📨 #156: Server Actions, Stale Closures, React Falls Behind, Expo Builds, Suspense Throttling, React-Aria, Natuerlich, Obsidiosaurus, Expo-SQLite, Expo DevTools...

August 15, 2023 · 7 min read

Newsletter Editor - Docusaurus maintainer

Hi everyone!

This week, we've got many articles from the React and React-Native community, and the latest Expo Launch Party announcements. Some articles are very long, and I didn't have time to read them all.

📷 I've been too busy creating the newsletter's Instagram account! I plan to post visual React news and tips there, including the best memes I couldn't include here 🤭.

🧑 I've also removed the Jobs section, which didn't add much: I'll see later how to reintegrate it.

👥 For React-Native devs: React Native EU (Wrocław/Poland, 7-8 September) is offering us a -15% discount on admissions.

💡 Check this newsletter on Twitter - visual format 🎨

As always, thanks for supporting us on your favorite platform:

🦋 Bluesky
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One of the few things I regularly read to keep up with the React world.

Theo BrowneFounder of ping.gg - Youtuber

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Try the new React Video tutorial!

⚛️ React

Can React Server Actions finally fix forms?

A great introduction to Server Actions, a forthcoming React feature that has already been integrated into Next.js 13.4 (experimental). Includes a short tutorial on uploading a video with a title. Server Actions can return a response to give feedback to the user, but it's clear that this isn't yet an ideal DX.

In my opinion, Server Actions should aim to fully support progressive enhancement. This probably requires to introduce a "flash" API to manage feedback without any client-side JavaScript. This exists in many backend frameworks, and Remix offers a (session.flash()) API. Related info that might interest you: with action.$$FORM_ACTION you can extend React's progressive enhancement behavior.

💸 Zero To Shipped - Master Fast-Paced Fullstack Development and Finally ship that product
🧑‍🎓 React.dev - Using TypeScript: new official documentation page.
💬 Next.js RFC - Google Tag Manager and gtag in next/third-parties: offers to integrate Google Analytics using a hook rather than a component, with possibly Web Worker support.
🐦 Million.js Automatic Mode - Video trailer
📜 Things you forgot (or never knew) because of React: a very long criticism of React, considered to be an outdated framework. It's still an interesting read, even if I disagree and think the author is unfair.
📜 Fantastic closures and how to find them in React: explains what a stale closure is in React and presents various cases that can introduce this problem, then proposes a solution based on useRef().
📜 The simplest example to understand Server Actions in Next.js: very simple Server Actions example, easy to understand, and providing a practical way of making RPC calls to your API.
📜 On React Suspense’s throttling: highlights a surprising behaviour of React when you nest <Suspense>.
📜 Quit Your YAP-ing: encourages you to abandon the "Yet-Another-Prop" syndrome and use composition instead.
📜 Node.js's Config Hell Problem: Deno's criticism of projects like Next.js, which often have dozens of configuration files.
📜 Supabase - Vercel Integration and Next.js App Router Support: an integration worth studying. Includes APIs with interesting names like createClientComponentClient 😅.
📜 Lifting Off with Astro
📜 Form Validation with React Hook Form
📜 Introducing a new lint rule for React Testing Library
📜 How to Use Jotai and useTransition for Mutation
📜 Coding the stars - An interactive constellation with Three.js and React Three Fiber
📦 React Aria - August 9 Releases - HTML form submit/reset, DropZone, FileTrigger...
📦 Natuerlich - Composable interactions for WebXR experiences - With React-Three-Fiber support
📦 Reakit - August 2023 update
📦 Obsidiosaurus - Obsidian -> Docusaurus Converter
📦 tw2panda - Easily migrate code from Tailwind to Panda CSS
🎥 Why I Stopped Using Next.js And Chose Astro Instead
🎥 Responsive Framer Motion with Tailwind CSS
🎥 Dominik Dorfmeister: React Query With The App Router

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People always ask how I keep up to date, it's This Week In React.

Jack HerringtonPrincipal Engineer - Youtuber

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📱 React-Native

Expo Preview - Fully customizable builds on EAS Build.

Expo has come up with a new system for EAS Build that allows you to customise the flow with a Yaml file, which should give you a lot of flexibility to use the monorepo tools of your choice (Nx, Turbo, Rush...) or add your own CI steps. It looks quite similar to GitHub Actions. TIL: it seems EAS is using Fastlane on iOS builds.