Talk to Svelte in the future, the Rust compiler? Building large applications?

I recently saw Rich tweet about "Future Svelte".

Very exciting point to open saw this video I read it twice, I feel the quality is still very high, from how to build open source libraries to how to run open source library then core library planning open source library of a variety of topics . Although the video is for the Svelte framework, I think the same applies to any framework.

Next, I summarized some important points that I personally think. If you want to see the full version, please see the original video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQntFkK8Z54)

The entire video is conducted in a question-and-answer manner, so for each title I have summarized the host’s questions to Rich. If you just want to see Svelte’s future plans, you can skip to the fourth content. At the bottom of each piece of content, there is the author's own personal understanding (you can skip over if you don't agree), not the content in the dialogue.

1. What was the first popular open source library built? How to change the process on the open source road?

Rich mentioned that the first popular open source library he made was Ractive. This library may be a bit unfamiliar to everyone. But it was also all the rage at the time. He can be said to be the originator of MVVM.

The following is an example of Ractive:

Is Vue very similar to it, because in the early years, Vue also borrowed the related usage of Ractive, which can also be found from the historical issues of Vue.

But at the same time that Ractive was launched, React was also launched, and Rich thought: It's over, I'm wasting my time. (After all, React has a company as an endorsement), but Rich finally launched Ractive, and the community response is good, making Rich feel that it can compete with React.

Therefore, Rich put a lot of effort into Ractive and spent all his spare time on weekends and evenings to develop projects. This is also the first time he has invested a lot of experience in open source, laying a good foundation for his future open source business.

However, as the maintenance tasks of the project are heavy, it is very exhausting for Rich to develop the project in his spare time. This is also the first time he introduces the reality of being an open source maintainer. But this experience taught him how to acquire users, how to get users to contribute, develop projects in a unified way, and how to reject PR.

Subsequently, Rich has been moving forward on the road of open source, and also launched two other well-known libraries, Rollup and Svelte.

Tip (The author's own summary, unofficial attitude): In the early stage, I decided that the goal should be working in one direction, which will help us accumulate knowledge and enter the open source queue.

2. How to create a valuable tool that does not exist on the market now?

Rich believes that most of the creative tools stem from the "personal itch" (to the effect that can be understood as personal technical exploration, some tools on the market are not easy to use, just make one). Since he is working in the news editorial department, he often has a lot of heavy and fast iterative work. Therefore, it is very important to make good use of open source projects. It is in this complicated task that urges Rich to make the development process simple enough, thus creating Svelte.

Tip: This is actually a commonplace question. Only by combining with actual business can an excellent open source project be created.

3. Joining Vercel, what does it mean for Svelte's future?

1. Rich is also blunt, entering Vercel can deal with powerful people, after all, for example, the previous Webpack author Tobias and SWC author Donny have joined Vercel. (Also recently, Sebastian, the soul of React, also joined Vercel)

2. There is another important point, Rich joining Vercel means that he only has to do a job. (My job at Vercel is to open source, which is really jealous)

3. The advantage of part-time job is that you can have more time to invest in the open source business. Rich also made it clear that his previous part-time maintenance of Ractive made him exhausted, and he did not want the same situation to happen to Svelte.

4. Eliminate people's worries that an open source project without financial support will disappear at any time. But now there is a full-time engineer, and Vercel invests resources in Svelte, not just Rich himself, but also hired steph Dietz to handle the work of the developer relations team.

Later, Lee and Rich discussed how to make Svelte enter the next level of development speed. (When you have a fast-growing open source project, this latter point is really important)

Lee believes that the use of work and recruitment is very important for Svelte. Take React as an example. Maybe some open source enthusiasts are studying React. If the company requires React in recruitment, this will have a positive feedback for the enthusiasts. This feedback will also make the React community develop rapidly. The whole is a positive cycle.

Lee also said that Facebook (Meta) also uses Svelte on one of their websites. Even though they created React, they still like to try. This is a very good quality for them.

