Programming Tutorials

  For years, React developers have been trapped in "Dependency Array Hell." We have spent countless hours debugging stale closures, optimizing render cycles with   useMemo , and wrapping functions in   useCallback   just to satisfy referential equality checks. In the modern React era (React 19+), the paradigm has shifted. The introduction of the React Compiler (formerly React Forget) promises to automate memoization entirely. But does this mean  useMemo  is officially dead, or is it a tool we keep in our back pocket for edge cases? This article dissects the architecture of the React Compiler, analyzes the technical debt associated with manual memoization, and defines exactly when (if ever) you still need manual hooks in your codebase. The Root Cause: Why We Needed useMemo To understand why the Compiler is a breakthrough, we must revisit the fundamental flaw in React's standard rendering model:  Referential Instability. In standard React (prior to the C...