write the code. What about your future self? Cognitive load fires off the roof. Maintaining your code? Onboarding new devs? Good luck. Sounds all too familiar? Let's see a possible solution how to tame complexity. How to tackle a large number (possibly infinite) of branches in a frontend codebase without losing our sanity.

This talk explores the intersection of Next.js, React Query, and the Backend for Frontend (BFF) design pattern, three vital elements pieces that help solve the puzzle of performant and scalable data fetching.

I’ll start by discussing Next.js and its capabilities for React applications, highlighting its features like server rendering and data pre fetching, and route pre-fetching. I’d then delve into client data fetching and state management, showcasing how React Query brings a new perspective to managing server state hydration in React applications, simplifying data fetching, caching, synchronization, and updates.

The last part of the talk will take the topic further by introducing the Backend For Frontend (BFF) design pattern, demonstrating how a BFF can be integrated with NextJs API handler to work seamlessly as a Proxy with a React application, enhancing user experience and performance by spreading the load of large payloads.

Throughout the talk, real-world examples will be used to provide a practical understanding of these topics.

React 19 came out with a lot of new APIs but I still see devs falling back to plain'ol useState and useEffect for everything. Lets explore alternatives.