React 18.3.0 and React 19 Beta, React Native 0.74, and a new CSS Corner

In this issue, we are joined by guest author, Rachel Nabors, and introducing a new section, the CSS Corner. Please enjoy and let us know what you think by replying!

The React Family saw four major updates since our last newsletter. React got its first production release in two years with 18.3.0, which introduces some warnings and deprecations to help your prepare for React 19 (now in Beta). Adrienne Ross made a guide for how to get your codebase ready for React 19. While automatic fetch cache instrumentation was removed, did signals just land in React? (Spoiler: it’s possible!) React-Redux 9.1.2 fixes the NPM installation issues that users have reported with React 18.3.0.

Meanwhile, in the land of mobile development, React Native 0.74 released—the first React Native release of 2024—as well as a beta of Expo SDK 51. React Native 0.74 introduces “bridgeless by default” for new projects. Bridgeless mode replaces the old JSON bridge between JS and Native threads with a much more performant JavaScript Interface (JSI).

• Vimeo shared a comprehensive post on their engineering blog about migrating to Builder.io to streamline internationalization, improve SEO, reduce turn around time—rebranding and launching 20–25 pages over a month. Thanks for sharing your hard work, Shivangi!

• Latency numbers every frontend developer should know is a cheat sheet base on Jeff Dean's "Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know.”
• The Front End Developer/Engineer Handbook 2024 brought to you by Cody Lindley and Frontend Masters covers the entire stack as well as history of Web.
• GitHub/Gitlab vulnerability: attackers can upload files in comments, from where they are permanently hosted even after the comment is deleted, using the repo’s URL. This can be used to create fishing attacks, hiding malware behind a trusted URL. Matt Johansen breaks it down in this thread.
• HTML attributes and properties are not the same thing.

• Detect JS Support with CSS: Provide alternative CSS rules depending on whether or not JavaScript is available in the user's browser—help reduce flashes of unstyled content or undesirable layout shifts! (There are some caveats, as outlined at the end of the article.)
• Is CSS getting harder or easier to learn? Chrome’s Una Kravets talked with Kevin Powell about how learning CSS has changed—and so have the challenges with learning it!
• Are Inline Styles Faster than CSS? Evidence in this usecase suggests that inline styles are better for performance than CSS.

• AI won’t kill news—it’ll just reformat it. Between this and things like AI poisoning Reddit, it kind of makes you want to block scrapers from ever harvesting your content, doesn’t it? Fortunately, there’s a tool for that!

• React 19 Beta and React 18.3.0
• React Native 0.74
• React-Redux 9.1.2
• Expo SDK 51 beta
• Astro 4.7
• TypeScript 5.5 Beta
• Bun v1.1.5
• Node.js 22
• Electron 30.0.0

It’s hard to imagine a more exciting time for the React community. These releases have been a long time in coming and pave the way for the next generation of React development, from the upcoming compiler (React Forget) to trading “the Bridge” for JSI (and truly native performance). With that, that’s a wrap for this week in React! (This Week in React is also a great newsletter for all things React!)

—The Builder Team