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by danabramov 2855 days ago
We generally post on our blog when something is _ready_. Blog has to be very high signal/noise ratio so we don't announce something that might be experimental or has a risk of changing significantly there. Because it creates a lot of churn.

Announcements about work in progress (which might be interesting to spectators but doesn't affect anyone's day-to-day usage of React) typically comes from people working on those things.

So you might hear from Brian (https://mobile.twitter.com/brian_d_vaughn) on the Profiler work he's been doing, or from Andrew (https://mobile.twitter.com/acdlite) on scheduling.

I happen to have a large following so I understand why it seems like I'm the only one "announcing" things. Twitter also amplifies it so it kinda feels that way. I encourage you to follow all folks who are currently on our team (see links e.g. in https://wpcouple.com/interview-react-team-facebook-wordpress...).

And keep in mind that announcements directly from me that aren't on React blog/twitter are just that -- things that keep me busy. They're not things you need to know as a React user. When there's something ready that you need to know, the information will be on one of the official sources:

* https://reactjs.org/blog/

* https://mobile.twitter.com/reactjs

Hope this makes sense!

P.S. I'm trying to not mis-represent my role. I do happen to be a "developer advocate" of sort because I enjoy that kind of work in addition to programming. As far as I know my team is supportive of that. Sometimes I make mistakes and they point it out. AFAIK Jordan (who created React) and past contributors also don't mind my active presence. Jordan is currently busy with Reason — you might want to check that out!

3 comments

Thanks for your reply and your openness. It's great that you find the time to answer random guys on HN.

Since you're here... I do wonder, how much of the React documentation did you write? The 'style' of the writing seems to match yours, e.g. when discussing Immutable JS.

I wrote some pages in the Main Concepts section. Maybe a few others. Hope it's not bad.
No, the React docs are great, working it mostly as a tutorial works well.

Plus in hindsight I could have just looked through this: https://github.com/reactjs/reactjs.org/commits?author=gaearo...

Further, slightly late, reply. I've been looking more at Reason. It's React (not strictly but plays nicely) + Typescript + Immutable JS + Redux all in one fully integrated package. Looks awesome, thanks for the reminder.
It's interesting that the blog needs to be high signal to noise and yet the insinuation there is that twitter does not..

I would personally agree that it is not.

I'm sure I'm _far_ from the only one who doesn't follow much of anything on twitter. And, I'm fairly confident that twitter posts rarely hit hacker news front page. I do, however, read various engineering blogs. Perhaps a different track can be setup for WIP and experiment posts the by the core team...

Dan tweets about React... and music he enjoys. Andrew tweets about Suspense and spinners... and also his thoughts on TV shows, and a bunch of assorted troll tweets. Brian tweets about working on the React DevTools... and also the evening run he's going out on. Seb... okay, so Seb mostly tweets deep thoughts about React and the web platform.

As Dan said, the React blog is where they formally announce things related to React releases and important things the community really ought to know about now. If you follow them on Twitter, you can get insights into what they're working on, and if you don't follow them... well, important comments will still bubble up to other sites like Reddit and HN (as this thread proves), and even if you don't see them here, the critical stuff will be posted on the blog or the official @ReactJS Twitter account when the React team is really ready to officially announce that info in its final form.

I see no reason why they (or any other developer of any kind with a personal Twitter account) should be restricted in what they can talk about. So yes, I would completely say that personal Twitter accounts don't have to be "high signal to noise". A Twitter account is what the owner wants it to be.

I meant specifically within the context of a platform for the developers to communicate information about React.

Twitter is, IMHO, a poor consolation of a communications channel both for the producers and those consumers interested in non-PR reviewed, non-release React information from the developers but not their insights into spinners, TV shows, and whatev.

My general point is that a more official but still on-topic communication channel could be beneficial. I do not believe people should be restricted in what they post on their personal Twitter accounts in this context.

This may be the wrong place, but in response about being a "developer advocate" what about other react projects? react-document-title has a few pull requests without any feedback, I've personally been sidelined since Februrary https://github.com/gaearon/react-document-title/pull/53 when I made a pull request to avoid having to wrap multiple children in a React.Fragment that's child to a DocumentTitle

Maybe my PR was too drastic, I could've just removed the call to React.Children.only

I’m happy to hand the project over to somebody who wants to maintain it. I can’t find time for the long trail of old projects right now.
A reflection: here is someone who's a bit lost on which channels should be used, is looking for feedback, & has in response been struck by the silent disapproval of HN. A sarcastic quip: Thanks for giving some tangible direction on what the correct social behaviors are here