React server components (RSCs) are a huge paradigm shift for React. You might even ask if NextJS and server components are the same thing (spoiler: they're not!) This talk demystifies how RSCs *really* work outside the framework. We'll build our own Node server, hook up the RSC renderer by hand, and understand the bundling and routing logic to ship a server component to your browser. Yes, all with live coding. What could go wrong...?

Picking up a new technology, developers stick with defaults. It's a fact that every tool from JQuery to NextJS has needed to face. At their worst, defaults ship hundreds of wasted JS kilobytes for routing, state, and other baggage developers may never use. But at their best, defaults give us a simple baseline to start from, with a clear path to add the exact set of features our project demands. This is the magic of opt-in design.
Let's see how smart defaults guide modern frontend tools from Astro to React Server Components, and why this new era reshapes your workflow, and performance metrics, for the better.