Three highlights from React Conf 2024
Last week Meta hosted their React Conf 2024 in Henderson, Nevada. This was Meta’s first in-person conference since the pandemic. Below are three highlights of what was announced during the conference:
React 19 is going RC
One of the big announcements out of React Conf 2024 is that React 19 is going into release candidate status. React 19 introduces a plethora of features and improvements like Actions, Server Components, ref as props, and much more.
Actions are a new feature introduced to help with handling data mutations and then updating state. Actions provide a way to automatically manage pending states, errors, optimistic updates, and sequential requests. One of the demos during the talk demoed how Actions was able to manage the pending state when fetching data while keeping the UI responsive. In addition, Actions have built-in error handling. There is also a new useOptimistic hook that allows you to show user’s immediate feedback when data is being submitted in a form.
Server Components are another new feature that allows developers to render React components entirely on the server side. These components do not get included in the client side JS bundles. They also separate the rendering concerns between the server and client, thus improving performance and SEO.
In React 19, ref is finally a prop. This should eliminate the need for the forwardRef in most cases. red should now operate the same way as any other prop that gets passed down to your component.
React Compiler
Meta released an experimental compiler that is supposed to automatically optimize caching throughout your application. The compiler will automatically memorize values or groups of values within components and hooks. This should help applications that are not well-optimized. For more information on how the React Compiler works check out the React docs on the React Compiler
React Native’s New Architecture
React Native’s New Architecture officially went into Beta during the conference. This is a complete redesign of React Native’s core architecture. It should address some long standing limitations as well as introduce some new features to the platform. For more information on the new architecture, check out the official repo.
The live stream is fully on Youtube
If you are interested in watching the entire conference or just refresh on some of what was announced, you can check out day 1 and day 2 on YouTube.
