EOY Panel
===

Emily: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to PodRocket. My name is Emily, producer for PodRocket, and today we're recording our yearly wrap up episode. ~Um, ~we're here to discuss not only the good, the bad, and the ugly from the past year,~ uh,~ but we're going to talk about what we think is going to happen in 2025, get some of our guests hot takes,~ um,~ and Go into all that good stuff.

But before we get going, I'll introduce our panel as always. First, we have Paige Neidringhaus. Welcome back, Paige.

Paige: everybody, glad to be here. Hey everybody, glad to~ Hey everybody, glad to Okay. ~ 

Noel: Hey, how's it going?

Emily: And then to round out the panel, we have Josh.

Josh: Hi. Bye. ~so much. It~

Emily: So excited to have you all here. I love this group of people. I think it's going to be really good. ~Um, ~so let's get into it. ~Um, ~last year we came in with our predictions for 2024. And as always, we're going to revisit them and ~kind of ~talk about them a little bit. ~Um, ~so first, Paige, last year you [00:01:00] predicted that,~ um,~ We're going to be moving forward into the AI evolution and you thought we'd see more integration of GitHub co pilot into GitHub's main site.

Did this come true this year?

Paige: Oh,~ this, ~this definitely came true, or at least GitHub Universe, if anybody watched that keynote,~ uh, ~definitely talked a lot more about it. ~GitHub Work, ~GitHub Copilot Workspaces, I believe, is what the AI integration with GitHub. com is called. And, ~I mean, ~it sounds like it's just gonna take the world by storm ~if, ~if everything that they have predicted ~and, ~and said that they are gonna be able to do, they are actually able to do.

But, in terms of just AI evolving, yes, it is, it's evolved, wow, at lightning speed. I can't even keep up with it, honestly. There's so much new stuff just happening all the time with it.

Emily: Absolutely. And we'll definitely get into more of it, but yeah,~ uh,~ it's crazy how much it has evolved just in this year alone.~ So excited to talk about that. Uh, ~Noel, Last year, you said that you would see a spike of interest in Remix [00:02:00] and Solid. Did you see that happen this year?

Noel: ~Well, ~if you count way more people probably ending up using what remix will now become it slash is then. Yes. ~Uh, ~but ~I don't, ~I don't know if anyone totally foresaw the router remix stuff happening. So that's,~ uh,~ that's an interesting one. I honestly, I haven't looked at solids numbers either. ~Um, ~I don't use solid much, but I can't, I don't think it's been quite as big of a explosion ~as I participate or ~as I expected, there's been like.

Increasing participation, I think. ~Like, ~people are using it, people are using it to build stuff, but,~ uh, I haven't, ~I haven't seen a ton of news there as of late.

Emily: And do you just want to remind our listeners about the whole router,~ uh,~ thing that happened, I believe in,

Noel: ~Yeah, when was that, like?~

Emily: early fall?

Noel: Yeah, like October. ~Uh, basically, kinda as Remix, ~I guess a lot of what Remix was doing was routing, right? And as Router and Remix kind of settled, React Router and Remix kind of, their toolchains became more and more closely interlinked over time and basically the projects are now ~kind of ~one.

~Um, ~a lot of the logic that Remix wrote for routing has been pulled into [00:03:00] React Router. ~Uh, ~and they are functionally the same with V7. I ~ I don't remember. ~I don't remember what version of React or how to run, but,~ uh, ~whatever version that is. They are basically one. And that's like the recommended upgrade path for remix users,

Emily: So interesting to see how that might change in the next year, whether they'll continue to become one or something else will happen. ~Um, ~Paul,~ uh,~ last year you said that we would continue to see an integration of RSCs, which I believe happened. ~Um, ~and,~ uh,~ you said that we would be seeing more work done on the client and more focused on local storage.

What are your thoughts on that?

Paul: I did predict that we will have continued integration of RSCs up the same alley. I predict that next year will be 2025. ~So know,~

Paige: ~Obvious.~

Emily: ~Yes.~

Paul: ~it was, it's, ~I just like seeing it. I like to celebrate the RSCs and just like how integrated they're getting cause it just makes my life easier and it prevents some like performance monitoring stuff that I would have battled in the past.

So I'm just. Happy as an observer that they are continuing [00:04:00] to integrate, ~um, ~on the work done on the client local storage thing. I don't have anything to whip out and say, Hey, yeah,~ like,~ look at this example, but I have seen more exam,~ uh,~ people talking about it and how they're leveraging having ~like ~a portion, if not the whole database of whatever the app is running on in your browser.

You don't have an internet connection that is fine. Load up the app and you can use it. I wish I had an example of something that I've used myself. to talk about, but all I have are YouTube videos and all the people talking about it. So I've seen more people talking about it and I'm excited to see it continuing to be pushed in the future.

