PodRocket Rich Harris on fine grained reactivity and async first frameworks
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Feb 5, 2026 Rich Harris, creator of Svelte and frontend performance engineer. He discusses fine-grained reactivity, the real costs and payload bloat of React Server Components, SvelteKit’s remote functions and RPC for co‑located data, async-first rendering with await in components, and schema-validated remote calls to keep apps fast and predictable.
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Server Doesn’t Know Client State
- RSCs re-render on the server without knowing client state, so servers often send more data than necessary.
- Rich promotes fine-grained requests so the client only fetches what it actually needs, cutting payload sizes.
Use Remote Functions For Exact Data
- Use RPC/remote functions to make client-server communication feel like function calls for clearer intent and type safety.
- This avoids re-rendering unrelated page parts and reduces unnecessary server work and payloads.
Avoid Server/Client Component Split
- Removing the server/client component split simplifies mental models and reduces rules developers must juggle.
- Svelte avoids separate server/client components, so developers think less about where code runs.