Frontend
14 articles · all categories
October 2025
React, HTMX, and TanStack/Start
More and more UI frameworks are ditching JSON as the transfer protocol and going back to server-rendered markup injected into your app
November 2024
The anatomy of a React Island
A coworker asked how React Islands work and I realized it's a technique I've been using to modernize monolithic web codebases for years, but never wrote down how it works.
August 2024
Tips from 8 months of TanStack/Router in production
On my last day at Tia I wrote a master vision doc for our TanStack Router app. Here are the parts I can share.
January 2024
TanStack Router – modern React for the rest of us
TanStack Router puts the router in control of data, state, and UI and it's ... really good.
July 2023
Update state during render, better explained
A few readers wrote in to say that the React Can Update State During Render email last week made no sense. Here's a better explanation.
June 2023
React can update state during render
An unexpected feature of React: updating state during render. It's a UX and performance optimization
January 2023
Async React with NextJS 13
We look at React's native async support and how to use it in a NextJS 13 app. Learn how to use async components, parallel loading states, and caching with React.js and NextJS 13.
September 2022
useCallback is a code smell
One of my favorite ways to simplify and de-gotcha React code is to rip out all the useCallback and useMemo drama. 90% of the time you don't need it.
December 2021
Datalist, the pure HTML typeahead you didn't know about
If you ever want to build a searchable typeahead field, `<datalist>` can do that for you. On all browsers. Across devices. Standards compliant. With no JavaScript. 🤯
November 2021
You can use React Query for slow computation, not just API
You can use the ergonomics of React Query for any slow operation and it's wonderful.
October 2021
How to configure Jest with TypeScript
Using plain Jest on a TypeScript codebase is kinda rough. No types in tests no thanks. Making Jest and TypeScript work together smoothly is something you do just rarely enough to forget the details. Hope this helps you and future me too ✌️
July 2021
React 18 and the future of async data
Friend, I have glimpsed the future and it is amazing. React 18 is shipping with Suspense and startTransition for deferred component rendering, but not data loading. That's coming in a future 18.x version.
June 2021
A better React 18 startTransition demo
Demoing startTransition is hard. Modern computers are too fast 😅 – Dan Abramov, a React core team member, helped me fix it up. Here's what I learned
September 2020
How React Query gives you almost everything you thought you needed GraphQL for
GraphQL solves every problem you've ever had talking to APIs on the frontend. Mention a switch to GraphQL to your team and they think it's a joke. Rewrite our entire app? oh you jokester. React Query is the perfect middle ground ❤️