Octane is a new framework by Dominic Gannaway that compiles React code to vanilla JS with no virtual DOM, while keeping React's programming model, explaining that the 'React compiler' released by the React team is only an optimizer, not a real compiler.

11:51begging you to send me some money and uh get let's get some let's get a little something for Wes's agent too while while we're at it. Yeah. A little something something. Yes. A little treat for yourself. Uh what would be a little treat for an agent? like a API key or like >> or [laughter] well if it's if it's always running these like cheap Chinese tokens like every now and then like you

12:11get okay you treat yourself to $2 a fable you know do something like that that one thing that you've been meaning to to to ask and you can't figure it out with any other thing treat yourself to a little fable >> something really nice well CJ uh has something for us now which is something high octane I'll say which is uh is it a new react compiler is it a new framework

12:33what is this thing CJ, you tell me. >> I'm going to get into it and I'll start with a little bit of backstory. So, if you're not familiar, the React compiler was released version one back in October of 2025. And it's called a compiler, but I have complained about this that it's not actually a compiler. It's it's more so a React optimizer. So if you look in the

12:56React docs about what the React compiler does, it essentially takes code where you had to manually add use memo and use callback, it makes it so that you can write code that doesn't use that, but then it goes through finds all the spots where it should add a use memo or add a use call back. So that's what the React compiler from the React team does. It's

13:15basically an optimizer, so you don't have to worry about the the nitty-gritty details of use memo or use callback. And that's fine. and that speeds up a lot of people's apps and fixes certain bugs they didn't know they had. Uh, but like I said, this isn't a compiler. It's more of an optimizer. There's a new there's a new kit on the block and it actually comes from the creator of RippleJS,

13:35Ripple TS. And uh I made a video about this uh when it came out, but this was a brand new framework and the whole idea was they came up with this new template syntax and it's a bit more declarative and that things kind of run top down. So like if you know the the rendering model of react basically you define a component but this is a a render

13:57function. So anytime there is an update to state this render function is going to rerun and then produce a new virtual DOM tree and then that gets added or uh reconciled into the DOM. Um whereas with this your template essentially kind of runs once and then only the parts that are interactive will update or rerun when they change. very similar to what like SolidJS does or if you look at the

14:21reactivity model of like spelt. Um so yeah, this was ripple. Um it it made some waves. I think a lot of people were turned off by the syntax. They go into why they like this syntax and why it works for their compiler versus just standard JSX. So that was fun. Um and that also uh resulted in uh a like TSRx that you could use with React. So the