Server Components: The Epic Tale of Rendering UX

Server components, introduced in React v18 end these shortcomings, enabling rendering React components fully on the server, into an intermediate abstraction format without needing to add to the JavaScript bundle. 

This talk aims to cover the following points:

1. A fun story of how we needed CSR and how SSR started to take its place

2. What are server components and what benefits did they bring like 0 javascript bundle size

3. Demo of a simple app using client-side rendering, SSR, and server components and analyzing the performance gains and understanding when to use what

4. My take on how rendering UI will change with this approach

This talk has been presented at React Summit 2023, check out the latest edition of this React Conference.

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FAQ

React Server Components are a new feature introduced by the React team that combines the advantages of both client-side and server-side rendering. They allow developers to specify which components of their application should be rendered on the server and which on the client, optimizing performance and reducing bundle sizes to potentially zero for server-rendered components.

React Server Components improve performance by enabling zero bundle size for server-rendered components, automatic code splitting, and faster server-client interaction. This approach reduces the amount of JavaScript shipped to the client, speeds up initial page loads, and efficiently utilizes server resources.

Client-side rendering processes the JavaScript, HTML, and CSS entirely in the browser, which can slow initial page loads but speeds up interaction once loaded. Server-side rendering generates the final HTML on the server, improving initial load times and SEO at the potential cost of higher server load and slower subsequent page interactions.

No, React Server Components do not support handling states or effects, which are typically managed by client components. Server components are better suited for tasks like data fetching and displaying static content without interactivity.

To use React Server Components, developers can indicate server-rendered components using a .server.js extension or configure them within a framework like Next.js, which treats files in the app directory as server components by default. This setup allows for seamless integration of server components into existing React applications.

The main limitations of React Server Components include their inability to handle client-specific functionalities like states and effects, and the requirement for components' props to be serializable over the network. Additionally, as of the last update, they are still in an experimental phase, which might not be suitable for all production environments.

Nikhil Sharma
Nikhil Sharma
26 min
06 Jun, 2023

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Video Summary and Transcription
This Talk introduces server components in React, which provide an intermediate format for rendering and offer advantages for both client-side and server-side rendering. Server components reduce bundle size on the client and improve search engine optimization. They abstract the rendering process, allowing for faster rendering and flexibility in choosing where to render components. While server components are still in the experimental stage, Next.js is a good starting point to try them out.

1. Introduction to Server Components

Short description:

Today, I'll be talking about one of the very coolest things that React has been working on, which is server components. We'll be diving into different concepts, but I will be explaining the things in a little more fun way. Let's just have only one agenda in our current talk, which is just a short story, and let's try to uncover things based on the short story itself. Before diving in, a little bit about me. I am Nikhil, and I work as a software engineer here at Postman. I usually work on super fun stuff like design systems and the overall foundation of user experience that we have set up here in the product. I love to talk about everything that the web is doing and it's heading to in general. So if you're like a geek like me, I would love to connect on Twitter, on GitHub. You can find all these handles which I'll definitely share with you all.

Hey, everyone. Today, I'll be talking about one of the very coolest things that React has been working on, which is server components. We'll be diving into different concepts, but I will be explaining the things in a little more fun way. Without any further things, let's try to see what we are planning to cover in this talk.

You might be thinking, maybe what's this guy going to tell us? What are server components? How they work? Blah, blah, blah. They can be a thousand number of things. I would just say, for this talk, because I want to keep the theme of the talk as simplicity. Let's just have only one agenda in our current talk, which is just a short story, and let's try to uncover things based on the short story itself.

All right. So, before diving in, a little bit about me. I am Nikhil, and I work as a software engineer here at Postman. I usually work on super fun stuff like design systems and the overall foundation of user experience that we have set up here in the product, so I work on the bits and pieces of all of these things. Yeah, other than that, I love to talk about everything that the web is doing and it's heading to in general. So I love to talk about performance. I love to talk about how the front end is going and what new is coming up. So, yeah, if you want to, if you're like a geek, like a kind of a geek like me, so I would love to connect on Twitter, on GitHub. You can find all these handles which I'll definitely share with you all. So, yeah, I would really love to connect with you all.

2. Introduction to Client Side Rendering

Short description:

Bob is a person who is at a beach and like accidentally, he does not have anything to create a sand castle on a beach. He loves building sand castles. The responsibility of building the sand castle is like probably only on to Bob. This is how client side rendering right now works. You will have a server and you will have someone like a client that is going to request the server to do something. In this case, like as a Bob wants to build a sandcastle, maybe, you know, a client wants to build a web page. So he requests this from the server. The server is going to give it a response, which is, you know, a list, like a JavaScript files is going to give it HTML files and CSS. And it's the client's responsibility, like, you know, Bob is, it was Bob's responsibility that he has all the sand and what is the disposal and he has to figure out how to build a sandcastle. So this is what the browser does as well. The browser creates the final website basically. And like when everything is ready, this is what you see on your page, right?

So okay, so now let's get to the fun part. Now let's start a story with a guy named Bob. Now, Bob is a person who is at a beach and like accidentally, he does not have anything to create a sand castle on a beach. He loves building sand castles. But like what he has to do is he has to see, okay, there is sand and I just need to use my hands, like how we used to do in childhood, right? So we need to, like he just needs to build this sort of thing with just some hands.

So the responsibility of building the sand castle is like probably only on to Bob. He has to figure that thing out. He does not have anything to help him out. Now, with this starting gist of the story, this is what you would, if you relate to it, you would see, this is how client side rendering right now works, right? You will have a server and you will have someone like a client that is going to request the server to do something. In this case, like as a Bob wants to build a sandcastle, maybe, you know, a client wants to build a web page. So he requests this from the server. The server is going to give it a response, which is, you know, a list, like a JavaScript files is going to give it HTML files and CSS. And it's the client's responsibility, like, you know, Bob is, it was Bob's responsibility that he has all the sand and what is the disposal and he has to figure out how to build a sandcastle. So this is what the browser does as well. The browser creates the final website basically. And like when everything is ready, this is what you see on your page, right? So like pretty much simple.

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