JEM

September was the month decision models took over. ChatGPT co‑founder Diogo Almeida released a model with a new architecture. Instead of walls of text, the model could only answer with decisions or choices. You could consider this a restriction than a new feature, but so is Twitter

GitHub has a new shiny feature to split features into smaller PRs that stack together. You can use an agent skill that comes with the gh-cli.

Another month has brought the release of models that apparently write better code than you! While being a human in the loop isn't always great (ask Laura Summers), I'm also excited about everything this has enabled people to create. Setting aside Bun's rewrite and the accompanying blog post, I'm especially amazed by Burrow, a project that brings Bun, Git, the shell, and a coding agent together in the browser tab.

Chrome had two releases in June - 149 and 150. Putting 150 in the headline, because well.. it's 150.

Several security incidents have been reported, and your device is now a target. Regularly rotate all the keys stored on your device, and monitor your bills and usage. I have added a security section in Spotlight for your convenience. If you need some help, OWASP has released a free local first JS vulerability scanner - CVE Lite CLI

Vercel had a security incident last month as the platform was infiltrated to leak non sensitive stored environment variables for a subset of customers. How the attacker gained access is the more interesting part here:

March began with the Pentagon choosing which AI models would make its decisions. Anthropic refused to strip safeguards from its models, citing ethical concerns over government actions. OpenAI stepped in and reaped the rewards after Anthropic was deemed a supply-chain risk. Anthropic appealed, and the court has temporarily stayed the order.

Everyone's using AI to write or rewrite content these days. But what happens when Cloudflare enters the picture? And what changes when the library is Next.js, Vercel's brainchild? We found out this February.

February is the shortest month, yet it promises excitement. January belonged to OpenClaw (if that name sticks—it has already changed four or five times). The app lives on your computer, sees everything you grant it, and pledges to run your life (or so it claims). I have not discovered a real use for it, and I am uneasy about handing an agent the keys to my work and world.

December began with a bang for the JavaScript community when the core AI lab Anthropic acquired Bun. Bun aims to be the all-in-one JavaScript runtime and powers Anthropic's crown jewel, Claude Code.

I generally don't talk about things that happened in the this month in the newsletter, because it's supposed to be all about the previous month. But making an exception this time, since we have a security vulnerability on our hands.

October was the month when Tanstack took centre stage as the framework everyone wants to migrate to. Adding to the confusion, Vercel introduced more directives under the name "use workflows", putting many developers on edge. This revived the debate that began with "use client" about whether directives are the best way to instruct the compiler. We now have a lot more directives to be afraid of, and someone bought up the "use no memo" directive that's been live for years at this point.

Supply chain attack took centre stage this month as well, orchestrated by the same threat actors behind the August 2025 Nx incident. This time, they’ve unleashed a self-replicating worm named Shai Hulud 🐛, which automates secret theft, GitHub repo manipulation, and package propagation.

Lots of people found that they have a new repository prefixed by s1ngularity-repository in their GitHub account. This was created by a malicious post install command executed by the install of nx build kit. The malware steals wallets and API keys and pushes them into that repository in a results.b64 file.

Last month in the spotlight, we discussed the state of Radix UI libraries. WorkOS launched a live stream maintenance session with Chantastic. I haven't seen any activity since the live stream, but this is a step in the right direction.

Bill Atkinson, a well-known programmer and creator of early Mac applications like QuickDraw and MacPaint, passed away last month. His contributions to GUI remain influential today.

It was raining AI coding agents in June as all major AI providers announced their version of coding agent.

At the end of March, React announced the release of version 19.1, which includes new features and enhancements. In April, React released the RC version of the React compiler. However, I haven't seen much excitement for these changes. Who is actually upgrading to access these features, aside from those starting fresh? I came across a Next.js post highlighting every new feature, such as server components and disabled API routes. Do developers really want these? Currently, it appears that while some of these updates make users' lives easier with faster loading times and smaller bundle sizes, they also create challenges for developers due to the steep learning curve. If the users don't demand these, why should the developers care?

