Post

tried writing this blog 3 times but it’s really boring, so here’s the short version: React won. Every mainstream f/w now implements its ideas, and developed their own ecosystems. The ones that didn’t, lost and died. This implies there’s no _strong_ reason to not pick one of the other winners.

but what about signals

React should have adopted signals before going nuts on a compiler or RSCs IMO. My 5 year prediction is a solid one… 😜

I still genuinely don't know what "React adopt signals" would _mean_ at a technical level. Per other comments in this thread, React works at the component level. What would a hypothetical native-to-React signals integration do differently?

It would have to have been something new. Breaking likely. Signals would allow: - finer grained updates than “component” e.g. jsx fragments - state/data flow that isn’t tied to component hierarchy and doesn’t need to rerender (or subscribe to a store to rerender) itself and its children

I agree, but regrettably. I think it’s too late for React to do this. I would rather see Solid and others grow to challenge it.

The reality of the business is that React is the 2 ton gorilla in the room. It's got jQuery levels of momentum, if not more. Nothing else is gonna make a dent without a solid, and relatively painless, migration story. Not for a long while at least.

either way we're gonna need a long while to get anywhere, because react can only evolve so fast :/ whatever is coming next is going to need strong buy in from a big company to invest heavily in and polish, and i don't see that happening right now. not to mention native being a massive boon for react