Web Developer Monthly Newsletter 💻🚀

47th issue! If you missed them, you can read the previous issues of our Web Developer Monthly newsletter here.

If it’s your first time here… (otherwise, skip this part)

Being a web developer is a fantastic career option. You have many job opportunities, you can work around the world, and you get to solve hard problems.

One hard thing, however, is staying up-to-date with the constantly evolving ecosystem. You want to be a top-performing web developer, coder, programmer, software developer, but you don’t have time to select from hundreds of articles, videos and podcasts each day.

This monthly web development newsletter is focused on keeping you up-to-date with the industry, without wasting your valuable time. I curate and share the most important articles, news, resources, podcasts and videos of the month.

Think Tim Ferriss and the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) meeting the Software Development world. What’s the 20% that will get you 80% of the results?

Let's dive in. Here's what you missed in May 2022 as a Web Developer…

WebAssembly vs Javascript 🛠

Should your web app use WebAssembly?

For those unfamiliar, WebAssembly is a way for languages like Rust / C / C++ / Zig / etc. to run securely on the web. Wasm is also seeing some use outside of the web as a safer way to run high-performance code.

This article outlines misconceptions about when you should and should not use Wasm. It's a great read.

Free Tools for Web Developers ✂️

For those of you who don't know, the ZTM team and I have curated our all-time best free resources and free tools here for you.

Or... you can go back and read all of the previous issues of this newsletter to see every single resource and tool we've recommended. That's a joke. Don't do that!

I do highly recommend you check out this How to get paid while learning to code post though.

React News 💎

Mostly everyone's favourite frontend library. What crazy things have they been up to?

• Reactathon happened this month and here is a recap of the trends and important topics.

• Is it just me or are people getting React fatigue? This article outlines why this author no longer misses React. Worth a read.

• A new RFC for useEvent to make hooks easier to understand. A lot of mixed reactions to this in the React community. You can get a summary of what it is here.

• Shopify released a new React Native library: Skia - Skia is a cross-platform drawing library that provides a set of drawing primitives that you can trust to run anywhere: iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, the browser, and now React Native.

• React key attribute: best practices for performant lists.

• React state management libraries in 2022.

• Big changes coming to Next.JS.

• Our Complete React Developer Bootcamp was totally re-recorded and fully updated. If you want to learn React by building complex real-world projects... there's no better place!

Google Loves PWA 🪆

The Google team that runs the web.dev website released a new and updated section for Progressive Web Apps.

Since they pioneered this concept, this is probably the best and only resource you need to see how you can use Progressive Web App technologies to build a native like app experiences.

Cross-Platform Web Apps ⌚️

The problem with starting a mobile app in 2022 is that there are a lot of totally different technical directions you can take: native, cross-platform web app, React Native, Flutter, Progressive Web App, Xamarin, etc.

This article shows you some of the options out there and perhaps which one you should choose.

The Greatest Problem on the Web 🎈

You think technical interviews at big tech companies are hard? You think matrix multiplication in machine learning is hard? That's cute. Because we all know the hardest engineering problem is this: centering items with CSS.

Now you have a complete guide to centering items with CSS and to create a new OCD trait.

Living the Low-JS Life 🚬

This was a great article. Is there a sweet spot between Single Page Apps and Server Side Rendered Apps? Low-JS may be the new kid on the block that finds the sweet spot. You should read this.

You May Not Need JS 🪄

Back in the day, the You Might Not Need jQuery website showed us how you didn't need to always add jQuery to your website. Well, now with all the amazing features of CSS and HTML, you might not need JavaScript. Check this out.

Keep An Eye On Partytown 🎊

This is a really interesting concept that might take off: Partytown, a lightweight open-source solution that reduces execution delays due to third-party JavaScript by offloading third-party scripts to web workers, which run in background threads.

JavaScript vs Linux ⚔️

JavaScript is the universal scripting language. Due to JavaScript’s universality a new container-like abstraction is emerging that simplifies servers.

Can Linux containers be replaced by JavaScript containers?

With Deno, this may be possible. Maybe the majority of “web services” can be simplified by thinking in terms of JavaScript containers, rather than Linux containers. Read about JavaScript Containers from the creator of NodeJS and Deno here.

Weekend Project Idea 🧰

Bored on the weekend? Then this is a fun little project for you to do this weekend: Falling Sand Simulator

Want another one? How about an interactive starry backdrop.

Database History Lesson 🧱

A fun little article. I recommend you read the part about the history of databases which you will find interesting.

Google I/O Reveals 🛰

Google I/O event is always big for web developers because they control the biggest browser (Chrome) that dictates a lot of what web developers can do. So what are some of the big announcements?

• Flutter 3 is coming out
• State of CSS 2022
• Page Transitions on the Web
• Imagen

Or you can just watch this: Google I/O ‘22 in Under 12 Minutes

Web Applications History 💾

A website doesn't equal a website these days. A website ranges from a marketing website for a product to a full-blown social media platform.

As someone new to web development, it's not easy to grasp the landscape: What starts out as a traditional website with HTML and CSS, which is returned from a web server, turns into a way more difficult full-stack application with sophisticated client-server communication and state management.

I highly recommend reading this article about the evolution of what a website is.

Once you are done with the above, read this.

Code Audit 🧘

Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits. 16 things that this author learned from reviewing code. A great list.

for-of vs .reduce() vs .flatMap() 💡

Let's have a look at three ways of processing Arrays and see when to use what!

1. for-of loop
2. .reduce()
3. .flatMap()

New Libraries and Tools 🗿

What a strange month. There are usually a ton of shiny, new libraries and tools every month which is why I have this dedicated section for them.

• This is not a new library but big news for a heavily used library: Meta Open Source is transferring Jest to the OpenJS Foundation

Really want to check out new(ish) libraries and tools, check out this section from past editions of my Web Developer Monthly Newsletter.

News Around the World 🗺

• Newsflash: Wordpress use is shrinking

• Github released a review of a npm security issue from this past month: Attack campaign using stolen OAuth tokens

Big Tech News 🏢

• Supabase raises $80M Series B for its open source Firebase alternative

• I'm noticing a trend right now when it comes to tech hiring. A lot of companies are suspending some of their hiring. If you have a solid job right now, I recommend looking at staying put as the mobility between jobs we saw in the last couple of decades for tech workers may not keep going at the same pace

• Twitter to pay $150 million penalty for allegedly breaking its privacy promises – again

Completely useless to your career but still great 🙃

• Porting Zelda Classic onto the web

• Random bug: And. And. And. And. And.

• GameBoy Graphics: Tiles, Palettes, and Encoding

• The two envelops problem

• What happens to TLDs (.ca, .io) when their country stops existing?

Best Resource of the Month ✅

We need a clean start for the web. Why?

The article of the month outlines an ever growing problem on the web. Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal yet, but we are moving towards more complexity and more restrictions. Can we stop this ever growing gap?

If you read one article this month, make sure it's this one.

Trick of the Month 🌗

• Search for the oldest results on the internet.

• Git ignores .gitignore with .gitignore in .gitignore

Thanks for reading! Don't be shy now.... Share this newsletter with your friends. See you next month! ❤️

By the way, I teach people how to code and get hired in the most efficient way possible as the Lead Instructor of Zero To Mastery Academy. You can see a few of my courses below or see all ZTM courses here.