2024.09.16 - A billion new developers thanks to AI?

Title: 2024.09.16 – A Billion New Developers Thanks to AI?

JavaScript crisis & write less code & B‑trees & 生病 & 气血 & 缅怀毛主席

This Week’s Hot Topics

A billion new developers thanks to AI? https://christianheilmann.com/2024/09/12/a-billion-new-developers-thanks-to-ai/
In general, however, these are very interesting times, and the market always needs more developers. I don’t think developers can be replaced yet, and I do think that intelligent and easily accessible development environments give a lot of new people the chance to get involved. The question is, how do I turn these newbies into developers who can also be proud of their work, and what can we do to make the next learning steps appealing to them after the AI says “take this and everything will work”.

Something went wrong https://molily.de/something-went-wrong/
Ways out of the JavaScript crisis. We need to recognize that clichés, sermons, insults and righteousness have failed. We need to reconcile with mutual respect sharing the common goal of making the web usable, accessible, secure and safe for everyone. Related: Look out, kids: PHP is the new JavaScript.

The goal isn’t to write less code https://gomakethings.com/the-goal-isnt-to-write-less-code/
It’s to ship less code to users. Better code. Faster code. More resilient code. For years, our industry has trended towards slower, buggier, more fragile, worse‑in‑every‑measurable‑way‑except‑speed code. It’s not better to produce a car in half the time with brakes that don’t work, and it’s not better to write code in less time if your users can’t actually use the fucking thing you built.

From Design to Development Without Translation: How to Find the Real Source of Truth https://tympanus.net/codrops/2024/09/09/from-design-to-development-without-translation-how-to-find-the-real-source-of-truth/
Escape siloed design and engineering processes and speed up your product development by using code as your single source of truth. Let’s explore how.

UI Interactions & Animations Roundup https://tympanus.net/codrops/2024/09/11/ui-interactions-animations-roundup-46/
A fresh set of great interactions and animation concepts from Dribbble for your inspiration.

Learning to Reason with LLMs https://openai.com/index/learning-to-reason-with-llms/ https://simonwillison.net/2024/Sep/12/openai-o1/ https://github.blog/news-insights/product-news/openai-o1-in-github-copilot/
We are introducing OpenAI o1, a new large language model trained with reinforcement learning to perform complex reasoning. o1 thinks before it answers—it can produce a long internal chain of thought before responding to the user. Related:

• 評估驅動開發: 生成式 AI 軟體不確定性的解決方法
• One of the best ways to get value for AI coding tools: generating tests
• Meat: Simulator‑based reinforcement learning for data center cooling optimization

In‑Depth Reading

The State of ES5 on the Web https://philipwalton.com/articles/the-state-of-es5-on-the-web/
So what is the current state of ES5 on the web today? And what are the best practices for web developers when building code for production? This article looks at the data we have to answer these questions. It also offers some concrete recommendations (based on that data) for how both website developers and library authors should approach legacy browser support moving forward.

The web’s clipboard, and how it stores data of different types https://alexharri.com/blog/clipboard
If you’ve been using computers for a while, you probably know that the clipboard can store multiple types of data (images, rich‑text content, files, and so on). As a software developer, it started frustrating me that I didn’t have a good understanding of how the clipboard stores and organizes data of different types. I recently decided to unveil the mystery that is the clipboard and wrote this post using my learnings. We’ll focus on the web clipboard and its APIs, though we’ll also touch on how it interacts with operating‑system clipboards.

Gnome Files: A detailed UI examination https://www.datagubbe.se/gnomefiles/
Designing user interfaces is hard. Writing software is hard. Designing great interfaces and writing great software is even harder. No matter how hard you try, you can’t please everyone. Functionally, Gnome Files lets me do file management. I could, if I had no other options, probably get used to its UI idiosyncrasies. But as I’ve hopefully demonstrated above, there are many things about Gnome Files— a central part of the Gnome desktop— that can be considered objectively bad from a UI design standpoint.

Windows NT vs. Unix: A design comparison https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/windows-nt-vs-unix-design
NT is often touted as a “very advanced” operating system. Why is that? What made NT better than Unix, if anything? And is that still the case?

B‑trees and database indexes https://planetscale.com/blog/btrees-and-database-indexes
B‑trees are used by many modern DBMSs. Learn how they work, how databases use them, and how your choice of primary key can affect index performance.

Fresh Finds

Apple Camera Control  A letter to founders: join the local‑first movement! Announcing TypeScript 5.6 The Top 5000 npm Packages by Size, Downloads, and Traffic The Undeniable Utility Of CSS :has Explore React 19 and how to start using it on Vercel today.  A Complete Guide to Beginning with JavaScript

Express.js 5.0.0 Biome v1.9 Released: A toolchain for web projects Valtio, makes proxy‑state simple for React and Vanilla Jimp: JavaScript Image Manipulation Program Reclaim the Stack Documentation

Products & Others

What does illness teach us? https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/jfHNEf3Dm416HGdhceTXUQ
This friend, through an unfortunate illness that was fortunately cured by traditional Chinese medicine, gained a clear understanding of his own emotional and physical issues. In life, many people may still be under high pressure for various reasons, suffering greatly. Whatever the case, I hope you can draw some insight from this piece, gradually adjust your lifestyle, and live a healthier life.

Qi and blood are the best medicine https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/mBEj8B_UIyOEAe3_
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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.