February 26, 2025

Subject: Alternatives to npm; TC39 meeting; Rust and JS plugins; long-term software maintenance; WeakMaps; JS just-in-time compilation; test262; ESLint lints CSS; Bun v1.2.3; Deno 2.2

Is npm enough? Why startups are coming after this JavaScript package registry

redmonk.com @kateholterhoff@hachyderm.io @redmonk@mastodon.social

Covers on Deno’s JSR and vlt’s vsr.

ECMAScript proposal updates at the 2025-02 TC39 meeting

ecmascript-daily.github.io @azu_re@mstdn.jp

Speeding up the JavaScript ecosystem – Rust and JavaScript plugins

marvinh.dev @marvinh@infosec.exchange

“Up until recently, supporting JavaScript in Rust based tools has been deemed not worth it. The main concern is the overhead of the de-/serialization cost when sending data back and forth. But there is a way to get rid of the deserialization cost entirely that's not widely known.”

The reality of long-term software maintenance

www.construct.net @AshleyGullen@mastodon.gamedev.place

“[...] if you maintain a large and complex software project over a period of many years, you come to realise a key point: Writing the initial code for a feature is only a fraction of the work, once you take in to account everything else you also have to do in the long term. I think unless in your career you’ve had the responsibility for maintaining a large (100,000+ lines of code) and continually evolving codebase for 5+ years, it’s probably difficult to appreciate the substantial challenges that are unique to this.”

Use cases for WeakMaps in JavaScript

jlongster.com github.com/jlongster

How does JavaScript just-in-time compilation work?

www.royalbhati.com github.com/royalbhati

Contributing SpiderMonkey tests to the ECMAScript test suite test262

blogs.igalia.com github.com/Ms2ger @igalia@floss.social

New versions

ESLint now officially supports linting of CSS

eslint.org @nzakas@fosstodon.org @eslint@fosstodon.org

That’s not strictly JavaScript-related news but it’s an interesting new direction for a popular JavaScript tool.

Bun v1.2.3: dev server with bundling and hot reloading, routing for Bun.serve(), new SQL features and more

bun.sh github.com/Jarred-Sumner github.com/oven-sh

Highlights:
  • Bun can be used as a development server that bundles and supports hot reloading.
  • Built-in routing for Bun.serve()
  • Bun.sql: sql.array, SQL fragments, queries in files

Deno 2.2: OpenTelemetry, lint plugins, node:sqlite and more

deno.com github.com/bartlomieju github.com/lambtron @deno_land@fosstodon.org

Three highlights:
  • Built-in OpenTelemetry integration
  • “[…] a major upgrade to deno lint, including a new plugin system and 15 new rules, particularly for React and Preact users”
  • Support for the node:sqlite module

Interesting npm packages

showify: library for displaying potentially complex JavaScript values

github.com github.com/Snowflyt

Think util.inspect() in Node.js.

tinyglobby: globbing library (minimal alternative to globby and fast-glob)

github.com github.com/SuperchupuDev

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