Building

High Performance React Applications

slides.com/joekarlsson | @joekarlsson1

I am
Joe Karlsson

Software Engineer

How is this going to work?

Why?

My sites are fast enough...

- no one ever

40% of users abandon an article if it doesn't load after six seconds

Subtitle

+100ms delay

-1% Amazon’s sales

2015

$1,070,000,000

Optimizing
on the client

  • Simpler than optimizing on the server

  • You see immediate results

  • More "bang for your buck"

SO YOU WANNA GO FAST?

Why Is
React so
dang fast?

Virtual DOM

  1. Change = entire UI re-rendered in Virtual DOM
     

  2. DOM Diff-ing
     

  3. Real DOM "patched"

Short Answer

ONLY RENDER WHEN  YOU REALLY NEED TO

Long Answer

How To Measure Performance

Use built-in

react_perf tools

34 ms

Use

🔑 Key 🔑

Correctly

The key is used to uniquely identify an element

NEVER USE

Math.random()

or

index during a map(element, index)

class List extends Component {
  render() {
    const itemNode = this.props.posts.map((item, idx) => {
      return <Item post={ item } key={ Math.random() } />;
    })
    return <div>{ itemNode }</div>;
  }
};
class List extends Component {
  render() {
    const itemNode = this.props.posts.map((item, idx) => {
      return <Item post={ item } key={ idx } />;
    })
    return <div>{ itemNode }</div>;
  }
};

Manage

shouldComponentUpdate

Specify

exactly when a component should render

class Item extends Component {

  shouldComponentUpdate(nextProps, nextState) {
    if (this.props.title !== nextProps.title) {
       return true;
    }
    return false;
  }

  render() {
    return <h3>{ this.props.title }</h3>
  }
};

Extend
✨PureComponent✨ instead of
🐢Component🐢

Does a

shallow comparison of all props/state

Will only render
if props/state change

class Item extends PureComponent {

  render() {
    return <h3>{ this.props.title }</h3>
  }
};

Before you go
all in on PureComponent ...

Use

🔒 Immutable 🔒

Data

Fancy 🎩 word for making a new copy of a object

Immutability makes tracking changes cheap.

const x = { foo: 'bar' };
const y = x;
y.foo = 'baz';
x === y; // true

WTF???

const SomeRecord = Immutable.Record({ foo: null });
const x = new SomeRecord({ foo: 'bar' });
const y = x.set('foo', 'baz');
const z = x.set('foo', 'bar');
x === y; // false
x === z; // true

Build For

⚡️ Production ⚡️

Using

 

renders ~2–8x faster than the development build

NODE_ENV = 'production'

What about Stateless Components?

More thoughts on performance

gzip all the plaintext

gzip            on;
gzip_min_length 1000;
gzip_proxied    expired 
                no-cache 
                no-store 
                private 
                auth;
gzip_types      text/plain 
                application/xml
                application/json;
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Content-Encoding: gzip

What about images?

png, lossless, everyone uses it

Don't immediately use
progress indicators

User perception: "This is slow"

HTTP/2

Analyze your webpack bundle 🔬

Profile your app often 🏃

ONLY RENDER WHEN  YOU REALLY NEED TO

Make it work,
then make it fast

  1. Use key 🗝 correctly

  2. Manage shouldComponentUpdate

  3. Extend ✨PureComponent ✨

  4. Use Immutable Data 🔒

  5. Build for production ⚡️

  1. Analyze webpack bundle 🔬

  2. Profile often 🏃💨

  3. Render when really needed

  4. Make it work,
    then make it fast 🏃💨

Let's Stay In Touch!

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Feedback Welcome!

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High Performance React Applications - 60 mins

By Joe Karlsson

High Performance React Applications - 60 mins

React is built with performance in mind. But when is React slow? In this talk we’ll discuss common bottlenecks in React and when you might be making your program work harder than it should.

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