One little thing that I'm like, why isn't this more popular? Is I want to believe that companies who run apps are like, no, no, no, no, no. Like you have to connect to us to get the data. And I feel like that undertone might always ~kind of ~be there a little bit, but in the name of a better user experience, I hope it continues to grow more popular.

Emily: Hell yeah. It's a very Paul take. I appreciate it.

Paige: ~Um,~

Emily: ~Uh, ~and then finally, last year we had,~ uh,~ Chris Batista on,~ uh,~ could not make it this year. Josh, we have you here as [00:05:00] well this year. ~Um, ~but I'm going to open up this,~ uh,~ Chris prediction to everyone. ~Um, ~he said that he saw fun adoption increasing and. ~Uh, ~stealing more of a market share from node.

What are your thoughts on that? Especially with the release of Dino to this year

Paige: ~Um, ~You

Josh: So I think ~for, ~for the next year, BUN's battle, as they continue to stabilize, might be to try to switch from just the hobbyist usage to trying to find more and more enterprise of a play.

Paul: I still want to be given the green light to use bone on something

Paige: ~Um,~

Paul: I understand why i'm not giving it but until that green light becomes easy Of like yeah, like you'll integrate with the sre guys like the pipelines will [00:06:00] be okay. Nobody's feeling concerned about it because I for sure cannot say I'm going to use bun and everything will be okay and I'll take care of it like I'd be crazy.

I wouldn't sleep. So ~there is ~there is continuous integration to get that enterprise beyond the hobbyist.

Emily: ~All right. Any other thoughts on that? Cool. All right. Uh, if I'm moving quickly, cause I want to make everyone be able to say, thanks again, everything. And so I apologize. Tell me if I need to slow down at all. Um, All right, so uh before we get into our sections actually I think i'm going to Do you guys want to talk about your big take from, take away from the year?~

~Or do you want to hop right into all the sections and talk about that stuff? All right.~

Noel: ~I don't care.~

Emily: ~Okay. We're gonna, we're gonna ask about your big take of the year. Okay. Uh, all right. ~So before we get into AI, React, everything else,~ um,~ I did want to go around and ask what your big, hot takeaway. From this year is and have you talk about a little bit. So Paige, what was your big takeaway from this year and how do you think it's going to affect 2025?

Paige: I think my big takeaway from this year, which is ~kind of ~what I was thinking about last year is that AI is going to keep evolving, but ~I think it's going to be more in~ in 2025. I think it's going to be more integrated into the tools that we use and less of ~like ~a secondary platform that you have to go to, like chat GPT or some interface that you need to talk to and then take.

Whatever it gives you back to do your actual task. I think it's going to be a lot more integrated into our coding environments, our IDEs, websites that we use like GitHub. ~Um, ~I think it's going to be [00:07:00] a lot less of a kind of secondary system and more. Just in the systems that we're already using. That's what I hope anyway, it's less of like a context shift and more just ~kind of ~like there when you need it and not when you don't.

Yeah.

Emily: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. ~Uh, ~Paul, what is your big takeaway from this past year and how do you think it's going to affect 2025?

Paul: So mine's less about software and frameworks. I've just recently learned more about our infrastructure, which ~is this ~is something that's been probably going on for 567 10 years about, but it's coming to the limelight now about how much electricity everything we do uses. ~I mean, ~I never thought about the fact that my Windows computer, sometimes I turn it on, sometimes I turn it off. There's a 800 watt power supply in that thing. It's just chugging away. ~Like, ~gosh, you need to turn that off. It's using electricity. And so now we're doing all the AI stuff. It's going to continue being more right now,~ um, ~I think it's 1. 4 percent of all of America's electricity is used on air forced air cooling.

I'm not [00:08:00] even talking about running the computers. This is just the fans. And so if you think for a minute, we're going to continue on this technological advancement of our society without nuclear power, you are kidding yourself and you're wrong. read a book.

Paige: ~I mean, ~just watch the news. There have been so many news articles recently about the big tech companies getting into nuclear power, like ~re, ~restarting nuclear plants that have been shut down. So absolutely, they're going to

Paul: Who would have thought it would have been our computers page that are making us step back into nuclear?

Paige: I know.

Emily: I do appreciate this has been a thread for you the whole year.

Noel: ~It would be, I feel like ~it would be super interesting to go and look and ~like, ~get a chart,~ like, I ~wonder how much more compute we're using on average now, like in the typical Google search or ~like ~doing a prompt versus a Google search of old. ~Like ~I bet it's at least 10 times.

Paul: it's gotta be.

Noel: it's got to be way

Paul: you gotta look over. ~Like,~

Noel: for sure. And I feel like ~that's ~that's something ~I'm I'm ~I'm sure like Google is thinking about this and stuff a lot like how you know the cost of doing business when ~like ~every action like the [00:09:00] first thing a user does when trying to find information leads to ~like ~one or more models being prompted.

