Friday Issue 151
This week’s JavaScript news is packed: Yarn 6 goes all in on Rust with some impressive benchmark gains, Node 25 shows big performance jumps in a few very specific areas, and Gatsby returns with a fresh update running on React 19. There is also a handy cron scheduling library, tips for throttling individual network requests in Chrome, a solid Astro 5.17 release, and yet another Vercel security incident write-up.
In HTML and CSS, there is a brilliant deep dive that ends with a surprisingly tricky chat bubble, a post that shows how the same content looks very different across accessibility needs, and an early look at using CSS Grid lanes with a polyfill. You also get a great metaphor-driven explanation of stacking contexts, a clear CSS layout primer, a lovely Wallace and Gromit font case study, a very strange but delightful Emergence site, and a stunning CSS-only animated light show.
Mixed news ranges from the future of software engineering with AI, to Gas Town’s industrial scale Vibe Coding experiment and its accompanying artwork, to Cloudflare’s take on vertical microfrontends. Rounding things off, Firefox experiments with an AI kill switch while shipping real platform updates such as ViewTransition, Navigation API, and CSS anchoring improvements. Happy reading.
JavaScript News
Yarn 6 goes in full Rust
Benchmark results are really impressive, and I love that they use Gatsby as the example of “lots of small dependencies”, which feels very on point for Yarn’s real world use.
https://yarn6.netlify.app/blog/2026-01-28-yarn-6-preview/
Node.js benchmarks over years
It is interesting that not every Node version improves every benchmark, but some areas like JSON stringify, Array map plus reduce, and a simple integer loop show massive gains when you compare Node 25 with earlier versions.
https://www.repoflow.io/blog/node-js-16-to-25-benchmarks-how-performance-evolved-over-time
A very “percise” parser
A fun story about a number parser that has clearly lived through a few too many refactors, and I guess, that that function comes from the days where developers were paid by the amount of lines produced per day, but that is only my guess.
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/a-percise-parser
Gatsby
Last issue brought back jQuery, and this one brings back Gatsby, which is not only still very much alive but now updated all the way to React 19.
https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/release-notes/v5.16/
Croner
A small, focused library for scheduling tasks in JavaScript using cron expressions, handy if you want cron style scheduling without pulling in a full job runner.
How to throttle individual network requests
A quick tutorial on how to block or slow down specific resources in Chrome DevTools, which is very useful when you want to debug that one slow script or API call.
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/throttle-individual-network-requests
Astro 5.17
This release brings async file parsing, partitioned cookies, image optimisation upgrades and more, continuing Astro’s steady stream of performance and DX improvements.
https://astro.build/blog/astro-5170/
Vercel and vulnerability
It feels like déjà vu with Vercel, but this is a fresh batch of vulnerabilities rather than the ones from last month, with a good write up of what happened and how they responded.
https://vercel.com/changelog/summary-of-cve-2026-23864
HTML & CSS News
How to make a nice Chat Bubble
There is more than just a chat bubble here, but that particular example is tucked away at the bottom of a very long post that digs into the surprisingly complex problem of how text flows with the content around it.
https://kizu.dev/shrinkwrap-solution/
Accessibility points
When we develop UI, we tend to take what we see on screen for granted, and this post makes it easy to scroll through and see how the same content snippet can look completely different depending on a person’s disabilities and environment.
https://a11yblog.com/2026/01/30/how-the-same-content-always-has-multiple-different-versions/
When can we use CSS Grid lanes?
It looks like we can finally start using CSS Grid lanes now, as long as you are willing to bring in a polyfill while support lands everywhere.
https://webkit.org/blog/17758/when-will-css-grid-lanes-arrive-how-long-until-we-can-use-it/
Unstacking CSS Stacking Context
I really liked the paper and folder metaphor used to explain CSS stacking context; it is one of those concepts that feels confusing until it finally clicks, and this example does a great job helping that click happen.
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2026/01/unstacking-css-stacking-contexts/
How to create a basic layout in CSS
A clear, practical walkthrough of CSS layout fundamentals, great if you want a refresher on modern layout techniques without diving into anything too advanced.
https://polypane.app/blog/understanding-the-fundamentals-of-css-layout/
Wallace and Gromit Font
A lovely story about how the Wallace and Gromit typeface came to life, with plenty of charming details along the way.
“All’s well that ends well, that’s what I say”.
https://jamieclarketype.com/case-study/wallace-and-gromit-font/
Emergence
I still have no idea what this site is actually about, but it is fun to scroll and explore on desktop, and the navigation itself feels like a little piece of interactive art where the browser’s back button is sometimes your best friend. (Desktop mode only)
https://emergenceprojects.com/
CSS animated light & show
A beautifully crafted light show animation built entirely with CSS and no JS involved.
https://codepen.io/VicioBonura/pen/azNjeWO
Mixed News
The future of software engineering with AI
An interesting look at how AI might shift software engineering from individual coding towards more of an orchestration role, with some concrete examples of how that could work in real teams.
https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2026/01/coder-orchestrator-future-software-engineering/
Gas Town
This one takes Vibe Coding to the factory floor, trading precision for throughput in a very managed, very expensive way, and by the time all the actors appear (The Town, The Overseer, The Mayor) it feels like you are reading a film script in the best possible way. The accompanying artwork is almost a parallel story and well worth the scroll, and there is also a GitHub repo if you want to dig into the code.
https://steve-yegge.medium.com/welcome-to-gas-town-4f25ee16dd04
and GitHub: https://github.com/steveyegge/gastown
Vertical microfrontends on Cloudflare’s platform
“A vertical microfrontend is an architectural pattern where a single independent team owns an entire slice of the application’s functionality, from the user interface all the way down to the CI/CD pipeline.”
https://blog.cloudflare.com/vertical-microfrontends/
Firefox and the AI kill switch
I wish more apps shipped an AI kill switch, especially with the current trend of “now our app has AI to help you with things you never needed help with in the first place”.
https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/meta-ai/articles/firefox-soon-let-block-generative-183445555.html
Instead of shipping yet another AI feature, Firefox 147 brings updates for the ViewTransition API, Navigation API, CSS anchoring and more, which is a very welcome change of focus.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Releases/147