"A knowledge gap pushes people toward over-engineering, and sooner or later, it shows up in performance. Take content-visibility: auto. It does what React-Window does with zero JavaScript and zero bundle weight. Same story with the modern viewport units ( dvh, svh, lvh). They solved the mobile height mess we've been patching with window.innerHeight has been hacked for years. Both features cleared 90 percent global support in 2024. Both are ready for production today."
"React developers treat virtualization libraries like react-window and react-virtualized as the default fix for rendering lists. On paper, the logic is solid: if the user only sees 10 items at a time, why bother rendering all 1,000? Virtualization creates a small "window" of visible items and unmounts everything else as you scroll. The issue isn't that virtualization is wrong - it's that we reach for it way too early and way too often. A product grid with 200 items? react-window."
Knowledge gaps push developers toward over-engineering and cause performance costs. content-visibility: auto provides native virtualization behavior with zero JavaScript and zero bundle weight. Modern viewport units (dvh, svh, lvh) resolve longstanding mobile height issues caused by window.innerHeight hacks. Both features reached roughly 90% global support in 2024 and are production-ready today. Teams frequently default to JavaScript solutions such as react-window and react-virtualized instead of checking browser capabilities. Virtualization is technically sound but often applied too early. Practical adoption requires benchmarks, migration paths, and clear criteria for when JavaScript still outperforms CSS.
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