The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - JavaScript fatigue strikes back (News)

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

Allen Pike on the JavaScript ecosystem after a decade away, Lars Wirzenius was there at the birth of Linux, Piotr Migdał archives things in Markdown, Jacob Stopak is gamifying Git with Devlands & Juan Diego Rodríguez runs down how CSS functions (will) work.

What's up nerds. I'm Jared and this is changelog news for the week of Monday, March 3rd, 2025. Remember Skype? Microsoft recently announced on X that starting in May of this year, it's going bye-bye. As early days podcasters, we had a love-hate relationship with the OG video calling platform, especially after Microsoft took it over. Skype hasn't been relevant for years, but it's still a bit sad to see it go.

I don't miss the software, but I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for its classic incoming call sound. Okay, let's get into the news. in my heart for its classic incoming call sound. Okay, let's get into the news. JavaScript fatigue strikes back. Alan Pike returned to the JavaScript ecosystem after a 10 year hiatus. A lot has improved in the interim, but he found one constant.

Quote, these changes have each boosted the ecosystem in its own way and each has fueled one dynamic that has not changed. Choosing the right JavaScript framework is hard, man. End quote. Alan thinks through some framework choosing decisions, then ends his post on an upbeat. Quote, I think though, and this may just be my innate optimism, that the situation has improved a lot. And now that the JavaScript ecosystem is building frameworks that can share code between the client and server, but keep most of it from being sent to the browser, the next 10 years of evolution should be less disruptive than the last.

I hope you're right, Alan. I hope you are right. The early days of Linux. Lars Orzenius was there at the birth of Linux, having met Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in 1988. In this 2023 contribution to lwn.net, Lars tells the story from his perspective. It all started with a typo.

Quote, Toward the end of that first year, we had gotten access to a Unix server, and I accidentally found Usenet, the discussion system, by mistyping RM as RN, the Usenet reader. I told Linus about it and we spent way too much time exploring this." There's lots of fun gems shared here, like this one that shows Linus's humble aims. In August 1991, Linus mentioned his new colonel in public for the first time in the comp.os.minix newsgroup.

This included the phrase, I'm doing a free operating system, just a hobby, won't be big and professional like GNU. For many of us, Linux has always been a core piece of our computing lives. It's easy to forget that it hasn't always existed, or that its dominance was at one time unsure, even unlikely. Stories like this one, told by the people who live them, always remind me of this great insight from Steve Jobs, who said, Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than

you. And you can change it. You can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use. And the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it.

That's maybe the most important thing, is to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just going to live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that's very important. And however you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and make it If it is worth keeping, save it in Markdown. Piotr Migdal says that as a data scientist he turns things into vectors, but as an unabashed archivist he turns things into Markdown.

Quote, Markdown files are essentially plain text with some extra syntax for common elements like sections, bullet points, and links. The format deliberately avoids precise control over display details like font selection. Following the rule of least power, I consider this limitation a feature. For contrast, consider PDF, a format so powerful that it can run Doom. He goes on to explain how he does it, tools that help, and what he liked to see exist in the world to make this all easier and better. But the main point is the main point. When it comes to things that have to last, plain text is great

and markdown is a great format for your plain text. It's now time for sponsored news. NextEdit understands the ripple effect of code changes. The newest feature from our friends at Augment code is one I've wanted my entire career. Every dev out there knows the pain that follows updating a field in one file. And now you're hunting through all the various places in the code base to update SQL queries, tests, and type definitions, if you're into that kind of thing. What should be a simple change becomes a tedious game of find and replace.

Next edit is their solution to this problem. It extends beyond the cursor by understanding the ripple effects of your changes and automatically suggesting necessary updates across your entire workspace. While you code is scanning your code base, identifying dependent files, and generating contextual suggestions

that keep your code in sync. And guess what? NextEdit is available today to everyone using Visual Studio Code. All you have to do is pull the latest update to the extension, and NextEdit will be there to help you get more done. Curious how NextEdit does what it does?

The Augment Code team behind it also shared their research behind the feature. Cool stuff. Links in the newsletter. And thank you to Augment Code for sponsoring ChangeLog News. Git is getting gamified. Git Sim creator Jacob Stoepack is back with an even more ambitious project than his original tool to visualize Git commands. This time he's putting everyone's favorite, but difficult to conceptualize, distributed version control system into a Minecraftian voxel world so you can explore a repo's

history in 3D. The linked announcement post tells the entire DevLans journey, including the $2600 bucks Jacob dropped on a domain he later realized he couldn't use. Ouch. Functions in CSS? Did you know CSS is close to getting first class function support? You can use them today in Chrome Canary behind an experimental flag.

And hopefully in other browsers soon. Where to turn for a nice rundown? CSS tricks of course. Quote, arguments? Return values? That's worth spitting my coffee out for. I had to learn more about them and luckily the spec is clearly written, which you can find right here.

Link in the newsletter. Juan Diego Rodriguez does a great job laying out all the details on how they work. Such as, they can have type checking, they can have list arguments, they cannot return early, etc. And imagining cool use cases for them. He thinks the future is bright. Quote, there will be a time when our cyborg children ask us from their education pods, is it true you guys didn't have functions in CSS? And we'll answer them, no, Zeta5 Lumina?

We didn't, while shedding a tear. And that will blow their Zeta Pentium Gen 31 brain chips. That's the news for now, but also scan this week's companion changelog newsletter for even more links worth clicking on. Including Ludic's guide to getting software engineering jobs Open Source is where dreams go to die Begrudgingly choosing CBOR over MessagePack

And the new feature I'm testing out called the Developer's Dictionary. If you don't subscribe to the newsletter, fix that bug at changelog.com slash news. Last week on the pod, Adam spoke with Anarag Goel from Render and we both kaizened with Gerhard Lazou. Scroll back in your feed for those awesome combos and stay tuned for some upcoming bangers. Redis creator Salvatore Sanfilippo aka Anti-Rez on Wednesday and we play Friendly Feud with our JS Party peoples on Friday.

Have a great week, leave us a 5 star review if you dig the show and I'll talk to you again real soon.