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  • Runtimes, AI, Speed, and much more! This week in web dev (February 16th, 2024) #35

Runtimes, AI, Speed, and much more! This week in web dev (February 16th, 2024) #35

Hello friend 👋 ! Surprise, I am back again with another set of news from the web-dev world (And a bit of AI). This time we got some very exciting releases and updates from some of the biggest names in tech!

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CTRL ALT News
February 16th, 2024

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Amazon just open-source released their new Javascript runtime LLRT (Low Latency Runtim), to beta. Built in Rust using the QuickJS engine, the runtime is built to improve cold starts and overall performance.

Amazon claims an up to 10x improvement on cold starts.

Builder IO recently released their plans for Qwik 2.0. They are focusing on increasing the speed of an already very fast framework for the update. They are primarily working on 3 points in order to achieve this:

  1. Moving non-human readable data to the end of the HTML stream, allowing the UI to render faster.

  2. Developing a more efficient encoding scheme for the virtual nodes.

  3. Making the resuming algorithm lazier, materializing only the needed virtual nodes for handling user input.

Apple and open-source tools don't go hand in hand, but yet, they have just released something to open-source.

Apple PLK is a “configuration as code language”, with validation and other tooling. The language allows you to create your configurations, which you would usually do with something like json, yaml, and so on, with validation, errors, and so on, and then export to formats you know, json, yaml, property lists, and so on.

Testing in frameworks like React with tools like Jest and Vitest can be a pain in the butt, and that is why Netflix is trying to fix this problem. Safetest tries to improve upon testing with the following changes and additions:

  1. It provides control over both the test fixture/setup and the test driver, overcoming the limitations of unit testing and integration testing separately.

  2. It allows deep linking to specific tests without needing to run a node test server.

  3. It enables two-way communication between the browser and test (node) context, allowing assertions on spies in the browser from the node environment.

  4. It provides features like video recording of tests, trace viewing, and pause page functionality for trying out different selectors and actions.

  5. It facilitates testing specific components or segments of the app without running the entire application.

  6. It introduces the concept of Overrides, which leverages React Context to allow for value overrides during tests, making it easier to test complex scenarios like API call retries, feature flags, or static values.

  7. It offers powerful reporting capabilities, such as automatic linking of video replays, Playwright trace viewer, and deep linking directly to the mounted tested component.

  8. It works with various UI libraries (React, Vue, Svelte, Angular) and test runners (Jest, Vitest), providing a flexible and adaptable solution.

Would you believe me if I said the above video is AI-generated? Probably yes, since this section is about Open AI 😆.

Open AI is back to turn the world on its head yet again. Just a few days ago they revealed Sora. It is a text-to-video AI that actually creates believable videos.

Currently, it is not publicly available, but it will be released to select people for testing.