June 22nd, 2024

Understanding React Compiler

React's core architecture simplifies app development but can lead to performance issues. The React team introduced React Compiler to automate performance tuning by rewriting code using AST, memoization, and hook storage for optimization.

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Understanding React Compiler

React's core architecture simplifies app development but can lead to performance issues if functions are costly. To address this, the React team introduced the React Compiler tool to automate performance tuning by rewriting code. Transpilers like Babel convert JSX into nested function calls for better readability. Compilers, transpilers, and optimizers are programs that analyze and produce functionally equivalent code. React Compiler utilizes Abstract Syntax Trees (AST) to generate new React code. React's architecture involves creating a Virtual DOM and using memoization to cache results of expensive functions. Hook storage in React maintains app state changes, and React Compiler combines memoization and hook storage to optimize performance. By storing cache on the Fiber tree, React streamlines the process but requires explicit input dependencies for memoization. Understanding these concepts is crucial for leveraging React Compiler effectively to enhance app performance.

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By @danlugo92 - 4 months
After all of this time... why don't we just make the real DOM fast now?

Why doesn't Meta (creators of React) direct all of this effort into maybe making Blink and/or Chromium faster?

Would have that been really much harder? Given we are at the point of compiled DSLs they've really devoted resources to React.

By @throw156754228 - 4 months
In regard to performance, Meta should be getting behind the TC39 Signals proposal rather than playing around with this clumsy tool built for their ecosystem.
By @apantel - 4 months
Just levels upon levels upon levels of complexity.