Like we're in a world where there's just ~like ~so much more compute happening all the time.

Paul: ~like, ~you know how they say if you're not paying for a product, you are the product.

Paige: ~Right. ~Absolutely.

Paul: So if my electric space heater is costing me 25 a month just to turn on and like my Google searches are taking gosh knows ~how much, ~how much value am I worth? Wow. I'm a valuable guy. ~Yeah,~

Josh: So what you're saying is ~you're, ~if you Google more, you're more valuable as a person.

Paige: To Google you are absolutely.

Paul: yeah, I guess so. Whoa, Josh, that is like an infinite money glitch right there.

Josh: I don't know ~how to write uh,~

Emily: All right. I love that Paul. ~Uh, ~thank you for continuing to beat this job because I do actually think it's very important for everything. And it's great to talk about it in this space as well. ~Uh, ~Noel, what is your big takeaway from this year ~and~

Noel: ~let's see.~

Josh: ~way I can~

Noel: I've encountered a couple of Svelte kit apps in the wild this year. And I've realized there's Svelte kit apps cause I've gone in cause something's been broken and ~I've had to been, ~I've been debugging them. So ~my, maybe ~my hot take is ~those like ~Svelte is exciting and cool. And ~I've, ~I've done my Svelte kit, hello worlds, but I've had the same [00:10:00] problem where there's a lot of foot guns still.

I feel ins felt, so I don't know if I've got a hot take, but. It's like this interesting thing where ~I don't want, ~I don't want there to be this ~like ~bad taste in everyone's mouth where ~like, ~don't use felt, it'll be buggy. ~Uh, but you know, ~we'll see what happens.

Emily: We'll see if they,~ uh,~ fix any of that in ~the ~2025.

Noel: Yeah. ~I mean, maybe there's a lot, ~maybe this is ~like a, whatever, ~like a survivorship bias kind of thing where I'm just like, I'm probably using a lot of Svelte apps that I don't realize are. I'm just not checking them, but ~like, you know, ~I've seen a couple that's like, Oh, Oh.

Paige: ~Um,~

Noel: Rip.

Emily: ~it was enough that you like noticed it, but~

Noel: ~Yeah.~

Emily: ~all right. Uh, ~Josh, what is your big takeaway from this year?

Josh: ~You know, ~I spent most of this conversation scrolling back through my old posts, trying to figure out what were the big things. I feel like this past year was a lot of iteration, a lot of lower level enhancements,~ like, ~like we were talking about the remix router unification,~ um, ~just a lot of things getting better and especially with react 19 going stably.

I feel like I can't come away from 2024 with one single thing I am uniquely excited about other than stuff that's building for the next year, like Void Zero or React 19. ~So, ~question mark? A lot of things? I don't know.

Emily: [00:11:00] Yeah, it's interesting to see this year as ~kind of ~like a building year because you're right like ~I mean ~react 19 was a big Release but it did seem like everyone was doing like those incremental like making their stuff better So we'll see what happens in the next year ~Um, all right, ~let's get into ai which I know everyone wants to talk about ~um ~Ai is here to stay and we all know that. ~Uh ~There was tons and tons and tons of AI tools released this year. AI features, everything. ~Um, ~they've gotten better. ~Uh, ~they've gotten more useful for developers as well. They're not just creating AI tools for the sake of creating AI tools. ~So, um, ~what AI tool releases did you see this year that were promising that you found actually had value?

Paul: Oh, one chain of thought reasoning has value because I don't need to do the chaining.

Noel: ~Yeah. ~Yeah. It skips the like, copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste up. ~Yeah.~

Paul: So that's been good. ~Kind of ~like how ~like ~when cursor came out, I was like, great. Now I don't have to use the web app. So incremental improvement that does save me some brain [00:12:00] pain. Some carpal

tunnel. ~ ~

Paige: ~I was going to say,~ I think that it's pretty cool that GitHub Copilot now lets you choose which model you want to use for your reasoning. So you can say I want it to use OpenAI's chat GPT, I want it to use Claude, I want it to use Gemini. I think that's a pretty nice feature because ~I've. ~I've used Copilot plenty, and sometimes the responses that it gives me just don't help.

They don't fix the error, they don't actually do what I'm expecting it to do, and then I have to go to chat GPT and give it some context and paste in some code, and then it gives me the answer that I'm looking for. But having the option to ~kind of ~switch models and see if some are better than others at answering the questions that I have,~ um,~ I think is ~a nice, ~a nice option.

Josh: I gave a conference talk,~ uh, ~about,~ uh, ~The idea of using AI and other tools in conjunction with each other to catch each other's mistakes. I had prototyped that kind of tool, ~I don't know, last year, ~a year ago. And it was pretty reliable, whatever AI I used. The AI made terrible code, and then the linter and unit tests and [00:13:00] such caught it.

