React noob and compose noob here so sorry if this ...

# compose-web

[Colton Idle]

React noob and compose noob here so sorry if this comes off as stupid, but am I understand what jake said correctly? Compose for web should be "better" perf wise than react because it doesn't use a virtual dom? Isn't the concept of the virtual dom close to composes tree where it "diffs" things?

[spierce7]

I had a similar question a week or 2 back:

https://kotlinlang.slack.com/archives/CJLTWPH7S/p1622564972091000?thread_ts=1622485818.455800&cid=CJLTWPH7S

[jim]

No, Compose for web is not faster than React.js, at least not in the short term.  Compose is optimized for JVM and React is optimized for web, and I would expect their relative strengths to continue for the foreseeable future.  Long term, it depends on how much effort goes into performance optimization of the Compose-for-Web internals, and the level of investment is largely dictated by how many users are requesting such investment.

Right now, the primary reason to use Compose for Web would be that you want to maximize code/knowledge sharing across platforms.

[spierce7]

Compose for web is not faster than React.js

Is this an assumption or something that someone has measured?

[Arkadii Ivanov]

Right now, the primary reason to use Compose for Web would be that you want to maximize code/knowledge sharing

I played with Compose for Web last weekend, and I find that Compose code sharing is not the case currently. I had to use lots of components like Div, TextArea, A, P , etc, which obviously are web-specific. So I ended with a completely separate implementation of UI for web.

So I would expect component unification as a primary target for now. Just my opinion.

[[JB] Shagen]

@spierce7 we do measure such thing in order to not unexpectedly make things worse. However Jim is completely right. As of now the speed is not our main goal. We'll pick all low-hanging fruits and optimize whatever is cheap and fast to optimize. However consistent and mature API is right now is a goal we value more.