In this episode of What's Good, Joel Hooks sits down with Dev Agrawal, a member of the SolidJS core team, to discuss the evolving landscape of web development, AI-assisted coding, and modern framework architecture.
Episode HighlightsSolidJS and Modern Framework Architecture* Detailed comparison between SolidJS and React, highlighting key advantages * Deep dive into Suspense implementation and reactive state management * Overview of Dev's work on cross-boundary reactivity in SolidJS * Discussion of his $7,000 Solid Hack competition winning project * Exploration of stateful server components with WebSocket updates
AI-Assisted Development* Discussion of AI agents managing tasks and grooming backlogs during meetings * Exploration of using AI tools like Cursor for development * Joel shares his experience building JoelFit, a full-stack application developed primarily through AI prompting * Analysis of AI's current limitations and the importance of human guidance in development
Emerging Technologies and Trends* Analysis of React Server Components and their impact on the ecosystem * Discussion of Cloudflare Durable Objects as individual compute units * Introduction to Zero Sync and its implications for local-first applications * Exploration of incremental view maintenance and its performance benefits * Overview of Vite 6's improvements for server components and meta frameworks
Featured Projects and Resources* JoelFit (code) - Joel's AI-assisted development project on github * Solid Suspense Demo v2 - Dev's demo showcasing Solid's advantages * Building Asynchronous UIs Without the Hassle - Dev's conference talk
Key Takeaways* SolidJS offers built-in support for async operations without React's bailout issues * The entire Solid ecosystem was built with suspense support from v1 * Durable Objects are often misunderstood - they're individual compute units rather than just shared state * Zero Sync's incremental view maintenance pairs particularly well with Solid's architecture * React has moved away from traditional SPA towards full-stack architecture * Framework choices continue to evolve with different approaches to reactivity and state management
Connect with Dev* Watch Dev's talk on Building Asynchronous UIs Without the Hassle * Check out his Solid Suspense Demo
Note: This episode was recorded in January 2024 and discusses emerging technologies and trends in web development.