This year, the only AI I could get that, ~you know, Actually ~reliably made that code. ~Sorry, Google ~was Gemini. So I think that's a good indicator of part of the industry that most of them are a lot better now, but ~yeah, I agree it's, ~it's gotten more reliable across the board.

thing. I had to do a tricky shell script and ~they, ~it saved me time having to ask. Stack Overflow or Chatshipity,~ I, I, ~I actually had good results from it. I was impressed. It was something to do with nested folder execution based on the folder name.

Emily: ~Yeah. It's interesting seeing like, again, last year, it just seemed like everyone was making AI tools for the sake of doing it. And everyone's like, it's going to make your jobs easier. And I feel like this year came to fruition, which was really nice to see. Um,~

Paul: ~The job's easier piece, Emily? The job's easier piece or the coming to fruition piece? Because the job easier piece is questionable.~

Paige: ~Silence. Silence.~

Paul: ~vehicles, they just had more houses to deliver to. ~

Paige: ~Silence.~

Paul: ~vehicles, they just had more houses to deliver to. So,~

Emily: ~That's fair. That is fair. So, you know, balancing~

Paul: ~balance, yeah.~

Emily: ~with this actually makes my life a little easier. That's fair. Um, ~What are your lingering concerns about the integration of AI in your day to day coding or the ecosystem at large?

Paul: ~I feel like this is a great follow to that.~

Paige: ~I mean, ~copy paste is still probably one of the biggest things. Josh already touched on it. ~It's not, ~you cannot trust the code to just do what it does. You have to test it. You have to know what it's actually doing. Being able to explain or understand what the code is after it's generated is still critical.

Because when it goes down and you're expected to fix it or take responsibility [00:14:00] for it, it's not going to be the AI that gets blamed. It's going to be you that gets blamed and must fix it.

Josh: Yes. I'm so glad we're in agreement here. I was thrilled beyond overjoyed when there was a survey that came out a few months ago from Uplevel describing how, despite a lot of claims from AI vendors,~ uh, ~the increase in developer productivity is,~ uh,~ Negligible in many cases from AI tools, because although you're writing a lot more code, according to this one survey, you have a significantly increased, let's say 41 percent bug rates, and you end up backtracking or having to do a lot more research.

So ~I, ~I think ~in, ~in line with this year's spirit, we're ~kind of ~iterating more, we're discovering the hard way. ~You know, ~there, there are things much like when you're copying pasting from stack overflow, you really have to be careful with. And we're early enough in usage of these tools that it's very easy to accidentally not do those things.

Noel: I think it's a cool little like microcosm of the thing where in ~like, ~it's easier to write code than it is to ~like ~go in and modify code down the road or ~like ~edit something or debug something like that initial. ~You know, ~like that initial [00:15:00] pass doing the thing, it feels like there's more cognitive overhead there, but I think ~that ~that's in almost all cases, ~like ~not ~like ~paging stuff ~in, ~in order to make a change later is so much more difficult than ~like that initial, ~that initial, ~right.~

~Uh, so I think that there's like, I don't know.~ It's an interesting thought, like I think co pilots ~kind of ~augmentation as one types and like ~kind of ~filling things out like in, in line is a really nice. ~Like~ productivity boost. So I don't know, I bet it's giving me 10 or 15 percent or something, but yeah, it's not, it's nothing like wild because any code I generate, I've got to go in and edit it, and then I find myself spending just as much time like editing and debugging and figuring out why this generated code is wrong.

~I'm just, ~I should have just written 

Paul: code, like you are supervising other programmers and ~you know, ~you're reviewing their code and they're submitting said simpler code. The worst thing is when you're reviewing a PR from like a more junior developer and you're like, so why is this function here?

And they go,~ well, like, ~I thought I might need it and ~like ~clawed through it in there and you're like, it shouldn't, if you're not using it, don't put it in there. Like you don't think people are going to use it. There's less human investment in [00:16:00] every token you put on paper. And ~that lack of ~that disconnect between your investment, which prior to this was rooted in just pain and trying to get it right.

Now it's less so. ~And if you, ~if you haven't been doing it for a while, I can see there being misalignments. I'm already seeing it when I'm reviewing code from folks. You want to make sure you're precise and you're intentful about what you're putting on paper. That's ~like ~one of the biggest downsides that has been wasting time for me personally.

Emily: Yeah. A different world, but similarly as a writer, it's like people saying ~like, ~Oh, you can use chat GPT to write all your posts and all this stuff. And I don't know how many times I have gotten responses back. I'm like, this makes no sense. This doesn't feel like a human wrote it. ~I ~it's. ~Has ~riddled with errors.

