Front-End Fire

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

Tanner Linsley, creator of TanStack Query and TanStack Router, continues expanding the Tanner-verse with a new TanStack Start framework. It’s a full-stack React framework powered by TanStack Router, Vinxi, and Vite, and boasts all the mainstays of a JavaScript framework today, including SSR, streaming, server function support, RPCs, and more. With the release of the new Apple operating system, iOS 18, comes new updates to the Safari browser and its WebKit rendering engine. A couple notable highlights for Safari 18 are “distraction control” where users can hide distracting items on web pages like sign-in banners, cookie preference popups, and newsletter signup overlays, and iPhone mirroring and remote inspection.And the Astro team is at it again with the release of Astro 5.0 beta. This new release introduces the Astro Content Layer, a flexible, extensible way to interact with content in Astro, no matter where it comes from. And for the Fire Starters section of the show this week we learn more about the writingsuggestions attribute. News:Paige - TanStack StartJack - Astro 5.0 Beta ReleaseTJ - WebKit Features in Safari 18.0Bonus News:Next.js SaaS starterFire Starters:writingsuggestions attributeWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - Bad Monkey show and Carl Hiaasen books in generalJack - iOS 18 and Sony Alpha 7C II - Full-frame interchangeable Lens Hybrid CameraTJ - Bookshelves 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.Front-end Fire websiteBlue Collar Coder on YouTubeBlue Collar Coder on DiscordReach out via emailTweet at us on X @front_end_fire

Big news this week when it’s announced that OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has moved ChatGPT from using Next.js to using Remix. While both metaframeworks rely on React under the hood, Remix seems a bit less opinionated about how teams might want to structure their projects to best suit their unique use cases and needs.TypeScript has also released v5.6, and amongst the many improvements is one many day-to-day TS users will benefit from: disallowed nullish and truthy checks. Although the name sounds impressive and confusing, what it boils down to is: if TS identifies an if statement that will always evaluate to true or false because a dev forgot to actually invoke a function or misplaced parentheses or [insert many, many ways we introduce bugs into our code], TypeScript will now throw an error. Because the JavaScript gods demand at least one new framework or meta-framework each week, this week’s tribute is HonoX. We previously discussed new framework Hono back in episode 32, when it debuted as a lightweight framework built on web standards and able to run on any JS runtime, and now it’s back with meta-framework HonoX.And the team introduces a new segment this week called Fire Starters. Each week we’ll try to find a more obscure bit of HTML, CSS or JS info from around the web, and talk about it so we can all learn something new. The first topic is CSS property initial-letter.News:Paige - HonoX meta-frameworkJack - OpenAI moves ChatGPT from React to RemixTJ - TypeScript 5.6Bonus News:OpenAI o1-previewVinxi is another alternative RSC serverFire Starters:initial-letterWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - The Offer miniseriesJack - The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series TJ - The Perfect Couple limited seriesThanks 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_fire