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

In a special guest episode, Rob Eisenberg joins the podcast to talk about the role web components play in today’s web development ecosystem. Rob is uniquely qualified to discuss web components, as the former architect for Microsoft’s web component tech stack, FAST, used by about 1,500 internal MSFT teams, and creator of the Web Component Engineering course. Special Guest(s):Rob Eisenberg, Founder and Chief Software Architect at Blue Spire, former architect for Microsoft’s FAST Web Components technology, creator of the Web Component Engineering course, and Web Standards advocate. Rob on Twitter @EisenbergEffectRob’s Web Component Engineering courseRob on LinkedInRob on GitHubRob on MediumWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - Da Vinci Eye appTJ - GitHub Copilot updatesRob - Buttermilk PancakesThanks 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

Jack is away this week speaking at the React Advanced conference in London, so be sure to check out his recorded talk (and all the others) about if React is really dying.For the news this week, we’ve got a bunch of interesting topics, the first of which is the latest release of Next.js: Next 15. It’s stable and production ready offering React 19 and React Compiler (experimental) support, Turbopack Dev, improvements to caching, and a change to async Request APIs that will allow for simplified rendering and caching in the future. Svelte 5 is also officially stable and production ready debuting the new Runes system which offers Svelte users fine-grained reactivity control via Signals. Svelte previously relied on the compiler for reactivity, which could begin to break down for larger apps, so it was rewritten from the ground up and Runes was born.Finally, vote for this podcast in the State of React survey out now! We’re under the Resources > Podcasts section and would greatly appreciate your support.News:Paige - Svelte 5 is aliveTJ - Next 15Jack’s React Advanced talkBonus News:Vote for this podcast in the State of React survey (section Resources > Podcasts)!The Browser Company who built Arc is now building another new browserUnderwater server updateApple Vision Pro manufacturing cutbackThe confusing state of Apple IntelligenceAnthropic’s latest AI update can use a computer on its ownFire Starters:backdrop-filterWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - MacBook M3 Pro 16”TJ - The Will of the Many & corn mazes 🌽Thanks 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

In the new frameworks based on React, we introduce you to One. It is a Vite-powered project claiming to support React web apps and React Native apps all in one.Next, Host Jack Herrington shares an update on how Astro’s Server Islands work after trying them out for himself. Similar to React’s Suspense components, Astro’s Server Islands allow any component that relies on server data to render with a “fallback” (like a loader or skeleton component) in the browser until the data is returned and the full HTML can render.And as we cannot go a week without talking about the latest WordPress and WP Engine drama (listen to our last 3 episodes for full details), the latest kerfuffle involves WordPress seizing control of one of WP Engine’s most popular plugins hosted on the WordPress Plugin Directory and pushing a forked version of the plugin that WordPress is in control of under the same name.News:Paige - One, the new React framework built on ViteJack - Astro Server Islands (take 2)TJ - WordPress starts taking over WP Engine pluginsBonus News:Google inks nuclear deal for next-generation reactorsExpress 5 and Zustand 5Fire Starters:<blockquote>What Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - Trying new things: like a voiceover workshopJack - Hue smart plugsTJ - Only Murders in the Building season 4Thanks 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

.io domains have been in vogue for over a decade, but now that the British government has decided to give up sovereignty over the small set of islands in the Indian Ocean that owned that country code on the Internet, it will soon cease to exist. Evan You, of Vue JS and Vite fame, has started a new company VoidZero Inc. to build the next generation toolchain for JavaScript. While trying to make Vite even better, Evan realized he needed a full-time team and funding to build the best toolchain around, and the engineers and investors agreed.StackBlitz enters the AI arena as well with its bolt.new offering, AI-powered software development allowing users to prompt, run, edit, and deploy full-stack web apps directly in the browser.WordPress drama reaches new levels of pettiness with a new checkbox that users must check before signing into their WP accounts swearing they are not affiliated with WP Engine in any way. In happier news, Sentry doubles down on its support for open source software (and the maintainers) by creating the Open Source Pledge where companies who use OSS for profit are encouraged to commit to paying the maintainers of the software they use so that burnout and related security issues can be better addressed.News:Paige - void(0) JavaScript toolingJack - StackBlitz’s Bolt.new AI dev toolTJ - The end of .io domainsBonus News:Waymo updateWordPress updateSentry launches the Open Source PledgeSentry itself gave $500k to OS maintainers this yearDeno 2 is officially out!Fire Starters:HTTP QUERYWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season 2Jack - The Substance movieTJ - Cider millsThanks 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

WP Engine is taking Automattic and Matt Mullenweg to court. The complaints are numerous and juicy: extortion, libel, slander, and include screenshots of text messages, tweets, and emails that look pretty damning against Automattic. The whole story has “Made for TV documentary” written all over it.In slightly less controversial news, React 19 has renamed its Server Actions to Server Functions. This name change brings React’s server functions more in line with other frameworks who support the same sort of functionality like SolidJS, Astro, TanStack Start, and others.Also in a follow up from the last episode where we talked about a new addition to the Web Components world allowing for web components with SSR via the Declarative Shadow DOM, a good number of JavaScript framework creators shared their misgivings about the creation of Web Components. Ryan Carniato and Rich Harris were two of the most vocal, and basically said WCs have made their work writing frameworks harder, not easier, and WCs are not the future.News:Paige - Web components are not the future according to JS framework authors Ryan Carniato (Solid JS) and Rich Harris (Svelte JS)Jack - Server Actions become Server Functions in React 19TJ - Wordpress vs. WP Engine drama continuesBonus News:OpenAI raises $6.6 billionWaymo is coming to Austin and AtlantaFire Starters:<marquee>What Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - The Tourist seriesJack - The Wild Robot movieTJ - Adafruit sensorsThanks 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

This episode kicks off with the new Deno 2 release candidate. V2 boasts improved dependency management, updates to the APIs and CLI, and improved CommonJS support because even though ESM is the future, so much good stuff in the JS ecosystem still runs on CJS. Web Components take a big step forward in terms of wider spread adoption with the adoption of the Declarative Shadow DOM by all major browsers back in August. The Shadow DOM (a Web Components standard) provides a way to scope CSS styles to a specific DOM subtree and isolate the subtree so the element can be reused without fear of script conflicts or unexpected CSS cascades. But it only worked on the client side. The Declarative Shadow DOM removes this limitation and now things like SSR, streaming data, and server rendering styles are possible.Because the web development world can never be without some good drama going down, we now present for your viewing pleasure: the drama between WordPress and WP Engine.News:Paige - Declarative Shadow DOM for Web ComponentsJack - Deno 2 release candidateTJ - Wordpress vs WP Engine dramaBonus News:We’re on Bluesky now @front-end-fire.com! Follow us!Cloudflare AI AuditOpenAI departuresState of HTML surveyFire Starters:autocomplete attributeWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - Stuff You Should Know podcastJack - Actual typewriters at The Type Space storeTJ - Detroit TigersThanks 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.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