What to expect from React 18!
Earlier this month, React announced their plans for the next update to their beloved Javascript library. For those that are new to React and what it has to offer, it is a front end Javascript library well-known for creating lightweight and flexible user interfaces. Mainly used for single page applications, React is built with components that allow for large applications to be created while maintaining control and flexibility. It is easy to learn, and has extensive documentation to help with your transition into the React world.
Developed and maintained by Facebook, React has continued to grow in popularity among front end developers. Over the last few years, they have made it a point to make the framework easy to use and adapt to your project, and they’re hoping to continue this with their latest update.
Root API
React 18 will introduce a new Root API, to slowly weed out the “Legacy” Root API. Instead of using ReactDOM.render, we will set a new variable called ‘root’ to ReactDOM.render, and utilize this in rendering the application. With that being said, if you create a new React app moving forward, you will be able to render the application with either version, in order to facilitate a smooth transition.
startTransition API
This is a brand new API introduced in React18, and it will help keep the UI responsive and dynamic without creating a heavy interface with urgent event listener responses. In other words, it helps React differentiate between quick updates and ones that can be delayed.
For example, you can use startTransition in order to delay the onset of updates to the DOM. Let’s say you want to offset the reloading of a webpage if no search results are found. You are able to do so by wrapping the code in startTransition.
Strict Effects to Strict Mode
<StrictMode /> will now be loaded with a feature called “Strict Effects”, which will essentially run side-effects twice in order to catch any unexpected behaviors when rendering.
