Kudos to the team, but why on earth should i choose React when we’ve now reached a point where it needs an optimization compiler, seems silly to be honest.
It doesn't need one, probably less than 1% of React apps make use of this tool. Its an optimization that would be premature for most apps unless they've got large amounts of dynamic onscreen components.
Nobody has ever complained about their app feeling better to use because it performs better.
Users do not sit there like “man, I really wish the web was SLOWER”.
Additionally, assuming this lives up to the claims, or even lives up to a quarter of the claims, then the optimization is, by definition, NOT premature. Premature optimization is the act of optimizing before you even know if something is slow, or before you measure.
I suppose you are probably working under the Functional Programming definition of “premature optimization” where they tell you to never measure (because it just makes FP look bad).