2023.02.06 - Is software getting worse?

Title: 2023.02.06 – Is Software Getting Worse?

The Future of the Web & 不要裁 DBA & Build Your Own Redis & 春天，你好

This Week’s Highlights

Is software getting worse? https://stackoverflow.blog/2023/01/30/is-software-getting-worse/
With all the advancements in software development, apps could be much better. Why aren’t they?

The Future (and the Past) of the Web Is Server‑Side Rendering https://deno.com/blog/the-future-and-past-is-server-side-rendering
What started out as fun for frontend developers—building flashy sites with all the bells and whistles—has kind of turned into a pain. We’re now battling different browsers, slow networks, and intermittent mobile connections. Supporting all those permutations is a massive headache. How do we solve this? By heading back to the server (no Swiss basement required). Related: Future Frontend – A new conference to reimagine the future of the frontend – Interview with Juho Vepsäläinen.

Interop 2023: Continuing to Improve the Web for Developers https://web.dev/interop-2023/
Again in 2023, all major browser vendors and other stakeholders are working together to solve the top compatibility issues.

How to Write a Code Editor from Scratch in 4 Months https://edita.vercel.app/blog/approach/
Over the past 21 months I’ve built a code editor from the ground up, including a fast (~120 fps) canvas‑based editor component; multi‑language syntax highlighting with Tree‑sitter; snippets; a file browser; find‑and‑replace with regex and JavaScript expression support; and two brand‑new features: AST mode and CodePatterns. In this post I describe the development approach that let me go from zero to a usable editor in 4 months, to daily‑drivability in 7 months, and that keeps the work rewarding as it matures.

2022, a New Scientific Adventure: Machine Learning for Health and Social Sciences https://gael-varoquaux.info/science/2022-a-new-scientific-adventure-machine-learning-for-health-and-social-sciences.html
A retrospective on last year (2022): I embarked on a new scientific adventure, assembling a team focused on developing machine learning for health and social science. The team has existed for almost a year, and the vision is shaping nicely. I’ll share some illustrations of where we are. This is extracted from our yearly report, which will be public later; I’ve tweaked it a bit to add personal context.

The “Build Your Own Redis” Book Is Completed https://build-your-own.org/blog/20230127_byor/
Needless to say, the Redis project is a huge success. It’s an important component in backend applications and could be considered one of the building blocks of modern computing. Not many projects occupy such a role and stand the test of time. Examples that meet my “building block” criteria: NGINX, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Kafka, the Linux kernel, etc.

In‑Depth Reading

2022 Front‑End Trends Summary & 2023 Front‑End Planning https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/601935398
This article has no data backing; it’s just my own take on community trends and personal experiments. Also see: 2022 Front‑End Milestones.

Big‑Tech Layoffs Are Massive – Which Technical Roles Can Remain Untouched? https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rtx4UWkuvrKf7gtd6pFr-A
Even when a company’s business is struggling, cutting the DBA (database administrator) team—already a small group—is a terrible idea. As a specialist role, a great DBA often works behind the scenes, “the quiet hero.” Companies have shifted from chasing growth to survival mode, protecting the lower bound. Among all tech positions, the DBA is the safety net that safeguards the company’s most critical asset: the live business data. In a medium‑to‑large engineering org, I can’t imagine handling a severe production database outage without DBAs. What I do know is that the next time a failure occurs, the accountable VP of Engineering or CTO will likely be a different person.

SQLite’s Renaissance https://www.bmpi.dev/dev/renaissance-sqlite/
Why can SQLite foster innovative projects across so many domains? Partly because of its high‑quality code—nearly a hundred million lines of tests ensure rock‑solid reliability—and partly because of its simple architecture: the entire source is only about 150 k lines. Compare that to MySQL’s >4 million lines, Oracle’s >10 million, or even PostgreSQL’s >1 million. Just as it’s hard to make an elephant dance, it’s hard for a solo developer to innovate on such massive codebases. SQLite’s lean design makes it an excellent experimental platform, allowing developers to build all sorts of innovations on top of it. Also see: The Untold Story of SQLite (2021).

Code: The Evolution and Practice of Meituan’s Code‑Hosting Platform https://tech.meituan.com/2023/02/02/code-the-evolution-and-practice-of-meituan-code-repositories-platform.html
Code is Meituan’s home‑grown code‑hosting platform, offering version control, branch management, code review, and integration with many development‑tool pipelines, supporting all internal engineers’ daily work. After nearly three years of development, Code now hosts tens of thousands of repositories, handles tens of millions of Git‑related requests daily, and reliably underpins Meituan’s development‑process standards. This article outlines the challenges and lessons learned while building the platform.

CSS color‑mix() https://developer.chrome.com/blog/css-color-mix/
Mix colors, in any of the supported color spaces, right from your CSS.

You’ve Got Options for Removing Event Listeners https://www.macarthur.me/posts/options-for-removing-event-listeners
Reviewing some of the most common approaches to removing event listeners in JavaScript.

UI Design for HTTPie: macOS Vibes for the API‑Testing Client https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/ui-design-for-httpie-macos-vibes-for-the-api-testing-client
For Evil Martians’ designers, our project with HTTPie—an open‑source API‑testing client—was simultaneously one of our most challenging and creatively inspiring efforts.

New AI Classifier for Indicating AI‑Written Text https://openai.com/blog/new-ai-classifier-for-indicating-ai-written-text/
We’re launching a classifier trained to distinguish between AI‑written and human‑written text. Related: Introducing ChatGPT Plus, GraphGPT: Natural Language → Knowledge Graph.

Asynchronous Computing at Meta: Overview and Learnings https://engineering.fb.com/2023/01/31/production-engineering/meta-asynchronous-computing/
At Meta we built a serverless asynchronous‑computing platform offered as a service to other engineering teams. Teams register async functions and submit workloads via our SDK. The platform runs these jobs on a large fleet of workers and adds features such as load balancing, rate limiting, quota management, downstream protection, and more. Internally we call this infrastructure the “Async tier.”

I’m Now a Full‑Time Professional Open‑Source Maintainer https://words.filippo.io/full-time-maintainer/
Last May I left my job on the Go team at Google to explore more sustainable paths for open‑source maintainers. I kept my various maintainer hats (Go cryptography, transparency tooling, age, mkcert, yubikey‑agent…), iterated on the model since September, and I’m happy to report that I am now a full‑time independent open‑source maintainer. That means I spend most of my time on maintenance and offer retainers to companies that benefit from my work, my planning, and my expertise.

Releasing Code in Large Corporations Is Slow – and There Is a Good Reason for It https://christianheilmann.com/2023/01/31/releasing-code-in-large-corporations-is-slow-and
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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.