That was an MCP month—Model Context Protocol servers—if you are not dialed in. Many people are discussing MCPs, and every organization is creating one. I'm unsure about the level of adoption here. I have tried different MCPs at various points over the last couple of months, but I haven't stuck with any of them. The issue is that I forget to use them once I install them.

It's an AI revolution, specifically an AI agent revolution. Do you use AI in your everyday programming? You should. It can be challenging to train and prompt, but once you get the hang of it, it works wonders. Treat it like Google; you need to understand how to ask the right questions to get the best answers. The same applies to LLMs; you must practice to discover their full potential.

The year has just begun, and significant changes are already occurring worldwide. Deepseek has disrupted the US stock markets with its low pricing and the GPUs used to train its models. The new American president has announced tariffs on Chinese products, which will impact e-commerce everywhere. Additionally, Elon Musk is now involved with the government regarding DOGE and seeks "read-only" access to government departments. To quote "The Verge," they have concluded that the government is essentially a network of computers, and controlling these computers means controlling the country.

Welcome to another year, with all signs pointing to AI's continued dominance. Hopefully, we'll see Apple Intelligence launch this year rather than just its announcement. Here's hoping AI will make us all more creative than before 🥂

Between getting married and moving to a new place, November was an eventful month. But the web hasn't stopped moving and so won't we. Send any recommendations for Tokyo my way though, that's where I'm on my trip to.

The American elections kicked off November as the major event, though, as a non-American, I won’t dive into the politics. I really enjoyed the New York Times' coverage—especially their maps and visualisations. From detailed maps to "needles" indicating likely wins, it was all incredibly well done. 🤌

Oracle has renewed the Java trademark year after year and still holds it today. This has caused confusion within the JavaScript community regarding the association between Oracle and Java. Now, there's an online petition aimed at explaining the issue and pushing Oracle to relinquish the trademark. You can sign it at javascript.tm.

As it starts to cool down in many parts of the world and things get quieter, that's not the case in the JavaScript and tech world. We're heading into major release cycles and upcoming conferences in the next few months. Lots of updates for the month and beyond 🚀 Let's ship it!

When I took up software engineering, we used to joke in the college dorms: "Nobody died because of software engineering." It seemed like one of the least risky jobs out there, and I believed that for a long time.

If you are checking out one resource from my newsletter - pick Noto's animated emoji collection. Such a happy resource.

May was a fine month for top tech companies. Top tech companies that had an event this month: Apple, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI (Meta, if you consider React conf). Out of these, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI were a repetition of the same themes, in different settings by different people. Apple announced an iPad but is going to say a lot more about AI in the upcoming WWDC in June. We are also waiting on Computex keynotes from AMD and NVIDIA the start of June.

An even hotter month here. Hopefully, the rain gets to me by the time I write the next instalment. This is a month where Llama 3 released and blew everyone away, Apple launched M4 chips with iPads and had Google launch Pixel 8A at the same time. A huge month in terms of conferences and updates is ahead of us (check out the Looking ahead section)

It's a record hot and humid summer happening for me, but the tech does not stop and neither do we. Special reminder for everyone to stay hydrated.

Welcome to the 50th edition of our JEM Newsletter! It's been a consistent presence in your mailbox for the past four years, thank you for staying with me on this journey.

Welcome to shortest month of the year. Which happens to be a day longer this year.

This edition commemorates the fourth anniversary of crafting this newsletter. Over the past four years, I've dedicated myself to producing 48 issues—one for each month, marking this continuous journey of sharing insights and updates. Thanks to everyone who suggested changes, told me you read it when you ran into me somewhere or even promoted it on different platforms. Your support is truly appreciated, and the joy of producing this newsletter is shared both for myself and all of you.

The holiday season is officially here and the tech slowdown is almost here. Does your company have a production code freeze or a holiday party?

We will talk more about the release in the Spotlight section.

Sorry for being a little late this month. I was in Goa for the beginning of the month for React India 2023. I spoke about Accessibility at the conference and discussed some common pitfalls. Besides mine, there were some amazing talks worth checking out and I had so much fun interacting with other speakers and attendees.

Bun's 1.0 version is out and the release video is pretty awesome.

