Why Blaze 2 if we go for React?

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In the Next steps on Blaze and the view layer post by gschmidt earlier, MDG suggests that React is the thing and encourage Meteor users go for it. I don’t want to start the “Blaze vs React” in this post cause that’s not my point.

My question is why would MDG waste resources to develop Blaze 2 if MDG decided to go for React? One of the advantages of opinionated framework is option eliminating. However, now MDG said that they will develop Blaze 2 but at the same time encourage us to use React. Then I am confused. Why doesn’t MDG focus on one thing (Blaze/React)?

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I’m pretty sure MDG is not doing a Blaze 2. I think they are doing a ‘wrapper over React’ to help people transition to React easier. In fact there was some people saying they shouldn’t even bother with the thin wrapper if the future was to embrace React totally.

Normally, I’d backup my claims with references but I’ll be damned if I have to trawl through that 512 post topic looking for specific mentions of what sashko, evan or geoff said.

Anyway, I think MDG is a smart bunch of people and they’ll figure it out. We probably don’t have context to worry about what sort of resources they have or how much they’re putting it into projects for which we’re not even sure what the end goals are.

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This post, from the Next steps on Blaze and the view layer thread, I think sums it up.

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We probably don’t have context to worry about what sort of resources they have or how much they’re putting it into projects for which we’re not even sure what the end goals are.

I totally agree that. I am just confused by the Blaze 2 they mentioned in the post. It makes me think “should I keep doing Blaze cause they will develop the Blaze 2 or should I go for React directly?”. If they tell me directly React is the only future, then there is no confusion.

I’m pretty sure MDG is not doing a Blaze 2. I think they are doing a ‘wrapper over React’

This makes much more sense to me. Then I could go for React without hesitation.

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I have just read your post there. So there will not be any Blaze 2 and React is the only future. I think that’s the main take-away I want. Thank you for summarizing MDG’s thought.

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One caveat. While there will be no officially developed Blaze 2.0 there is @mitar 's Blaze Components. It was designed with many of the best parts of the Blaze 2.0 discussions that happened between MDG developers and community members. He would be best to comment on how he will adapt once or if Meteor develops the React wrapper.

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That’s a great library and very easy to understand. I personally enjoy Blaze much more than React. React is powerful when there are many interactions in the same page. But usually, the things I built are not that kind of Facebook/Instagram big. So Blaze is more suitable for me.

After seeing the library you shared, I start thinking maybe I can keep using Blaze even if MDG does not support it anymore. There could be some maintained packages from the community!

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So how I see Blaze Components is the components around Blaze. And then once React is supported in core, Blaze Components can use also that as a rendering engine below. I like Blaze way of programming and way of using dependencies and I do not really care about underlying rendering engine.

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Agree, the underlying engine is not that crucial to me. The way of doing things is the important part. But from others’ comments above. I think the way of doing things will be React but not Blaze in the future. So I am going to try more on React in the coming 2016.

BTW, I just watched the React.js Conf 2015 Keynote - Introducing React Native and I think “Write Once, Run Everywhere.” is good enough to me. I don’t think I need the 100% best UX from React’s “Learn Once, Write Everywhere.” I wonder if I could still “Write Once, Run Everywhere.” in the future while using React? Any thoughts?

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Now I tried my project with React, it look great.
but difficult for any package base on blaze such as autoform …

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I tried too, but I still think MVC Blaze is easier to maintain

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To be clear, there will be no React wrapper.

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I really hope that they do something to continue Blaze.

I have a production application with hundreds of Blaze templates, that has been tracking Meteor all the way from 0.5 transitioning from Spark.

Back compatibility is really important for any framework, and so far Meteor has been very good with this.

I’m more than happy to transition to React, but it is important that we have time and don’t just get dropped off a cliff.

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One of the reasons I loved Meteor was Blaze , my back ground is AI , Blaze made learning Meteor very interesting .
I could not figure out a real need to switch from Blaze to react . It sounds like switching from simplicity to complexity .
some posts talking about the advantage of using Re-usable component which React provide .

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