If successful, the React compiler could spur similar types of efforts in other frameworks, both those that use a compiler already and those that don’t. React’s incorporation of a compiler tacitly acknowledges that pairing a compiler with a reactive engine is a good idea.
The trade-off is that you have to involve server-side build tooling, but in practice that is usually the case for many applications. There is additional tooling overhead and maintenance if you integrate the compiler, but it’s not a huge amount of work. Certainly, it’s more work to add caching to an entire application. Also, you also have the option to omit the compiler and use simple front-end React from a script include.
Conclusion
It’s tempting to speculate on how far we might go in moving work into the compiler and out of the in-browser engine. The more work that stays out of the browser—that is, the more efficient the code that is shipped to the front end—the better-performing the final engine will be. At what point does this process start to change the basic nature of React?