And so all the web devs who keep asking me, am I going to lose my job to AI? ~I know you're not, ~you're not going to. ~So also please excuse my Husky behind me doing something weird.~

Paul: I feel like the closest representation of ~like, ~what would it be like if AI wrote it is ~like, ~if you go watch The Room by Tommy Wiseau, like ~that, ~that's where you're going to end up with on the other side of the stick. Have you guys seen this movie? Yeah, like that. [00:17:00] Yeah.

Josh: Oh, hi.

Emily: ~All right. Uh, to keep on pace, uh, ~any closing thoughts on AI?

Josh: Actually, I have one. A lot of university or college or boot camp students. ~Um, ~I've interacted with, actively use AI, and many of them have expressed a hesitation to mention this. I think that a lot of folks who are newer in industry and using it see this weighted negativity or more nuanced opinion coming from folks who are jaded, like apparently all of us, ~and, ~and see it perhaps even as a bias.

~I, ~I don't know. I worry,~ I, I, ~I'm a big AI skeptic, but I don't want to come across as universally negative. There are a lot of positives to it. And just because we're learning things the hard way doesn't mean there aren't, ~you know, ~a lot of benefits to come from those positives. ~So, um, I'm, ~I'm excited to see this AI stuff get better over time.

And I'm excited that people are already finding use from it. Much like overflow was incredibly helpful and revolutionary in its time.

Emily: ~Okay. I thought someone saying something, ~What a great way to end that discussion. ~Um, ~let's be positive about AI going into ~the~ 2025. ~Uh, ~let's move on to react. ~Uh, ~react 19 was released this year [00:18:00] and recently went stable. We saw the introduction of RSCs, including server components and actions, which ~as It ~acts as a foundation for React 19's new features, new DOM static APIs, ~a slew of new hooks, ~a slew of new hooks, and so, so much more,~ um, while RS, and excuse me, uh, ~so let's discuss,~ uh,~ let's start with RSCs,~ uh,~ while they were originally introduced back in 2020,~ uh,~ how has their impact been on the world of web dev this year, especially now that they are stable?

Paul: Performance. At least for me personally, and the one or two sidebar teams I've been working with, it's,~ uh,~ there's less issues downstream. I have to look out on the client. Because the server is just typically faster, and you can do things with better optimization.

Paige: mean, there's more frameworks that are starting to support them, which is great. You don't just have to go with Next. js anymore. ~More, ~you can use remix.~ You can use, I mean, there's a, ~there's a whole slew of them that have started supporting it or are supporting it. ~Um, ~so ~I mean, it's, ~it's slow going, I think, cause people still don't have the best ideas of how to use it or ~there, ~there just aren't a lot of best practices, but there's more and more [00:19:00] opportunities to try it, which is great, ~more, ~more different ways to get your toes wet and see what it's about.

Emily: ~Uh, ~with RSCs,~ uh,~ we'll just talk briefly. ~Uh, ~what do you think is the future of RSCs? How do you think they're going to evolve? ~And, um, I wrote react running on the server. It looks like, I don't think that's correct. Uh, uh, ~do you think that we're going to continue to move toward a server side? Type of web dev or do you think the pendulum might swing back to client side?

I know some people this year were just like we're going back to client and I feel like that happens every year, but what are your thoughts?

Josh: I think one of the big impacts of RSEs is. That apps no longer have to choose a side so actively on that pendulum that instead of actively prioritizing the server or the client, you can optimize parts of your apps for the places that they run on best. Like Paul was saying, ~you know, ~if you've got stuff that's best on the server, network, database access, and so on, put it there.

Great. If you've got hyper attractive client stuff that doesn't need to be in the initial HTML, great. Put it there. So I don't know, maybe it turns the pendulum into a scale or some other clever. I don't know, metaphor [00:20:00] that I can't think of right now, but ~it may, I think at the very least, ~it makes it more seamless for teams that they can author their code ~more, ~more intent based the way that they wants to convey.

This should run in a certain way. And then the framework helps them maturity a little more. ~And, uh, that's, uh, oh, sorry. temperature is going to drop. So~

Emily: ~Let's get to React Compiler.~

Josh: ~air out of~

Emily: React also introduced their React compiler this year and ~recently, ~recently released the beta, an attempt to fix their memorization issue, and,~ uh,~ Theo Brown,~ uh,~ who's a content creator, and

Josh: ~HVAC. So I~

Emily: I think he created Ping,~ um, ~Noted that it's a huge deal that it's a build time only tool, which is not what react has historically focused on.

So what do you think of the introduction of the react compiler? What are your thoughts on how it will influence not only react development, but JavaScript development as a whole?

Paige: I'm excited about it. React compiler. It takes away having to think about React memoization and books like UseMemo and UseCallback and offers better granularity even than those hooks could in terms of caching stuff that doesn't need to be [00:21:00] refetched. So anything that I have to think about it less, but it's going to optimize my code and make my code base potentially faster.

~Uh, ~without me having to do much, I think is a great step forward. So ~I'm, ~I'm excited that React compiler is out and,~ uh,~ we can now try it out and ~see, ~see how it does. Okay.

