iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

dan @danabra.mov · 29/10/2025

aargh someone kill me. literally THE WHOLE POINT of directives is that they’re not just strings! they’re syntactically attached to the scope (function or module) in a way that’s reflected in AST. and both RSC and Next.js ones act at module boundary which is kinda gross for decorators or API calls

This event also led to various discussions in the community, following the introduction of parametrized directives (’use cache: private’ / ’use cache: remote’), and the introduction of a Vercel ’use workflow’ directive the next day. Many developers argue it’s dangerous to use strings and would prefer function decorators or explicit typesafe API calls. We still need to think about it before making up our minds and taking a side, but here are some related links worth checking out:

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dan @danabra.mov · 29/10/2025

you can’t attach a decorator (which isn’t even a real JS feature! it never shipped) or an “API call” to a module. directives are *the* way to attach something that changes the semantics to a module. sure specific ones are nonstandard but they’re reflected in AST, don’t require special parser, etc

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(insert indycar pun) @openwheel.racing · 29/10/2025

It’s odd in a language full of, for lack of a better term, bodged together parts string directives are a controversy. They’re not particularly new either!

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Nick Williams @wicky.nillia.ms · 29/10/2025

Decorators are stage 3 though right? Would it be more accurate to say not yet shipped vs never shipped

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dave.js @davejs.dev · 30/10/2025

Hmm, since decoratiors aren’t official, what about tagged template literals? vercel`workflow(options)`; function sendEmail() { … }

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Emanuele (Ema) @ematipico.xyz · 04/11/2025

Decorators are official. Only decorators for parameters aren't

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dan @danabra.mov · 29/10/2025

using API calls for this (which only works for functions and not for modules btw) is imo gross because the code doesn’t say there’s special semantics activating. to me, magical functions like server$() seem worse than directives because they look like JS functions but aren’t

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easrng  @easrng.net · 30/10/2025

the problem is they fail open

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