React: then & now

JS Party: JavaScript, CSS, Web Development

Back at React Summit in New York, KBall & Nick sat down with Tom Occhino & Shruti Kapoor for more fascinating conversations.

Tom Occhino, a key figure in React’s history at Facebook (now Meta), reveals the origin story of React, which began when an ads engineer presented a revolutionary approach to web UI rendering. The discussion extends to React’s evolution through Next.js.

Then, Shruti Kapoor breaks down React 19’s major features, including React Server Components (RSC), the new compiler implementation, and enhanced APIs that promise to streamline development workflows.

Join the discussion

Changelog++ members save 7 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!

Sponsors:

• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps close to your users — global Anycast load-balancing, zero-configuration private networking, hardware isolation, and instant WireGuard VPN connections. Push-button deployments that scale to thousands of instances. Check out the speedrun to get started in minutes.
• WorkOS – AuthKit offers 1,000,000 monthly active users (MAU) free — The world’s best login box, powered by WorkOS + Radix. Learn more and get started at WorkOS.com and AuthKit.com
• Jam.dev – One click bug reports developers love — Never explain another bug report again. Jam auto-captures all the info engineers need to debug and repro.

Featuring:

• Tom Occhino – Website, LinkedIn, X
• Shruti Kapoor – Website, GitHub, X
• Nick Nisi – Website, GitHub, Mastodon, X
• Kevin Ball – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X

Show Notes:

• React.js: The Documentary
• React 19 RC

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Luvut

1. It's party time, y'all (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Fly.io (00:00:39)

https://fly.io/

3. Tom Occhino! (00:03:08)

4. When React was first released (00:11:47)

5. Vercel vs Facebook (00:15:38)

6. Next.js (00:21:39)

7. Constraints (00:26:07)

8. AI (obligatory) (00:28:27)

9. Conferences (00:34:06)

10. Tom's final words (00:35:57)

11. Sponsor: WorkOS (00:36:52)

https://workos.com

12. Sponsor: Jam.dev (00:39:42)

https://jam.dev

13. Shruti Kapoor! (00:41:15)

14. Actions (00:44:35)

15. Compiler (00:47:16)

16. Suspense (00:52:04)

17. Conferences (00:57:09)

18. CDD (01:01:20)

19. Exciting things (01:02:25)

20. TypeScript (obligatory) (01:05:49)

21. Shruti's final words (01:08:55)

22. Outro (01:12:15)