This year starts with JavaScript Rising Stars, a new TypeScript-flavoured UI framework and a couple of tools that make local development and API work less of a slog. From there, it zooms out to the state of HTML and CSS, including long-awaited masonry-style layouts in Grid, plus some underrated selectors and container queries that can quietly elevate your everyday UI work.
Alongside the practical bits, there is room for curiosity, with Chrome DevTools tips, a playful “fun with the web” piece and a story of Gemini helping solve a centuries-old publishing mystery. Add in some career reflection and a charming gallery of fire hydrants in all shapes and colours, and you get a neat year-end mix of signal with just enough weird.
Happy reading, and enjoy easing into the new year with some curiosity fuel.
Last year looked very interesting and surprised me more than it should, but in a good way.
For example, I missed Ripple, a new TypeScript UI framework that looks like Svelte but is even less verbose. Next.js remains in 3rd place, likely due to React. Motia for Backend and Bun is in first place for tooling. But there is loads to take in.
https://risingstars.js.org/2025/en
Somehow, I completely missed this framework. Looks very interesting. As they say: “Ripple is a TypeScript UI framework that combines the best parts of React, Solid, and Svelte into one package.”
If you are not happy with Postman and don’t want to create an account, try Bruno.
Also, not JavaScript at all, but I just discovered that Colima is an excellent replacement for Docker Desktop for local testing on macOS.
https://pnpm.io/blog/2025/12/29/pnpm-in-2025
Finishing JavaScript news with something for fun.
https://nesbitt.io/2026/01/05/the-nine-levels-of-javascript-dependency-hell.html
The web is not just dashboards and spreadsheets; it is also a place to explore and have some fun.
https://patrickbrosset.com/articles/2026-01-06-fun-with-the-web/
Another look at useful Chrome debugger features.
https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2025/chrome-devtools-all-the-time/
https://2025.stateofhtml.com/en-US/
Finally, we are getting somewhere. In the current CSS Grid Level 3 draft, a “grid lanes layout " is defined, and it is a bit confusing as the draft uses the term “masonry-style layouts” for the pattern. But the main thing is that we will soon be able to use plain CSS to create Pinterest-style pages using the simple CSS grid-lanes property.
https://webkit.org/blog/17660/introducing-css-grid-lanes/
Scan your CSS and find old hacks and suggestions for removing them.
https://www.alwaystwisted.com/relicss/
Reminder on good CSS features less used but powerful, for example, sibling-index() , @container scroll-state() , stuck and more. All covered with visual examples.
https://nerdy.dev/4-css-features-every-front-end-developer-should-know-in-2026
I don't even know how to comment on this, but I thought Apple probably has a single design system across all products, and teams aren't living in silos. Seems like not.
https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/
“Besides solving a mystery that had been centuries in the making, the discovery is notable as Gemini was not simply transcribing text or guessing at meaning. Instead, the model produced a structured explanation for why the annotations exist and how they relate to the surrounding content, something that previously required deep domain expertise and lacked consensus.”
https://addyosmani.com/blog/21-lessons/
Completely unrelated, but it made me chuckle with the variety of colours and hydrants.