Porting the React compiler from a Babel plugin in TypeScript to Rust makes build tooling much faster, and this was always the long-term plan.
The React compiler, previously a Babel plugin in TypeScript that created a bottleneck in Rust-based toolchains, has been ported to Rust for significant speed improvements. ✦ AI generated
Scott · Syntax · 2026-07-27 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 1:01
the React has has this thing called the compiler, which is if you have used uh use effect or memo or like like if there's lots of parts of React where um they can slow you down. And if you can do that at compile time instead of at runtime, there's a lot of like things that can be sped up. And previously this had been written as a Babel plugin in Typescript, right? And this was not it. People were kind of like bummed that it was written in Babel because um you had to do your your whole tool chain could be wicked fast, right? It could be written in all of these like Rust based tools except if you wanted to use the the Rust compiler, then you were out of luck. um or you had to at least introduce one step into your compile process that then went back to to TypeScript or JavaScript. So um the porting of that from Babel and and Typescript has been ported to Rust now and now things will be much faster.
verbatim transcript · starts at 1:01
0:58you the latest of what's going on. Stuff you knew about and stuff you had no clue that was going on. So, the first story on the docket today is a Rust compiler for uh >> No, you're saying it the wrong way, Scott. It's a React >> It's a Rustbased compiler for React. It's a React. >> The React compiler is now ported to Rust. This is not absolutely new, but we
1:25haven't talked about it yet. Um the React has has this thing called the compiler, which is if you have used uh use effect or memo or like like if there's lots of parts of React where um they can slow you down. And if you can do that at compile time instead of at runtime, there's a lot of like things that can be sped up. And previously this
1:48had been written as a Babel plugin in Typescript, right? And this was not it. People were kind of like bummed that it was written in Babel because um you had to do your your whole tool chain could be wicked fast, right? It could be written in all of these like Rust based tools except if you wanted to use the the Rust compiler, then you were out of
2:09luck. um or you had to at least introduce one step into your compile process that then went back to to TypeScript or JavaScript. So um the porting of that from Babel and and Typescript has been ported to Rust now and now things will be much faster. Um which is pretty exciting. There's there's not a ton to say about this because it's one of those things where you just kind of turn it on, slap it in
2:36your application, and then you're in you're in pretty good shape. But I'm excited to see it. Um, I don't know what you guys think about uh this or not. >> I was surprised when it was uh made with Babel in the first place. >> So for for me that was when it first dropped it was like already after Babel was like nobody was using it anymore. So
2:57when when that was first dropped, I know it was for compatibility most likely, but that's like >> it wasn't for I think it was just for like ease of authoring. Um because the like if you're writing an an parser which is like basically u Babel will take your your JavaScript and explode it into an a and then you can sort of loop over it, go up and down the trees, find