Noel: And it'll be like one of those things that's in your build pipeline that you don't even think about. It just ~like ~happens when you execute your build command.

~Um, ~and it's like, Oh, ~well ~it was just like pre installed and whatever the starter, ~you know, whatever, ~whatever framework I'm using uses. ~Um, ~I'd hope anyway. ~I kind of, ~I ~kind of ~hope this isn't like another step that devs stumbling and have to figure out like, Oh, do I need another ~like ~build compile step here that I need to worry about?

~Um, ~but we'll see.

Paul: I feel the same way, Noel. ~Like, ~like Paigey mentions, it's one thing you don't need to think about. That'd be great. Even if we get there, the DevOps guy is going to be thinking about it. Or whoever's managing the CI, CD, ~you know, ~somebody [00:22:00] has to think about it. But Noel, ~if we get, ~if we work towards Noel's world, That'd be great.

I've, I haven't used the beta, so I have no idea how it works, but as long as it doesn't increase extra cruft, cause as somebody who's not always in the SRE world, but has to still fix it when it breaks, that is like my worst nightmare. I'm like, great. Another CI CD thing that it could ~like ~break, like so excited.

But at the same time, I feel the same way you do page. ~Like ~if I don't have to think about in client react code, like that is the North star.

Josh: I think that React compiler would not likely be successful without what we're describing of it's just done for you. So in a sense, it ~kind of ~relies on all these frameworks like Next. js being popular, widely used that we're not just handwriting webpack configs

Noel: ~Yeah, ~yeah,

Paige: Oh, God, I don't want to go back there.

Emily: ~All right. Uh, before we move on to our next topic, does anyone want to talk about react router and remix? I know we kind of touched on it with Noel already, but if we're good to move on. Cool. Okay. Uh, all right.~ Next, let's talk about V6 ~and Void~~,~ more importantly, Void0. ~Um, ~so Evan Yu was very hard at work this year, per usual, ~but like, actually this year it seems like.~

~Uh, ~he released Void. Both v6 and void zero, an open source unified tool chain built to address JavaScript fragmentation, incompatibilities, and inefficiencies. ~Um, ~[00:23:00] which we also had an episode with Evan, you talking about void zero. So be sure to check that out. ~Um, ~so with the release of void zero, Evan is utilizing tools like OXC and roll down to provide fast parsing, linting, bundling.

All that good stuff. ~Um, ~the plan for 2025 is to migrate V to roll down an OXC. ~Um, ~let me just ask, what are your initial reactions to void zero and how do you think it's going to make waves in the ecosystem?

Noel: ~I, I, I can start. Um, I guess I'm not, ~I don't know if it's gonna make a ton of waves. I feel like a lot of people ~kind of ~saw this coming. Come out of Evan and like all the work he's been doing and been like this is it's probably time for this Like I think he's it's ~like ~been doing a ton of work and like having ~kind of ~like an organizational You know like an organization with a North Star that's like trying to do something is probably it's like overdue yeah, it'll be exciting to see ~kind of ~where, how successful that ends up being and like reducing complexity,~ uh,~ for the web.

Cause that kind of feels like the underlying goal here. ~Um, ~and yeah, [00:24:00] I'm like, I'm excited. I'm optimistic.

Paul: To me, it feels like what happened with trains in the U. S. a little bit, where ~like, ~there were all these different railroads that were going this way and that way. Trains were crashing into each other. Then we got a little bit better because we developed ~like, ~tooling around our trains and signals and stuff.

And they started crashing less. And the government was like, alright, hold up, we own the trains now. And it's going to work like this. And then everything ~be like, ~started to tick a bit smoother. You got cross continental lines, no more accidents unless somebody was doing something weird. But at the end of the day, ~like ~you're not going to take the Acela to California.

~You're not gonna, you're ~maybe ~the, ~the East coast corridor works, but ~like ~we have trains that work way better than they did back in the day, but they don't work for everybody. So it's ~kind of like, ~will it work for everybody? We want that.

Paige: ~Um,~

Paul: ~in history proven to work.~

So similar to Noel, I feel excited. It'd be great to see if this starts to work towards that North star. Cause it feels like we need that in the ecosystem. I just hope we end up with both usable freight trains as we have now and passenger trains. That would be great. I hope that because if you look at ~the, ~the void zero thing, they are like, yeah, it's going to be open source,~ yada,~ yada [00:25:00] with the build for enterprise folks.

~Like ~that is the, how they're going to make money. I just hope we still have passenger transport so we can use it too.

Josh: And how does nuclear power fit in, historically speaking?

Paul: They should be electric trains.

Emily: Listen, the rest of the world does it, so why not us?

