Maintaining a Large Application

26 August 2022

Do you have trouble maintaining a large application? It can definitely be challenging! For instance, there may be design issues with large JavaScript and CSS bundles that cause the app to provide a bad experience for users. That’s only one of the problems you might encounter.

If you’d like to learn how to make a large code-base easy to maintain, then read on! We’ve put together some techniques that can help you manage large Next.js apps.

1. Use TypeScript

TypeScript is a strongly typed programming language that has the ability to enforce some strictness while mixing different types of data. This is one of the most popular languages that developers would like to work with.

TypeScript can help when working with a large code-base. It helps show if there’s a problem with the application that may break if changes are made. It can also help get rid of bugs before you build the app.

The script “next build” is the one that creates an optimised product build of your Next.js app.

2. Use a Mono-Repo Structure Using Lerna or NX

If you’re working on building a component library along with the main Next.js app, you may want to keep the library as a separate repository. For instance, you may want to add new components, build and release these as a package. While this works great when working in the library, integrating the library with Next.js may be a problem.

The reason is that you may need to go back into the library’s repository to make changes, install a new version, and more in the Next.js application. The problem is that the changes in the component library may not all happen at the same time, and the changes are slow to appear in the Next.js application. Your team may be doing this multiple times.

However, you can solve this problem by using a mono-repo structure, where the component library resides with the Next.js application. Then all you have to do is update the library, and it’s immediately seen in the Next.js app. This way, there’s no need to create a separate build or release the component library.

You can use the following tools to manage mono-repo:

Lerna
NX
Rush
Turborepo
Yarn workspaces
Npm workspaces

3. Use Code Generators to Generate Boilerplate Code

When you have many developers contributing to a large code-base, you may end up with a lot of duplicate code. The problem is that it’s often necessary to build a page, component, or utility function that’s similar to one that already exists, with only slight changes.

It’s possible to create writing tests for the components and utility functions. It’s also possible to copy the boilerplate code as much as possible and make certain modifications per the new file. However, this can add a lot of code that has bad variable naming in the code-base. While it’s possible to have a code-review process, there’s another way to reduce this problem.

You may want to consider using Hygen to generate boilerplate code for Redux or React components and utility functions. You can read Hygen’s documentation to get started; they also have a section for generating Redux boilerplate.

4. Use Commitizen and Semantic Release with Husky

When your application is deployed and released often, you may have problems with versioning. What’s more, when you’re working on a large application with multiple developers, managing releases becomes more challenging. It’s almost impossible to keep track of the changelog. And updating the changelog manually becomes even more complicated, with the changelog eventually becoming out of date.

However, you can combine Commitizen and Semantic Release packages to help with versioning and maintaining a changelog. These tools automate part of the release process by keeping the changelog in sync with changes deployed in a specific release.

You can also use a tool such as Husky to make sure all developers are following the established pattern for writing commit messages and helping to manage the changelog.

5. Use React Query or SWR for Fetching Async Data

Many front-end applications fetch data from a backend server and render it on the page. With Next.js or any JavaScript application, you can fetch data with the Fetch API, Axios, or similar libraries. However, the issue is that the application grows and becomes challenging to manage the async state of the data.

It’s possible to create abstractions using utility functions or wrappers around Fetch or Axios. However, if there are multiple developers working on the same app, these functions or wrappers may become challenging to manage. The application may also suffer from caching and other performance issues.

You can fix these issues by using packages such as React Query or SWR. These packages are set as the default configuration right out of the box. They take care of things like caching and performance that are difficult to manage. Both of these provide default configuration and options, which can be used to customise their behaviours according to your application’s requirements.

6. Use Storybook for Visualisation UI Components

In a large code-base, the application will surely have many components. Some of these will be buggy, outdated, or not needed any longer. However, it’s challenging to keep track of these in a large application. It’s entirely possible that developers will create new components that are similar to those already existing because they don’t know the previous component already exists.

You can solve this problem by using tools such as Storybook to help track all components that your code-base is made of. Storybook is easy to set up and integrate with an existing Next.js application.

Summing It Up

We hope these tips help you build and manage large Next.js applications. Some of these are applied to any front-end application. Remember that the main priority is to ship a product that provides the user with an excellent experience, is easy to use, and fast.

Using these tips can help you develop almost any application. The entire development process will be easier and faster while ending up with products users will love!

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