Vanilla CSS comeback and new specs

Wes and Scott revisit their 2025 web development predictions, grading hits and misses across AI, browsers, frameworks, CSS, and tooling. From Temporal and AI coding agents to React, Vite, and vanilla CSS, they reflect on what actually changed, what stalled, and what it all means heading into 2026.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
  • 866: 2025 Web Development Predictions
• 01:26 Temporal API will ship in the browser
• 03:33 On-device AI becomes common
• 06:14 WebGPU unlocks fast local machine learning
  • TypeGPU
• 07:10 Models will plateau
• 10:32 Is there an actual use case for video and photo gen AI?
• 13:27 Text to UI tools get really good
• 16:25 Framework choice will matter less
• 18:53 Web components in Standard Stack, Web Awesome takes off
• 21:37 AI browsers and Copilot Workspace-style tools will become normal
• 22:56 AI browsera will become inevitable, OpenAI will launch a browser
• 27:51 Relative color will feel fully “safe to use”
• 29:02 Vanilla CSS will make a comeback
• 30:33 Brought to you by Sentry.io
• 30:58 CSS mixins and functions spec solidifies
  • CSS Custom Functions and Mixins Module Level 1
• 33:25 Container style queries will ship everywhere
  • CSS if statements
• 35:40 Vertical centering jokes will stubbornly persist
• 36:20 VS Code will reach feature parity with Cursor
• 38:47 More VS Code forks will appear
• 39:46 React Compiler drops Babel
• 40:34 React server components will pop
• 42:17 Remix re-emerges as something new
• 43:17 React Native will have its time
• 44:21 TanStack Start and Tanstack will pop
• 45:46 SvelteKit gets more granular data loading
• 46:06 Local first apps will take off
• 46:43 Bun keeps doing “wild but loved” non-standard features, Bun will launch a platform-as-a-service
• 48:22 Vite stays king
• 51:07 Laravel will release a CMS
• 52:44 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

• Scott: DARKBEAM Flashlight UV Black Light
• Wes: WOOZOO Fan

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