Noel: ~If we can continue talking about trains, the like, do you guys know time zones as we know them were like a product of the railroad and they like weighed in to make this happen because before that, like time was local, like across the country and the railroad is like, we need to coordinate this and make it standard.~

~So like time zones, as we know them are a us rail byproduct.~

Emily: ~It's crazy. Do you know why we~

Josh: ~that's really, I did not know that. That's so~

Noel: ~Yeah.~

Emily: ~I have one more train fact. The reason why we don't have a train infrastructure like we used to is because the Koch brothers are obviously very invested in oil, so they started lobbying against the railroads and more for cars, and that is now why we don't have the infrastructure we once have.~

~, ~Moving on to void zero. ~Um, so yeah,~ so we're hoping that it's going to be usable for everyone. I think like some people had some reservations with the VC money coming in as well, which I know we talked about. A little while ago. ~Um, ~but do you think the ecosystem, you ~kind of ~already covered that the ecosystem is ready for a tool like this. How do you think this needs to be implemented or maintained, or what do you think needs to happen to make this like the first step to giving this to everyone and unifying JavaScript?

Paul: the right VCs. I feel like the right VCs make or break a company every single time. And if you look at some of the VCs Evans grouping with right now, some of them definitely have a green flag. They got the Prisma guy, the Prisma guys, an investor. So just keep the [00:26:00] right VCs in the room. Don't fuck on your company is probably step zero.

Josh: Not to be confused with void zero. Yeah, ~I don't, I,~ I'm not worried honestly. ~The, ~the team, Evan in particular, but also,~ uh, ~the folks on the web, they're all great. ~I mean, ~these are people who've committed a lot of personal time and effort to stuff in the JavaScript community. So Step zero agree. They, they've got a really good set of backing.

They've got a really good set of experiences. Plus they're not the only players in the space. It's not like there's some monopoly. You know, the John Oliver train situation, by the way, great episode from John Oliver on trains.

Emily: Yes.

Josh: it's not a monopoly. ~Uh, ~I don't think we're at risk of, ~you know, ~VEET becoming enterprise focused, and then you having to spend 5 a month on builds as a result.

There, there are other players like Biome and OX. I'm sorry, OX is M. There are other players like Biome separately from OX,~ uh, who are, ~who are also in this space. So I think there is still good, healthy competition. Like earlier stage trains in the United States.

Emily: There we go. It's full circle. ~This is great guys. Um, let's, uh, touch on V6 quickly. Uh, ~with the release of V6, the team released the experimental environment. API. I know Paige,~ you were recently on, what was the podcast you're on? The other~

Paige: ~Oh, yeah. Front end fire. We talked about~

Emily: ~talking about it.~

Paige: ~API.~

Emily: You're [00:27:00] very excited about it, right?

Paige: Yeah, I am. ~I mean, it's, ~it's a very cool thing because what it's doing is ~it's, ~it's basically more for framework authors than for our usual, just, ~you know, ~day to day developers like myself and probably like a lot of people who are listening, but it makes it easier for them to write and ~kind of ~construct,~ um,~ environments with Vite that tell them ~like how ~how their environment wants to run.

~Um, ~so now you can use Bun, you can use Deno, you can use Edge runtimes with Vite. You'll be able to do special runtimes like React Native and Electron. Basically, it just opens up a whole new piece of the JavaScript ecosystem that Vite previously wasn't able to support. And now they basically, it can support it.

So it's really cool in that regard that it'll make a lot of, make a lot more people,~ uh,~ able to get into Vite who ~may, ~may have wanted to use it before, but just couldn't because of the runtime that they were locked into or had chosen to use. ~Um,~

[00:28:00] Um, 

Emily: things evolve?

Josh: I think ~that it, ~that we're seeing it more and more because we're focusing more and more on frameworks and tools. But if you look back, whatever, five, 10 years ago, we were having similar discussions about how, wow, Babel's really making it easy to use whatever modern JavaScript you want, ~you know, ~any application can package webpack.

I hope this continues.

Emily: ~Oh yeah. All right. Um, ~any other thoughts on VEET going into the new year? ~Um, ~any expectations from Evan you in the new year?

Paul: I hope he keeps cooking.

Paige: I mean, VEET's on a track. And it doesn't look like it's going to slow down anytime soon.

