In this kind of setup, I'm wondering how you handle events that happen outside of the component?
Let's say you have a background function, created with setTimeInterval, which after some time update an item. With Redux, you could dispatch an action UPDATE_ITEM, which would modify the items, and in turn update the connected component.
However, without Redux how is your component going to know about this item update and update the list? Do you use some kind of event listener/dispatcher?
Except for the fact that it drastically lowers the amount of manual props passing you have to do, and allows you to achieve much better separation of concerns. It is essentially Redux, only much worse the more complex your app is.
The entire Redux library is something like 300 lines of code, most of which is sanity checks. It is basically the same thing as having one root component handle all your state, it just adds a tiny bit of magic for convenience. If you're comparing that to using a completely different language, I encourage you to learn more about how Redux actually works, because it's really very simple.
It literally IS having a root component manage state. That's what the Provider class does (enables connect() to populate via a Redux store in context).
I understand Redux, have used it many times and have read the source code. I don't understand the argument that it is "basically is the same thing as having a root component handle all your state".
It's that plus actions, reducers, dispatcher, middleware, and HoCs for connecting components to global state. So it's not basically the same thing at all.
Actions, the dispatcher, and reducers are effectively a few in/out functions around a thing stuffed into the React context when used by react-redux. You're way overstating things.
Let's say you have a background function, created with setTimeInterval, which after some time update an item. With Redux, you could dispatch an action UPDATE_ITEM, which would modify the items, and in turn update the connected component.
However, without Redux how is your component going to know about this item update and update the list? Do you use some kind of event listener/dispatcher?