Front-End Fire

The new JavaScript package manager and serverless registry vlt debuted recently, promising to be a drop-in replacement for existing package managers like npm with additional offerings like a dependency query syntax selector and GUI experience for dependency graphs.Vite 6.0 released this week, and its biggest improvement is the new experimental Environment API. The Environment API is designed so that framework authors can create as many environments as they need within a single Vite server so they can map the way their apps work in production. Astro 5.0 also enters primetime with Astro Content Layers that loads content from any source, Server Islands to combine cached, static content with dynamic content, simplified prerendering, and Vite 6 support (using the new Environment API, mentioned in the last paragraph).News:Paige - Vite 6.0 is outJack - Astro 5.0 releaseTJ - vlt Client and Serverless RegistryBonus News:Deno v. Oracle: Canceling the JavaScript TrademarkGenAIScriptFire Starters:Details disclosure HTML elementWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - The Diplomat TV seriesJack - Retaining your thumbs thanks to SawStopTJ - Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone and StoryGraph book trackerThanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or Tweet us on X @front_end_fire and BlueSky.Front-end Fire websiteBlue Collar Coder on YouTubeBlue Collar Coder on DiscordReach out via emailTweet at us on X @front_end_fireFollow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com

Co-host Jack Herrington is just back from the React Summit conference in New York and he shares some of the highlights of the conf, including the announcement that TanStack Start is now in beta status and Tanner Linsely (the creator of the TanStack products) will be working on it full time.Additionally, React-based animation library Framer Motion announces it has spun off into open source library Motion. Going forward, Motion will provide vanilla JS APIs so every JavaScript project can take advantage of the smooth, easy-to-use animations that were previously only available to React applications. The US government’s taken aim at Google, asking Google’s antitrust trial judge to force the company to sell off its Chrome browser after the judge ruled Google’s maintained an illegal search monopoly. These are the dramatic opening shots that will, most likely, become much less contentious than Google actually divesting itself of Chrome when a deal with the DOJ is reached, but it’s definitely a warning to other large tech companies to watch their market share.As a final note, we won’t be recording a show next week due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, but will be back after that with all the latest news.News:Paige - Framer Motion becomes just MotionJack - TanStack Start is in beta statusTJ - US proposes breakup of Google to fix search monopolyBonus News:The State of JS survey 2024 is now openAI tool calling is the next big thingFire Starters:scrollIntoView()What Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - Stubby car drying nozzle leaf blower attachmentJack - Air tag-enabled water bottle lidTJ - Silver Bells in LansingThanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or Tweet us on X @front_end_fire and BlueSky.Front-end Fire websiteBlue Collar Coder on YouTubeBlue Collar Coder on DiscordReach out via emailTweet at us on X @front_end_fireFollow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com

We kick off this week’s episode with news that React Native framework Expo now has a developer preview of universal React Server Components. For the first time ever, you can use React Server Components & Server Actions in native apps. In a controversial move, Amazon has mandated all employees must return to offices by Jan 2025. The hosts discuss the pros and cons of working from the office vs remote, and speculate this is just another way for Amazon to conduct layoffs without actually laying more employees off.CSS masonry, a long yearned for feature, gets closer to reality. The Google Chrome and Apple WebKit teams have differing opinions about how CSS masonry’s syntax should be added to the spec (reuse CSS grid or create a whole new layout property for masonry), and they want devs to weigh in to help make the final decision.News:Paige - CSS masonry layout controversyJack - React Native has beta RSCsTJ - Amazon is making its employees come back to the officeBonus News:CSS gets a new logo that’s not a shield! - h/t to Adam Argyle for this breaking newsRegulators causing nuclear power issues for Meta and AmazonWordPress tracking sites leaving WP Engine hostingFire Starters:CSS stretch keywordWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - Unreasonable Hospitality bookJack - Lioness TV showTJ - Daisy DarkerThanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or Tweet us on X @front_end_fire and BlueSky.Front-end Fire websiteBlue Collar Coder on YouTubeBlue Collar Coder on DiscordReach out via emailTweet at us on X @front_end_fireFollow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com

The AI race continues with lots of new updates straight from the GitHub Universe conference!New features from GitHub include: the ability to choose different AI models for GitHub Copilot Chat to use (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, etc.), Copilot Workspaces reviewing PRs, suggesting code changes, and validating fixes.In addition to the GH Universe announcements, the October VS Code release has a bunch of new Copilot additions like: Copilot Edits to change multiple files at once, Copilot Chat in a secondary sidebar, and Copilot code reviews before committing to GitHub.Next.js’s caching, which defaulted to very aggressive in the past, has been updated big time in Next.js 15. Now, when devs add a request that fetches external data, they’ll be prompted to either wrap it in a Suspense tag or explicitly mark the module or function with the “use cache” directive. This gives devs more fine grained cache control allowing some routes to have dynamic, Suspense-supported data, while others have static, cached data.In bonus news, the open source Flutter community decided to fork the project because it feels Google’s core Flutter team doesn’t have enough resources internally and isn't fast enough at reviewing PRs and implementing new features. “Flock” aims to add the bug fixes, popular community features, and generally be faster and more agile than Flutter.And today’s Fire Starter is about HTTP/3: the newest revision of the HTTP which offers better speed, security, and reliability.News:Paige - GitHub Spark and GitHub Universe updates in generalJack - use cache changes in Next.js 15TJ - VS Code 1.95Bonus News:Flutter gets forked to FlockFire Starters:HTTP/3What Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - All Recipe’s Trends pageJack - Phone security cordTJ - The Will of the Many book series and Kindle e-readerThanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or Tweet us on X @front_end_fire and BlueSky.Front-end Fire websiteBlue Collar Coder on YouTubeBlue Collar Coder on DiscordReach out via emailTweet at us on X @front_end_fireFollow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com