August in the month when sun's embrace is warm, Golden fields sway, a tranquil charm, Cicadas hum in the hazy air, As memories bloom, beyond compare

We find ourselves in a pivotal moment where the internet's landscape is shifting, and there is a perception that the free content community, once vibrant and community-driven, is gradually being replaced by corporate-dominated content farms.

Thanks for waiting up for May edition of my Newsletter. Some work held me up and I couldn't get to compiling all the videos and articles. I was at the first in person edition of JSConf India at Bangalore in May and loved the experience. There were lots of talks that were just glorified ads but that's how many conferences go I guess. 🤷‍♂️

This past month has been all about BlueSky, the app that Jack Dorsey and his team are building as an alternative to Twitter. BlueSky is based on a new protocol called the AT Protocol, which they have designed themselves. Although the app is currently invite-only, it's starting to attract major names.

In this month's update on OpenAI's LLMs and their counterparts, we're looking at Google's new LLM, Bard, which recently entered beta testing in the United States. It's been compared to BingAI, and early reviews suggest that Bard may be the better search engine, providing concise and timely information. Meanwhile, BingAI (or GPT-4) appears to excel at creative writing and coding tasks.

The ChatGPT revolution is sweeping the internet. Both Microsoft and Google launched their own chatbots this month. Bing AI is based on OpenAI's new model and is currently being tested with beta testers. I have access to BingAI and can confirm that some of it is quite useful, while some results are purely imaginary. Use it only for verifiable information for now.

CodeSandbox has achieved impressive results with its live coding platform, particularly for JavaScript-intensive sites and bundlers. Additionally, I appreciate that a significant portion of their code is open source. Their recent release of Docker support allows for seamless integration of root access, enabling support for a wide range of programming languages.

Three years of writing this Newsletter. It's something that I took up like a journal to ensure that I read my articles. Thanks for reading the Newsletter, cheering for every issue and providing feedback.

It is the month Elon Musk took charge of the social network Twitter and things have been going wild. From a promoter of free speech, Elon has moved to an arbiter of it

Almost the end of the year. What's on your year-end bucket list? Have you got through all your 2022 checklist yet? Now's the time to tidy up.

October means it's time for Hacktoberfest. Over the years, there has been very different public opinion about what the fest and the month means for everyone and there are still apprehensions. If you aren't familiar, the fest is about celebrating open source and encouraging more people to directly contribute and support open source projects.

The text-to-image AI are ruling the world and captcha suffers. This month, most people have received access to some version of a text to image AI. If you don't know what these does, they translate the text you provide a visual representation. Most of these AI can imitate artists or convert between different art styles.

The dependence we have on technology is becomes clear only when we are cut off from the Internet. There are areas and states that are cut off for months because of geopolitical tensions but Canada got a jolt last month as a carrier went down disrupting smart systems, ATMs and even emergency phone lines.

Mostly a lazy month that I'm looking to turn productive. Ideas Welcome.

Every time I start to make a reference to the season, I remember that it's not the same season for everyone. It's monsoon at my place, but it might be summer at yours. It's impossible to generalise. I think it's important that we remember this when building web applications as well. There are all kinds of people all around the world and experiences you build might be critical to some of them. Let's be humble and keep the different seasons for users in our mind.

The month's biggest news has been Acquisition of Twitter by the billionaire Elon Musk. It reminds you of the antics of Batman and Iron Man and by his tweets, he might want us to be reminded of it. While it has not been an aggressive takeover in financial details, that's what it certainly looks like to the layman. Elon Musk has promised to bring back Free Speech or whatever the definition of it fits right now.

There is still an ongoing war situation going on in Ukraine and my heart goes out to the affected.

It is a month that usually starts with A short and sweet month that passes like a breeze. But this month we almost had a World War and we have people still fighting it out on the street. (Nations? Those are just imaginary borders that we drew around ourselves. People fight, People die. Nobody wins)

That's the first month of 2022 and most places are drowning in Omicron cases. The virus must be the only being who went through the whole year with reinvention. I hope all of you are safe and doing well.

2021 was an year when restrictions that were placed in the previous year got relaxed. It is great to see that some of the ideas that were generated in the time of forced restrictions are continuing to be used. It's a lot like building web for accessibility, when you are building for special cases you are making the web better for everyone. It's the same with building for remote use cases, you make the world a lot more accessible.

