2024.02.12 - We've been waiting 20 years for this: the indie web

Title: 2024.02.12 – We’ve Been Waiting 20 Years for This: The Indie Web

Web Development & Vision Pro & Infrastructure Decision & Gemini Era & 明以动 & 个人根据地 & 养性

This Week’s Highlights

We’ve been waiting 20 years for this: the indie web https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/weve-been-waiting-20-years-for-this/
Rooted in the fashion world, there’s a cyclical principle that says every two decades the trends that were once popular come back to the forefront. What’s old is new again. These recurring trends aren’t mere copy‑cats; they’re remixed and reinterpreted by a new generation. We may be in a 20‑year resurgence of the indie web and blogging. Related: A Golden Era of Blogging.

Web Development Is Getting Too Complex, And It May Be Our Fault https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2024/02/web-development-getting-too-complex/
The sheer number of frameworks and tools available today makes web development feel perhaps too complex. For newcomers, the abundance can be intimidating, creating a fear‑of‑missing‑out that’s exploited to sell courses and tutorials on the “must‑have” new framework. But maybe that’s an exaggeration? Related: The web is mostly links and forms, HTML as the baseline.

Vision Pro Teardown—Why Those Fake Eyes Look So Weird https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVJPAYwY8Us | https://zh.ifixit.com/News/90137/vision-pro-teardown-why-those-fake-eyes-look-so-weird
We’ve gathered observations, opinions, and a few educated guesses about why the Vision Pro we have today looks the way it does on the teardown table. There’s a lot inside this device, so we’re splitting the analysis into two parts, with a deeper dive into the lens system and silicon coming in a few days. Let’s spelunk into a never‑before‑explored cave of glass. Related:

• Apple's Future Vision
• Apple Vision Pro: First Experience
• The Apple Vision Pro
• Announcing React Native for Apple Vision Pro

On Comparing Modelling Languages https://modeling-languages.com/on-comparing-modelling-languages/
If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably interested in modelling and aware of some benefits of models in IT and computing. But can you confidently say—and justify—which modelling language is the best? Would you support a call for modelling as a specialisation in an IT or computing degree, even if it isn’t a separate discipline outright? If so, why? What distinguishes it, and what recurring themes appear across different model types and modelling approaches?

(Almost) Every Infrastructure Decision I Endorse or Regret After 4 Years Running Infrastructure at a Startup https://cep.dev/posts/every-infrastructure-decision-i-endorse-or-regret-after-4-years-running-infrastructure-at-a-startup/
I’ve led infrastructure at a startup for the past four years, scaling quickly. From day one I made core decisions that the company has lived with—good or bad—ever since. This post lists the major choices I made, noting whether I’d endorse them for your startup or regret them and suggest alternatives.

Deep Reads

How to Make a Great Framework Better? – Svelte 5 with Rich Harris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7n17ajJpCo
We sat down with Rich Harris, creator of Svelte and SvelteKit. In this video, Rich dives into the philosophy, features, and future of Svelte, explaining how it simplifies web development, makes it more accessible, and boosts performance by compiling code at build time. He also covers Svelte’s evolution from newsroom prototypes to the full‑stack SvelteKit.

Clean Architecture in React https://alexkondov.com/full-stack-tao-clean-architecture-react/
We’ll lay out the fundamental code‑level principles we’ll follow to build our app, see how they help when we start refactoring in later articles, and then expand to project‑level principles and patterns for building complex systems.

Write Code for the Web https://mrmr.io/apple
This is a yarn of three threads that got a bit long. TL;DR: Apple doesn’t care about me as a developer; I should write code for the web; nothing is set in stone. The story is personal, but I hope readers find something that resonates with their own lives (that’s the point of blogs).

How I Write HTTP Services in Go After 13 Years https://grafana.com/blog/2024/02/09/how-i-write-http-services-in-go-after-13-years/
Six years ago I posted about how I write HTTP services in Go. I’m back to share the approach again, split into two sections: a recap of my time at GitLab (as far as I remember) and a collection of lessons learned from my work and experiences.

GitHub’s Engineering Fundamentals Program: How We Deliver on Availability, Security, and Accessibility https://github.blog/2024-02-08-githubs-engineering-fundamentals-program-how-we-deliver-on-availability-security-and-accessibility/
The Fundamentals program has helped us tackle tech debt, improve reliability, and enhance observability of our engineering systems.

What It Was Like Working for GitLab https://yorickpeterse.com/articles/what-it-was-like-working-for-gitlab/
I joined GitLab in October 2015 and left in December 2021 after a little more than six years.

The Next Chapter of Our Gemini Era https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-gemini-update-sundar-pichai-2024/ | https://blog.google/products/gemini/bard-gemini-advanced-app/
The largest model, Ultra 1.0, is the first to outperform human experts on MMLU (Massive Multitask Language Understanding), which tests knowledge and problem‑solving across 57 subjects—including math, physics, history, law, medicine, and ethics. Today we’re taking the next step, bringing Ultra to our products and the world. Related:

• Copilot in GitHub Support Is Now Available!
• [AI Controller Interface: Generative AI with a Lightweight, LLM‑Integrated VM](https://www.microsoft.com/en-

*(content truncated)

---

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.