It's Time to Talk About Signals

With the active TC39 proposal in play, I think it’s about time we talk about Signals.

Over the years, the concept has had many different names. From “observables” in KnockoutJS, to “refs” in VueJS, before Solid made “signals” popular. We’ve seen the carcinization of frontend frameworks in the pursuit of more seamless and fine-grained reactivity in our applications.

But what actually are Signals? Why do we keep coming back to them? And why is their potential adoption as a language standard such a big deal?