In-Browser IDEs, Dependency Purges, and React's New Home

#webdev #weeklyfoo #javascript #node

BrowserPod just dropped Wasm-powered full-stack environments straight into your browser — this is genuinely groundbreaking for IDEs and agents! If your monorepo's drowning in dependencies, John James has your back with a battle-tested guide to safely nuking 120 unused packages (Knip is your friend). Good news: Node.js has quietly been replacing your npm packages — Lizz Parody counts 15 recent features that might make your package.json a whole lot lighter.

The React Foundation is officially happening under the Linux Foundation umbrella, shadcn dropped the "boring stuff we rebuild over and over" as actual components, and Simon Højberg perfectly captures The Programmer Identity Crisis we're all feeling right now. Stefano Marinelli wrote a vendor lock-in story so gripping it reads like a thriller—but it's based on real events.

Must-read alert: Gergely Orosz's hiring manager perspective on the 2025 jobs market, plus Ido Green's hard-facts-no-fluff lessons on scaling teams at Google, Facebook, and Netflix.

On the tools front: /dev/push wants to be "Vercel but open source for all languages" (yes please!), Shotgun turns your ideas into full implementation plans with agents doing the heavy lifting, ut brings a universal toolkit for terminal lovers, and if you've been hunting for a search input query parser—William Cotton just built it. Oh, and Mirrow makes SVG animations stupidly simple.

The Vite documentary finally arrives—because every great framework deserves its origin story.

Enjoy!

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Find the 13 highlighted links of weeklyfoo #106:

Scaling Engineering Teams

by Ido Green

Lessons from Google, Facebook, and Netflix

🚀 Read it!, engineering, performance

BrowserPod

by Alessandro Pignotti, Stefano De Rossi

In-browser full-stack environments for IDEs and Agents via Wasm

📰 Good to know, wasm

cleaning house in nx monorepo, how i removed 120 unused deps safely

by John James

Short version, I ran Knip across our Nx repo, took the unused list as a hint, deleted candidates, built, tested, booted apps, and put a few back when they were secretly used.

📰 Good to know, dependencies, npm

15 Recent Node.js Features that Replace Popular npm Packages

by Lizz Parody

Over the years, Node.js developers have relied on countless npm packages to fill gaps in the platform.

📰 Good to know, nodejs, npm

Linux Foundation Announces Intent to Launch the React Foundation

by The Linux Foundation

New foundation will steward React and React Native, supported by industry leaders and community contributors

📰 Good to know, react, oss, linux

The Programmer Identity Crisis

by Simon Højberg

On AI, Creativity, and Craft

📰 Good to know, engineering, ai

The Email They Shouldn't Have Read

by Stefano Marinelli

A story about vendor lock-in and predatory business practices

📰 Good to know, lockin, story

/dev/push

by Ronan Berder

Like Vercel, but open source and for all languages.

🧰 Tools, infra

ut

by Kilari Teja

A Rust based utilty toolbox for developers.

🧰 Tools, rust, cli

Shotgun

by shotgun.sh

Shotgun is a CLI that turns what you want to work on into research - specs - plans - tasks - implementation with full codebase understanding and agents doing the heavy lifting.

🧰 Tools, spec, cli