Living on the Edge

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React 18 introduces new APIs for rendering applications asynchronously on the server, enabling a simpler model for architecting and shipping user interfaces. When deployed on edge networking platforms like Cloudflare Workers, we can get dramatic performance and user experience improvements in our applications. In this talk, Sunil will demo and walk through this new model of writing React applications, with some insight into the implications for data fetching, styling, and overall direction of the React ecosystem.

This talk has been presented at React Advanced 2021, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

FAQ

In his talk, Sunil Pai discusses new APIs related to React, including incremental improvements in React and the concept of streaming and suspense in web development.

Sunil Pai mentioned updating his GitHub avatar with a minor modification suggested by a friend, as the old one no longer represents him since he quit smoking.

Sunil Pai currently works at Cloudflare on the workers team. He was previously a member of the React team.

Sunil Pai recently celebrated being 500 days smoke-free.

Sunil Pai highlighted 'render to readable stream' as a new API feature in React, which supports streaming rendering, a significant improvement over the traditional 'render to string'.

Using the new React server features requires running your own server, which involves choosing between traditional server setups or more modern serverless computing, each with their own trade-offs regarding performance and streaming support.

Sunil Pai
Sunil Pai
36 min
22 Oct, 2021

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Video Summary and Transcription
The Talk discusses the future of React and introduces new APIs, including streaming rendering and server components. React Suspense allows for asynchronous loading of components and data fetching. The use of serverless computing, specifically Cloudflare Workers, is explored as a way to improve performance. The Talk emphasizes the potential for simplifying the React ecosystem and the excitement about the new API.
Available in Español: Viviendo al Límite

1. Introduction and Personal Story

Short description:

I look forward to disappointing everybody here. It has been two years since I have been up on the stage. I've missed you all so much. I finished 500 days smoke-free. I quit smoking. This has been my GitHub avatar for the last 10 years. It doesn't really represent me anymore. A friend of mine did suggest a minor modification and I will be uploading it later today. This was actually made by Siddharth Kshetrapal. He's not here today because his visa got screwed. But I think that's a good modification. And that's my story so far.

I look forward to disappointing everybody here. It has been a while. It has been two years since I have been up on the stage. My name is Sunil Pai, I work at Cloudflare on the workers team. I used to be on the React team. They got rid of me pretty quickly.

And we have React stuff to talk about, but before I do that, I do want to start by saying I've missed you all so much. This is so weird. I met a bunch of people at the speaker's dinner yesterday. It's nice swapping stories, doing the same awkward hugs. There's the bro hug, there's the 200 hug, there's the fist bump, there's the weird elbow thing and I think it's time to retire that. But things have changed for me. As you can see, I get way better haircuts now. I dress a little nicer and especially for the occasion, shout out to Tom Dale. I hope I'm doing you proud. I've been eating better, exercising better, but the thing that I am most proud of and I'm sharing it with all my personal friends here is two days ago, I finished 500 days smoke-free. I quit smoking. Which is a good thing. So happy. I'm very proud of it. This is the thing that I've been telling everyone. It does leave me with one complication. This has been my GitHub avatar for the last 10 years. Ever since I've had one. It's cool. I used Photoshop back in the day when I had a pirated copy. But it doesn't really represent me anymore. But a friend of mine did suggest a minor modification and I will be uploading it later today. I think it's pretty good. This was actually made by Siddharth Kshetrapal. He's not here today because his visa got screwed. It sucks, but look forward to his talk. But I think that's a good modification. And that's my story so far. Cool.

2. Introduction to the Talk

Short description:

This talk is about the future of React and introduces some new APIs. It's in beta and will be improved over the next year. It's an important release that is often overlooked in favor of other features. It will have a significant impact on our future development.

Let's get to the talk. Three things you should know about the talk I'm doing right now. It's kind of boring. We'll be talking about a couple of APIs, but if all goes well, you probably won't have to use it. Things will just happen. And that's nice. That's kind of a nice thing about React. Like all the improvements are slightly incremental. Nobody has to do any massive rewrites. You can leave old code as it is. This talk is a beta talk. Much like the actual APIs and the fact that React 18 is on the horizon, but there's going to be about a year, two years of experimentation usually when these things come out. Much like that, this talk itself is also in beta. This is the first time that I've put it together, what we're talking about, and it also means that maybe over the next year, I'll be improving the talk. So if you spot any mistakes, sorry about that, but it will get better. But this talk itself is in beta. The talk is also about the future. I don't usually do API talks, I like talking about the work I've done, but this, I think, is exciting enough that it's part of the React release that no one is really noticing. Everyone is talking about the cool hotness, which is server components and concurrent and all that, but I feel like this actually is way more defining for all the things we're going to be doing in the future. So those are the three things.

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