Rich also expressed confidence in Svelte

Tip (The author's own summary, unofficial attitude): Open source maintainers really need to measure their own work and sideline. Maybe there will be new solutions in the future that can help open source workers have a good time allocation plan and capital income. (Otherwise it will be like the recent Log4j...)

4. Regarding Svelte's future master plan, what are your views on how to advance the framework next year or in the next few years?

Looking at the timeline, Rich said that a new major version will indeed be launched soon.

It has been two and a half years since Svelte3 was released.

Rich has a lot of ideas about Svelte4, but he is a bit hesitant to dig in advance, hahahaha. (It's a bit cute, knowing that I always dig pits, but don't bury them)

But he still talked about some things he is currently working on, using Rust to rewrite many tool chains to improve compilation speed.

I also mentioned an important point. Many people criticize/worry about Svelte because when Svelte compiles the output code, the growth curve of Svelte's volume with the number of components will be steeper than other frameworks.

The problem reflected in this picture has always been criticized by Svelte...

For detailed issues, please see https://github.com/sveltejs/svelte/issues/2546

Although Rich believes that this is not a problem in reality, because Code Splitting and the inflection point are far enough away, this usually does not happen, but this is still a hidden danger.

Therefore, Rich said that there is a new compilation scheme that can make the compiled code smaller than the input code, which is really exciting~

I also talked about the current consideration of some new things like Error boundaries, Suspense, and React Server Component.

Tip: I have personally felt through Lee's conversation that it is best to have a place to record the overall plan of the project, which helps everyone to have confidence in this project. Regarding this point, I think Vue is doing a good job. Every time there is any major change, an RFC will be proposed for discussion, and recently everyone's Notion open source alternative AppFlowy

5. How to plan the content of the core library, for example, does the React core library have to choose the state management library, routing, etc.? How to delimit the boundary between the core library and the ecological library?

Rich believes that the form of React's definition of the core library is very extensible, but you are also forced to create some surrounding ecological libraries (routing management, state management and how to manage your CSS)

This has indeed created a lot of innovations about CSS and JS libraries in React, but at the same time it brings about the difficulty of choice, as Rich mentioned about how to add CSS to React this simple thing, there is no An answer.

Regarding the division of the core library, Rich gave an answer. He thinks that React is a JS framework, but Svelte is a Web framework, so he makes it as convenient as possible for people, such as quick animation, quick transition and so on.

Tip: The division of the core library is really important. I do prefer the official unified ecology to reduce the user's choice cost. Of course, the official website can also provide interfaces to embrace other competing products.

6. Views on how to solve the problem of open source funding? What do you think a company with venture capital like Vercel can do?

Rich said it was difficult for him, and this is something he is learning.

Lee also followed Rich's answer, thinking that perhaps investing millions in open source projects will definitely solve the problem.

Sometimes open source projects may hope that sponsors can provide a role similar to PM, which can help open source projects better manage time, thereby freeing up the core developers' time to deal with chores.

Rich believes that many projects can benefit from PM. Perhaps there is a model that allows someone to act as a PM for various projects. He believes that the OpenJS Foundation has some solutions.

He thinks that some open source projects have one of the biggest problems, which is the need to classify Issues and PRs. If someone who is not responsible for writing code says that they can help these, he thinks it may bring a lot of help, of course not absolute, maybe some Open source projects are only allowed to be managed by core developers.

Lee believes that for many very successful open source projects, before the company’s support, the founders and main maintainers operate like a start-up company and need to do a lot of work, such as product, marketing, engineering, technical leadership, PM, and continue to expand themselves. The skills of different parts are delegated to the core team or the open source community.

Tip: In the early stages of the project, individuals do need to spend a lot of time, which is much more difficult to manage than the company. The personal ability of the leader is very important, especially the choice of the core team.

Summarize

Although Svelte throughout the interview process is, but I think this discussion is not limited to Svelte, any suitable process for open source projects, from how to build a market and not worthy projects , then how to design open source project when Divide the core library (project positioning) to how to promote open source projects (recruitment/work is a very important direction) and then to about how we should shape the project together, and finally the best future plan for the There is a document deposit

Concluding remarks

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