The React Compiler makes it possible to optimize code for performance. Meta has been using the compiler for more than a year.
Meta released an open source compiler for React on Wednesday at the React Conference, which was held in Las Vegas and live-streamed. Joe Savona, a member of the React team at Meta and a user interface engineer, said the team had been developing the compiler over the past few years.
“React Compiler automatically optimizes your components and hooks, so that only the minimal parts of your UI update as state changes,” Savona told audiences. “So that seems pretty magical.”
Why would an interpreted language need a compiler? Savona compared React Compiler to Meta’s Hermes and the V8 Alliance’s V8, which are JavaScript engines that include compilers.
“React Compiler is more like TypeScript, or the compilers inside JavaScript engines, like V8 or Hermes,” he said. “It breaks your code down into individual expressions and builds up a control flow and data flow graph. It performs sophisticated optimizations, like dead code elimination, constant propagation, type inference, even alias analysis and a whole bunch more.”
