2022.10.31 - Turbopack: Rust-based successor to Webpack

2022.10.31 – Turbopack: Rust‑based Successor to Webpack

Webpack successor & Kotlin at Facebook & Node.js 19 & Team Collaboration & Ten Principles of Parenting

This Week’s Highlights

Introducing Turbopack: Rust‑based successor to Webpack https://vercel.com/blog/turbopack
Turbopack is built on a new incremental architecture for the fastest possible development experience. On large applications it shows updates 10× faster than Vite and 700× faster than Webpack. On even larger codebases the gap widens—often 20× faster than Vite. Unless you’re heavily invested in Next.js, stick with your existing tools. Related: Next.js 13.

State of IPFS in JS https://blog.ipfs.tech/state-of-ipfs-in-js/
JavaScript (and its typed variant TypeScript) is the most ubiquitous programming language with the largest developer community. Our goal is to enable all those developers to reap the benefits of IPFS and do so productively. This blog post provides an update on what’s happening with IPFS development in JS. It’s been a while since we last covered this, so there’s a lot to discuss. This is the first of a series of updates. It isn’t a full roadmap, but we aim to clarify some of the history of IPFS development in JS, decisions made by maintainers about the way forward, and ways you can help.

From zero to 10 million lines of Kotlin https://engineering.fb.com/2022/10/24/android/android-java-kotlin-migration/
In recent years Kotlin has become a popular language for Android development. So it only makes sense that we would shift Meta’s Android development to Kotlin as we work to make our workflows more efficient. Meta’s Android repository is massive and spans our family of apps and technologies, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Portal, and Quest. Moving away from Java—currently used for Android development—to Kotlin is not a trivial task.

Futuristic CSS https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/10/futuristic-css/
In this article, Sacha Greif tries to anticipate future CSS trends and looks at some far‑flung, futuristic CSS features that might one day make their way into browsers. Related: Is There Too Much CSS Now?.

How to maintain engineering velocity as you scale https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/how-to-maintain-engineering-velocity-as-you-scale/
Faire’s engineering team grew from five to over 100 engineers in three years. Throughout this growth we sustained our pace of execution by adhering to four key practices: hiring the best engineers; building solid long‑term foundations from day one; tracking metrics to guide decisions; keeping teams small and independent.

The science of motivation: how to get and stay motivated https://nesslabs.com/science-of-motivation
When your motivation vanishes, what can you do to get it back? Many of us buy an inspirational book or watch motivational videos, thinking this will revive our mojo. But those tricks rarely work. In reality, motivation starts to rebuild once we take the first steps and gain momentum on a task. As Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Motivation is about getting started, taking consistent action, and getting back on track when we fall off the wagon. Related: How hardware and software can maximize your flow states.

In‑Depth Reading

The next shift in web‑app architecture https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/34wjd63o_zpEocQpIvWHSw
Web technologies began to emerge about 25 years ago; HTTP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript were first standardized in the mid‑1990s. Today the web has become an omnipresent application platform. As the web evolves, so do the architectures for building web applications. Many core architectures exist today, the most popular being single‑page applications (SPAs), but we are gradually transitioning to a new, improved architecture for building web apps.

A beginner’s guide to Chrome tracing https://nolanlawson.com/2022/10/26/a-beginners-guide-to-chrome-tracing/
Chrome tracing (aka Chromium tracing) lets you record a performance trace that captures low‑level details of what the browser is doing. It’s mostly used by Chromium engineers themselves, but it can also help web developers when a DevTools trace isn’t enough. This post is a short guide on how to use the tool from a web developer’s perspective. I won’t cover everything—just the bare minimum to get you up and running.

Do you really understand CSS radial‑gradients? https://patrickbrosset.com/articles/2022-10-24-do-you-really-understand-CSS-radial-gradients/
Seven years ago I taught myself everything about CSS linear gradients, and ever since I’ve wanted to learn more about radial gradients. It took me a while to find an excuse to dig deeper into the logic behind them, but I’m very glad I did. To learn how to use the radial‑gradient CSS function, I tried to draw a pair of eyes—using only CSS, one element per eye, and only radial gradients. Related: Highly Customizable Background Gradients.

Make use of **use** in React – a new hook is coming https://vived.io/new-hook-is-coming-to-react-frontend-weekly-vol-109/
The team behind React has unveiled a new hook called use. This unobtrusive addition could forever change how we bring data into our applications.

Programming Portals https://maggieappleton.com/programming-portals
Small, scoped areas within a graphical interface that allow users to read and write simple programs.

Building software to last forever https://herman.bearblog.dev/building-software-to-last-forever/
This is a great question, and one I’ve thought about a lot—so much so that I put “Built to last forever” on the landing page. While drafting a lengthy reply I realized I’d never articulated Bear’s design philosophy to anyone beyond friends. So, without further ado, here are the choices I made in designing and building Bear with longevity in mind.

Linux: What can you epoll? https://darkcoding.net/software/linux-what-can-you-epoll/
At the start of this year I argued that epoll is the API that powers the modern Internet, but what can you actually do with epoll? Once we structure our application around an epoll event loop—or use an async engine such as Go or Rust’s Tokio—it becomes very useful to integrate everything else into that event loop.

Everything dies, including information https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/26/1061308/death-of-information-digitization/
Digitization can help stem the tide of entropy, but it won’t stop it.

Fresh Finds

Prepare for viewport‑resize behavior changes coming to Chrome on Android  npm v9.0.0 released  Deno 1.27: Major IDE Improvements

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Originally written by Ping Xia (平侠) and published in Chinese on Web技术周刊 (Web Tech Weekly). Translated and adapted for DriftSeas with permission.