Friday Issue 152

TypeScript 6.0 beta bridges to a Go-powered future for faster compiles, while State of JS 2025 reveals Temporal and Decorators topping wishlists (with "None" cheekily third) alongside React trends. Next.js frustrations spark migrations despite its Vercel ease, JS-heavy UIs get called out for bloat, and CSS shines with oklch() colour tricks, rapid :where() adoption, and Pantone decks. Playful highlights include elastic text effects and international box-sizing day nods. Happy reading!

JavaScript News

TypeScript 6.0 Beta

TS 6 is a unique release, bridging 5.9 to 7 while the team crafts a new Go-based codebase for the compiler and language service. This will underpin TS 7 and beyond, promising big performance gains.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/typescript/announcing-typescript-6-0-beta/

JS survey

Quite interesting to browse survey results. Temporal and Decorators top new features, but third place goes to None .

https://2025.stateofjs.com/en-US/

While on surveys, here are some intriguing bits about React.

https://2025.stateofreact.com/en-US/features/

Migrate from NextJS

It is a strange situation with Next.js. Massive popularity (fourth most-loved framework on Stack Overflow in 2025), yet endless gripes about slow dev times, the "mysterious black box" rep, and chaos with use client/server directives, caching, RSC, and vendor lock-in. Still, starting is dead simple: link GitHub to Vercel and go live in minutes.

https://www.inngest.com/blog/migrating-off-nextjs-tanstack-start

JS-heavy approaches

This post nails issues with modern JS frameworks: bloating UIs via third-party libs, huge bundles, over-rendering, and global state. React is the example, but it applies everywhere. Some frameworks, like SvelteKit, help if you go server-centric and HTML-first with minimal client JS, though it is just as easy to mess it up.

https://sgom.es/posts/2026-02-13-js-heavy-approaches-are-not-compatible-with-long-term-performance-goals/

Solid.js Best Practices

Interesting how the code looks familiar, echoing React or even Svelte.

https://www.brenelz.com/posts/solid-js-best-practices/

What to expect in Angular 22

https://developer.mescius.com/blogs/what-to-expect-in-angular-22

Bearnie

Component library for Astro. Nothing to install: just copy, use, tweak, own it.

“This is not an Astro component library. It's how you build your Astro component library.”

https://bearnie.dev/

HTML & CSS News

CSS Overview

I love these CSS usage reviews. They spotlight obscure selectors and units, with expected trends plus surprises like :where() hitting second in pseudo-classes (super-fast uptake since 2021). Madness stats too: one site slaps !important 249K times. I wish to know that website and find out the reason (if any) behind that.

https://www.projectwallace.com/the-css-selection/2026

International box sizing awareness day

Why not? Without these lifesavers, we’d face endless layout woes. Lets recognise:

*, *:before, *:after {

  -webkit-box-sizing: border-box; 

  -moz-box-sizing: border-box; 

  box-sizing: border-box;

}

https://css-tricks.com/international-box-sizing-awareness-day/

Elastic Text Effect

Really great experiment creating an elastic effect for the text strings, pure CSS.

https://frontendmasters.com/blog/how-to-create-a-css-only-elastic-text-effect/

Modern CSS code snippets

Good examples to ditch old habits. Instead of SASS:

.btn {

  background: lighten(var(--brand), 20%);

}

Harness oklch()

.btn {

  background: oklch(from var(--brand) calc(l + 0.2) c h);

}

https://modern-css.com/

While on colours, an intriguing experiment auto-derives contrast using oklch()

https://css-tricks.com/approximating-contrast-color-with-other-css-features/

Justify Text: pretty

https://matklad.github.io/2026/02/14/justifying-text-wrap-pretty.html

Colourful cards

Another fun experiment recreating a Pantone colour deck in CSS.

https://dev.to/madsstoumann/re-creating-a-pantone-color-deck-in-css-3108

What is JPEG XL, and do we need it

https://www.debugbear.com/blog/jpeg-xl-image-format

Mixed News

Time Travelling Art Gallery

Another fun experiment recreating a Pantone colour deck in CSS.

Not sure why this isn't a full-size website, as it is polished with music, links to the Metropolitan Museum API, and drag-and-drop timelines for random art gems.

https://codepen.io/notbigmuzzy/pen/XJKBdPw

Markdown for Agents

Recently loved the Markdown history post (issue 150), now Cloudflare auto-converts HTML to Markdown, slashing 80% of agent tokens. Funny reversal: they once blocked bots, now make them VIPs.

https://blog.cloudflare.com/markdown-for-agents

Build your own Data Center

Full cycle, almost: firms built data centres, fled to cloud, now hybrid on-prem. Cool insights into their challenges.

https://blog.comma.ai/datacenter

Components will kill pages

“With libraries like json-render and component libraries like Kumo you can have UI components be represented in JSON such that AI knows how to create generative UI’s.”

I more than agree that config-driven development is currently the best way to speak with AI when you want pixel-perfect visual representations. Instead of asking directly to “represent data in a table”, you ask AI to create a table using a config schema, which simply passes the data into a JSON string and that in turn “magically” creates the table on the screen. The design stays pixel-perfect because the AI only chooses from your predefined components and layouts.

https://bitsandbytes.dev/posts/components-will-kill-pages

Comment on BlueSky and Mastadon