React Router v4.0 Coming Soon

React Router

So there’s another major breaking version of React Router coming. I thought I was really behind because I was still running v2.0 – what happened to v3.0? Then I read this on the v4.0 RC release notes:

Yes, there will still be a 3.0 release (soon!). It is simply v2.0 without any deprecation warnings. We intend to keep supporting the 3.x branch indefinitely (published separately on npm to aid in migration), although there will likely not be any future major versions based on that code. 4.0 is the future, but we won’t leave you hanging if you want to stick with 2.x/3.x.

So technically I could stick with v2.0 and eventually upgrade to v3.0 without having to change too much. But of course, that line about v4.0 being the future gets my FOMO to rise and I figure I should look into v4.0. And what do I learn about v4.0? The following is a good start to understand the why behind the change:

Why the huge change? (AGAIN?!)

tl;dr Declarative Composability.

We’ve never been this excited about React Router. Like you, we’ve learned a lot about React since we first picked it up. We built a Router the best we knew how along the way. What we’ve learned most is that we love React because of its declarative composability.

So what should we do? Not sure yet, but I sure am conflicted. Luckily, everything in progress is going to remain on v2.0 and I will wait to see where things land. Got to love how fast things move and break and get rebuilt and get broken again. I wouldn’t want to be part of any other community – this reflects my inability to focus perfectly and I feel right at home.