The newest, shiniest version of React is almost here! React just came out with a release candidate of version 17 and a blog describing its new features. You can read all about it here. The question you probably have is: should I upgrade to version 17? or stick with version 16, which we all know and love?

Short answer: Yes, upgrade!

**Long answer: **React 17 will be the new standard and foundation for React. You can think of it as similar to Windows 10; new features will be built on top of it without needing to update your entire system, because all versions after 17 will be fully backwards compatible with 17 (but not 16). This means you can upgrade to 17 and then update parts of your app to even newer versions if needed. But for the most part you can just sit back and not worry about breaking changes for a super long time.

Teams with large applications might be hesitant to make the change, but the longer you wait, the more difficult it’ll become to update. Not to mention, you’ll miss out on a lot of cool features coming soon.

To make the transition easier, I would recommend creating a new React-17-Upgrade Epic, creating some stories in your backlog based on changes outlined in the React blog, and telling your team to tackle them over the next few months. I won’t repeat everything in the blog, since it’s already written super well, but I’ll review some potentially big impacts:

Unsafe Methods

OnScroll

FowardRef and useMemo

Event Listeners

Concurrent Mode

#programming #front-end-development #web-development #javascript #react

Should I Upgrade to React 17?
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