React Conf 2024 - Unleashing the Future

Excited Again

It’s been a pretty exciting couple of days in Las Vegas attending React Conf 2024. Not only was it the 10th (+1) anniversary of React, but the vibes were awesome, and talking to the community was super inspiring. Both React and React Native are here for another 10 years.

I met a lot of attendees both from here in the states, as well as abroad traveling from Sweden (Hey guys!). We all shared in our excitement of neat things demoed at React Conf. I met a lot of the kind folks who teach or work on React and React Native. I got to meet Kent C. Dodds, Dan Abramov, and many other folks. Kudos to Meta, Callstack, and the sponsers for putting on a great conference for 650+ folks. It felt small enough where you could see people and make connections, and with the one-track format makes it a much more shared experience.

TLDR

• Ryan Florence said that React Router + Vite is becoming the recommendation over Remix package - https://x.com/ryanflorence/status/1791126588693815400
  • See his talk
  • remix npm package is taking a nap
  • Remix community is still going, the name is not going away
  • https://remix.run/blog/incremental-path-to-react-19
  • “I made a React Conf follow up post to the Remix blog about React Router v7, the vite plugin, Remix, and both project's future.” - Ryan Florence on Twitter
• React Compiler open-sourced - https://github.com/facebook/react/tree/main/compiler
  • in beta, will start taking on more use-cases, just the beginning
  • Apply to be a member of the Working Group
  • See Dan Abromov’s Twitter thread on thoughs on react compiler

Although React Compiler has been in use in production at Meta in many high traffic applications, it is still experimental for open source due to differences in tech stacks, so bugs and errors may happen at runtime in your application. (via Lauren Tan of Meta - https://github.com/reactwg/react-compiler/discussions/7)

• Evan Bacon Expo RSC demo’d, and boy does it look amazing!
• React Native team names Expo as official recommended framework to use (however, they welcome more frameworks in the future)
• RedwoodJS announced support for RSC
• React 19 is in RC phase, at the moment. We have to wait for it to be stable before we can integrate it with React Native. React 19 will be available in React Native in a future version, but definitely this year. - cipolleschi

Conversations Online

• React Router explained in 1 tweet from Lauren Tan of Meta
• Tweet Thread from Theo on React Compiler
• React Compiler officially open-sourced tweet
• Sathya from Meta Explains How the Type System in React Compiler Works
• Lauren Tan from Meta talking about the WIP Rust version of the react compiler
• React Conf React Native app was open sourced, see React 19 in action in Expo
• Amazon is heavily investing in React Native, most of their mobile / TV apps are built in it
• See React blog’s offiial recap as well!
• React Compiler Working Group if you want to give feedback

Summary of My Notes

At the 2024 React Conference, I attended a series of enlightening talks that showcased the advancements and future directions of React and React Native.

The keynote by Joe Savona, an engineer on the React team at Meta, emphasized the importance of making it easy for anyone to build great user experiences. He covered the state of React, highlighting the upcoming React 19, which focuses on solving UI coordination problems through declarative, composable UI components. Notable improvements in React 19 include enhanced server rendering, suspense, hydration, and JSX enhancements.

Lauren Tan presented the state of React, noting its widespread use with over 1 billion downloads in 2023 and 1.8 million active users of React Dev Tools. She emphasized making React more accessible for beginners.

Joe Savona delved into the challenges of UI development and how React 19 addresses them. He introduced new features like declarative composable data loading and React Server Components (RSC), which allow seamless integration across client and server.

Josh, from the React team at Vercel, elaborated on server rendering and hydration improvements, emphasizing the importance of local reasoning with hooks like useEffect and portals.

Andrew Clark introduced React Actions, a new pattern for async data updates inspired by frameworks like Remix. React Actions integrate with features like streaming and selective hydration, providing a unified programming model for client and server actions.

Joe Savona and Mofei Zhang discussed the React Compiler, which optimizes components and hooks automatically, improving performance without sacrificing developer experience. The compiler enhances app speed and reduces manual memoization.

Ryan Florence from Shopify shared insights on Vanilla React and React Router, highlighting the integration of Remix with Vite and the evolution of React Router v7.

Nicola Corti updated us on the state of React Native, with notable usage by companies like Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Shopify. He discussed the new synchronous architecture replacing the JS Bridge with JSI, improving performance and interoperability. You can view the new Getting Started guide in the React Native docs.

Kadi Kraman from Expo detailed the capabilities of the Expo framework for React Native, which simplifies multi-platform development, native capabilities access, and builds and deployments through Expo Application Services (EAS).

Chris and Anisha from Amazon showcased extending React Native beyond mobile and desktop apps, including its application in TV interfaces and Amazon's offerings for developers. Sathya Gunasekaran and Mofei gave a deep dive into the React Compiler, explaining its design principles and how it optimizes declarative UI.

Kent C. Dodds built a framework with React Server Components (RSC), demonstrating the power of server-driven UI and the potential of RSC in modern development.

Lee Robinson's talk on React Rhythm & Blues focused on incremental adoption, composability, and common abstractions in React development.

Aurora Walberg Scharff enhanced forms with React Server, showing practical applications with Next.js and Prisma.

The conference concluded with a session on the future of React, emphasizing cross-platform development and aligning React Native with web standards. The React team highlighted ongoing efforts to unify React and React Native, improve performance, and make significant strides in developer experience.

Overall, the conference was a comprehensive exploration of React's current capabilities and future potential, leaving attendees excited for the advancements in React 19 and beyond.

React Conf 2024 Videos

I outlined here the videos and some of the talks for convenience.

Day 1

• Full Day 1 Video
  • Intro 29:48
  • Keynote 1:32:22
  • Vanilla React 1:57:55
  • What's new in React 19 2:48:32
  • React Unpacked: A Roadmap to React 19 3:20:20
  • Forget About Memo 3:53:25
  • React for Two Computers 5:46:05
  • Introducing Universal React Server Components in Expo Router 6:03:25
  • Real-time server components 6:55:16
  • React 19 Deep Dive: Coordinating HTML 7:11:07
  • Let’s break React’s rules 7:26:55
  • RedwoodJS, now with React Server Components! 7:38:38
  • React team Q&A 8:30:22

Day 2

• Full Day 2 Video
  • Intro 17:22
    • Seth Webster
    • Ellie White
  • Extending React Native beyond Mobile and Desktop Apps by Chris Traganos and Anisha Malde
  • Spatial computing with React by Michał Pierzchała
  • Cross Platform React by Olga Zinoveva and Naman Goel
  • Solve 100% of your errors by Ryan Albrecht
  • Demystifying accessibility in React apps by Kateryna Porshnieva
  • Pigment CSS, CSS in the server component age by Olivier Tassinari
  • React Native Q&A hosted by Jamon Holmgren

Looking forward to attending the next React Conf! If you find any omissions or mistakes in this post, feel free to hit me up on Twitter (yes I still call it that. Sigh.), or LinkedIn. Or if you just want to connect! 👋