Google has been a very integral part of Web history and it doesn't seem like it's going away any time soon. But there are part of the search that doesn't bode well with developers.

Facebook and it's companies, Instagram and Whatsapp went down for hours straight this month. It got trending everywhere and even drove the installs up for competing products. In countries where Whatsapp is the main app for communication, people resorted to text messaging.

This means Hacktoberfest is here too. Registration is now open for Hacktoberfest.

August was a breeze, I'm not sure I have registered it in my 2021.

It's been a very quiet July. That's no reason to pad the newsletter though, I don't get paid on reading time - In fact, I don't get paid at all 😅

June means Monsoon out here in Kerala and I'm glad to be out of the Summer heat.

Last week I was pair programming with a friend when he said JavaScript as language needs to evolve a lot more. Well, what are some of the features you want to see, I asked him amused. That's when he talked about how the last version of JavaScript was ES6 and that was so long ago. I can even recite all of them, because I have learned it for the interviews he continued.

April might just be known as the month that Basecamp went rogue. After a successful stint of taking the fight to the big boys, the well known founders are falling from grace from Tech Twitter.

The March is Past.

The shortest month of the year, done and dusted. By popular opinion, it's like this month did not exist. But we have news, because the Web never stops ⚡️.

In this month's Newsletter Keynote, we look at three companies that had a gold rush month.

December marks 20 years since the birth of JavaScript - Our favourite language (I hope!). Here's some history to catch up on the 20 years:

November is the month that is probably going to be remembered for Apple's groundbreaking processor upgrade. Apple has moved on from Intel processors to manufacture their own that they call M1 chipset. The first reviews have come in for the first Macbook Air and Macbook Pro and it's very promising.

Another month and another large company goes fully remote - Dropbox. Many people have been pondering what will happen to the offices that they have build so far and Dropdown answers it by transforming them to coworking spaces.

In it's 7th year, Hacktoberbest is one of the most recognised open source celebratory events all time. If you are looking to participate for the first time, here are the basics:

We have an Epic fight brewing between Epic Games and Apple and it's story of the month. Epic created a built-in payment mechanism for Fortnite by which they could side step Apple's hefty App store commisions. This did not sit well with Apple and pulled the game from the App Store. Apple then went on to terminate Epic's account altogether pushing other games like Infinity Blade off the store. Epic has another account hosting their Unreal Engine (which is depended on by several other games and graphical apps) which now exists on top of a court order. This isn't the first time a company revolts against Apple's apps store practices, you might remember Hey from two months back. While this is also a prevalent issue on Android, iOS being a closed ecosystem amplifies the cause these companies are fighting against.

This month was all about GPT-3. When OpenAI came up with GPT-2, they said they wouldn't release it into the world because they did not know of it's implications, but then they did and we now have online testing tools like Write with Transformer. With GPT-3 OpenAI takes another approach, they hold the resources and models but exposes the services through an API. It's currently invite only at this point, but lots of people have been checking it out and been mind blown by it. It can write stories, recipes or even make websites.

Taking a month off from bragging about remote work, I would like to shine the spotlight an amazing JavaScript tool:

Catching up on remote work, this month saw several large tech companies plan for remote work in the long term. These include the likes of Twitter, Square, Shopify and Facebook. Facebook's announcement included plans to cut down on the salary because these engineers did not work in the saturated Silicon Valley anymore and let to much discussion. Should engineers be paid by location?

Everything I said about remote working during a pandemic still stand, but remote work is certainly gaining momentum in at least some of the companies. TCS, an Indian service company employing 0.5 million people have announced that 75% of their workforce will be going remote by 2025. FYI has published a report analysing The Future of Remote Work estimating by 2025, 70% of the workforce will work remotely at least five days in a month. In other news, Uber CTO is leaving the company and they might lay off 20% of their workforce.

March is coming to an end and it seems like every month is one upping the other on disasters.

It's officially February and it's a leap year. Years of studying programming has somehow got me to linking leap years with a program to check if it's a leap year.

I hope you are all having a great 2020. The year has just began and so many things are happening.