React Activity, Storybook 9 Beta, and AI as a Collaborator, Not a Crutch Artwork

Front-End Fire

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Front-End Fire

React Activity, Storybook 9 Beta, and AI as a Collaborator, Not a Crutch

May 05, 2025 • TJ VanToll, Paige Niedringhaus, Jack Herrington • Episode 93

The React team’s been on a roll lately with new experimental updates. Last episode we covered View Transitions, and today we discuss Activity. Activity is a component to hide and show parts of the UI while maintaining the component’s state and continuing to render at a lower priority when it’s not visible on screen.

Storybook 9 beta is out now, and it seems to be transitioning from a frontend workshop for building UI components in isolation to a one-stop shop for all your frontend testing needs.

And Microsoft recently released a paper from researchers at Cambridge and Carnegie Mellon studying how AI coding assistants have allowed developers to engage in less critical thinking and independent problem-solving, and how the skills to do both could deteriorate if this over-reliance on AI continues unchecked.

News:

Paige - Storybook 9 beta
Jack - React <Activity>
TJ - The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking and Avoiding Skill Atrophy in the Age of AI

Bonus News:

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