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Netflix Likes React

techblog.netflix.com

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Re: Netflix Likes React

#21

Post by cnp »

serve_yay wrote: post #9
16bytes wrote: post #8

This is very interesting to see since I value Netflix's opinion. What's been holding me back was the pervasive JSX design. I know the react guys say that JSX is optional, but react without JSX seems cumbersome compared to, say, ember with handlebars. It'd be interesting to hear from Netflix on the topic of JSX if they are going to grow their react codebase. That being said, isomorphic javascript and using the vdom ar…

If you think React seems interesting but JSX is a turn-off (or in my team's case a total non-starter), you might want to check out Ractive, http://www.ractivejs.org/ . It uses some of the same ideas like a virtual DOM. Here's a writeup by Ractive's developer where he compares it to React: http://blog.ractivejs.org/posts/whats-the-difference-between...

Curious why JSX is a total non-starter? I've always been intrigued by things that completely invalidate ideas, regardless of how good those ideas appear to be.

Is it just aesthetic (xml like)? Is it the precompiler? What is the harm with trying it out?

Re: Netflix Likes React

#22

Post by lumpypua »

foxclaw wrote: post #17
svachalek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't choose Angular for a new project right now because it's in no man's land: 1.x is dead, 2.x is not available, and there's no path between the two. That said, Angular gets the job done. It scales better than people think it does (it's inefficient but modern browsers are just so fast it rarely matters) and it's a lot more complete than React. Angular is a full MVC framework while React is just about the V.

> 1.x is dead What does that even mean? It's very much alive and 1.4 is going to be released this year. That's like the people who called Perl 5 dead because Perl 6 was announced back in 2000.

Dead over the long term, as it has lost momentum.

Perl 5 is dead in the same way. What programming language would you recommend to someone looking to learn programming?

In 2000, you could make a strong case for Perl.

In 2015, there are a half dozen languages ahead in line.

Anyone new picking up Perl is likely doing it just for a project. Same with angular.

Re: Netflix Likes React

#23

Post by bshenanigan »

sehr wrote: post #6

Looks like they're using it for the initial profile switcher on desktop, I wonder if it will be making it's way over to the main list soon Pic: http://i.imgur.com/cj9tD1p.png

The 'main list' react app is currenty being user tested. It's likely to be more visible shortly.

Re: Netflix Likes React

#24

Post by e0m »

My experience says Netflix is spot on!

Runtime performance, modularity, headless testing have been absolutely critical as we've thought about how to make a hyper-extendable email client on Atom Shell. Having a consistent component architecture has let us enable 3rd party applications that just seamlessly integrate with the rest of the core email client. Now with React Native, we might be able to do this with mobile soon too!

Re: Netflix Likes React

#25

Post by watty »

kuni-toko-tachi wrote: post #13

People who chose AngularJS are looking more and more foolish everyday.

I looked at your profile expecting to see a marketing guy with no tech knowledge. Surprised to see you actually have experience... not so surprised you're jobless though.

Re: Netflix Likes React

#27

Post by serve_yay »

cnp wrote: post #21
serve_yay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think React seems interesting but JSX is a turn-off (or in my team's case a total non-starter), you might want to check out Ractive, http://www.ractivejs.org/ . It uses some of the same ideas like a virtual DOM. Here's a writeup by Ractive's developer where he compares it to React: http://blog.ractivejs.org/posts/whats-the-difference-between...

Curious why JSX is a total non-starter? I've always been intrigued by things that completely invalidate ideas, regardless of how good those ideas appear to be. Is it just aesthetic (xml like)? Is it the precompiler? What is the harm with trying it out?

Boy, people never want to accept this. On my team, designers write the HTML. They own markup & styling.

Designers don't want to dig through JS files to change markup, but an even bigger problem is that it's only kinda-sorta markup. For example, if you want to set a class on an element in JSX, it's not class="", it's className="". Because class is a reserved word in JS. How many other little warts like that are there, and how are they supposed to remember stuff like that? It just wouldn't work without a lot of undue pain.

Re: Netflix Likes React

#28

Post by saberworks »

sehr wrote: post #6

Looks like they're using it for the initial profile switcher on desktop, I wonder if it will be making it's way over to the main list soon Pic: http://i.imgur.com/cj9tD1p.png

Which is one thing I absolutely hate about Netflix nowadays! I usually "discover" movies to watch on "instant" directly on my Roku. When I want to use their website, it's because I saw a preview for a movie and want to add it to my (dvd) queue (since I already searched and they didn't have it in "instant"). So I type "netflix.com" in my browser, and wait 5-10 seconds before that screen loads and allows me to choose which profile to pick (and it doesn't save it, so each time I come back I have to do the same thing). Once I click a profile, it takes another 5-10 seconds to show me a list of "instant" movies and all the links actually become active. Then I can type my search term in the search box (for example, "Matrix") and faster than I can count, a list of movies pops up, and I notice I am forwarded to "dvd.netflix.com" (which, if I go to manually at the beginning, still takes >10s to load). I'm on a 100mbit connection on a late-model macbook pro and no matter which browser I choose (firefox, chrome) it's the same. Is all the slowness due to the massive amount of client-side javascript that has to be loaded and then processed? I'm not sure, but their web site has been getting slower and slower for years, not faster and definitely not more usable (don't get me started on the fact that they don't show the movie title in text w/out having to hover for 2 seconds -- trying to read the titles on many of the movie image thumbnails is unpleasant).

Streaming performance itself has always been top notch. Hard to understand how I can start a streaming movie in less time than it takes to load a list of movies in a browser.

Re: Netflix Likes React

#29

Post by dang »

watty wrote: post #25
kuni-toko-tachi wrote: post #13

People who chose AngularJS are looking more and more foolish everyday.

I looked at your profile expecting to see a marketing guy with no tech knowledge. Surprised to see you actually have experience... not so surprised you're jobless though.

Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

Re: Netflix Likes React

#30

Post by hgezim »

e0m wrote: post #24

My experience says Netflix is spot on! Runtime performance, modularity, headless testing have been absolutely critical as we've thought about how to make a hyper-extendable email client on Atom Shell. Having a consistent component architecture has let us enable 3rd party applications that just seamlessly integrate with the rest of the core email client. Now with React Native, we might be able to do this with mobile s…

Any links on React Native?!
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