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Comment by smallpipe | Hacker News Reader

Dismissing a compiler improvement is weird. Facebook has presumably millions of lines of React everywhere. Legacy tech is a thing, and most tech is legacy. Usability and familiarity matter. The tech is a collateral of the business, and it doesn't matter as long as it works.

Compiler "hack" or not, the business doesn't care, the business is about revenue and maintenance burden.

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I don’t think it’s dismissing compiler improvements, I think it’s dismissing compiler astronautics when there already is a good, performant solution at hand.

Though to be fair to Facebook, in 2004 there were no good web languages. The choice was between weird enterprise stuff like WebObjects, JavaEE and ColdFusion, or small pragmatic languages with clumsy implementations like Python, Ruby and PHP.

> Legacy tech is a thing, and most tech is legacy.

I guess the question we typically get to ask ourselves is this: is there any good reason to choose React for a new project in <current_year>.

sure:

- Everyone knows it.

- It's easy to hire for.

- It's good enough and getting better.

- There's a rich ecosystem and a wealth of libraries.

Yes, if an aspect of React’s ecosystem makes it easier to deliver the project.

For example React Native seems like a nifty way to deliver mobile app functionality with less code/functionality duplication and simpler staffing. I might be out of the loop, is there something similar building on React alternatives?

Certainly React is not the only option these days, thank god.

I just chose it and having a fun time with nextjs.

The weirdest part is "compiler improvement is the wrong approach" then pushing Svelte, Solid, etc which ALL REQUIRE custom compilers. At least the React team is looking to make any added compiler optional.

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