Emily: ~absolutely. Absolutely. ~All right. ~Uh, let's go. Okay. So what we have left is we'll get your hot takes at the end, but if we want to do one more, we have Dino. WASM, we'll skip WASM, uh, CSS and the JavaScript trademark thing with Oracle. Any specific~

Paul: ~Or I don't even know what that is. But the fact that Oracle's involved is so I'm not even surprised. That is so funny.~

Paige: ~let's~

Emily: ~to talk about it?~

Josh: ~Let's~

Emily: ~talk about it. Okay. So,~

Paul: ~always come to hit you in the head? Like, why are they so good at that?~

Paige: ~Because they own it.~

Paul: ~Oh, I~

Emily: ~they own it.~

Paul: ~a software company. They're just a bunch of lawyers.~

~Sorry. I forgot.~

Emily: ~Yeah. Yeah.~

Josh: ~Way to get the~

Emily: ~going off the rails. I love this. We're going to get sued by Oracle. It's fine. Uh, all right. ~So one of the big things that happened at the end of this year,~ um,~ actually recently within the past couple of weeks,~ um, Ryan doll, uh, creator of Dino, uh, and Did Ryan create Node?~

Paige: ~Yes. Yeah.~

Emily: ~Okay. ~Ryan Dahl, creator of Deno and Node. ~What ~formally filed a petition with the U S patent office,~ um, ~to [00:29:00] cancel the trademark Oracle currently holds for JavaScript, ~uh, ~Oracle has owned that,~ uh, ~trademark for years and years and years. ~Um,~ they recently refiled for it. ~Um,~ and actually ~cited that~ cited node in their refiling as evidence of why they own it ~or~ will it have resources in the links.

~Um,~ but, ~uh, ~Ryan was like, no,~ this, ~this is already used by everyone everywhere. There's no need for Oracle to hold this patent. So wrote an open letter to Oracle being like, Hey, give up the patent. ~Um, 15, 000 people have signed the petition that Ryan released. Um, the creator of JavaScript signed it. Um, Brendan Eich, Eich, Eich, uh, signed the open letter. Sorry, now I'm just repeating myself. Apologies. Um, Elizabeth, I'm restarting this one. Uh,~ 15, 000 people have already signed the petition, even the creator of JavaScript.

~Um, ~Demanding that Oracle make it free for everyone. So with this, and I believe Ryan has said that he will sue Oracle if they don't release the patent, or they will at least do something with the U S patent office. ~Um, ~do you think this petition will go anywhere? And do you think Oracle will give up JavaScript?

Paige: I certainly hope so, because I don't think that Oracle has a legal foot to stand on with this. They bought [00:30:00] the JavaScript trademark when they acquired Sun Microsystems years and years and years ago, and they have done absolutely nothing with it since then, except block people from using the JavaScript name in anything.

That's why we have JSConf, that's why we have all these things that should be JavaScript but aren't. Because Oracle owns the trademark and will come after you with its team of lawyers,~ uh,~ without, ~if you, ~if you try and use it. ~So, ~they have not done a thing with it. They absolutely should not be able to own that trademark any longer.

They should, yeah. I mean, Oracle has no products that run with JavaScript. ~So, ~yeah. ~What, ~what are they doing with it?

Paul: Common sense runs fast, but Oracle runs faster. I don't know what to say.

Josh: ~what is that?~

Paul: ~Josh?~

Josh: What is that? Did you just read that off of their marketing website

Paul: ~No, no, ~no, I just read that out of my brain.

Josh: ~Oh, okay. That sounds~

Emily: ~love these little quips.~

Josh: ~Yeah, no, I,~ I'm definitely in support of the petition. Fun fact, I am one of exactly, at time of recording, two people in the signatories of the 15, 000 plus who have the sparkle emoji in their name.

Shout out [00:31:00] to everyone. Arena for being the other sparkle emoji person. ~Um, ~I don't know. I don't see this really changing all that many things, ~you know, the, ~the JavaScript language direction, pardon me, ECMAScript, it doesn't depend on the name. It will be nicer though. I think it would be cleaner and easier for people to understand and probably reduce some overhead PC 39 of having to work around this ridiculous.

That being said, it's been called ECMAScript for years, so there's going to be paperwork and overhead no matter what happens out of this, which will take months and months, likely years to resolve anyway. So who knows?

Emily: What's really interesting is page. Like you said, obviously, like why are all our conferences are JS, this JS, that I didn't even think about that,

Paul: me neither. That's super interesting.

Paige: Yeah, we've had to come up with all these weird ECMAScripts all this stuff because Oracle has just been sitting on the JavaScript name forever and won't let anyone use it for anything that's actually useful and related to JavaScript. And there's no reason for that. ~It's, it's common, ~it's so common ~in, ~in web development today that [00:32:00] it should just be out there for public usage and in the public domain.

It's stupid for Oracle to keep holding on to it.

Emily: ~Do you think that if they do really,~ I know Josh, you ~kind of ~said it won't really change much, but do you think if they did release,~ uh, ~the patent or the trademark. ~Um, ~would anything else significant change? Do you think that it would, I don't know, create an environment of more open source and ~like, ~I don't know, capitalism will be capitalism, so probably not.

But do you think this will change anything?

Paige: ~I mean, ~who knows for sure ~it might, ~it might just garner Oracle some goodwill, which it could always use as people are not typically big fans of it. ~So, ~it'd just be some good PR for them.

Emily: All right. ~Uh, anything,~ any other thoughts on this one?

Paul: ~Good, ~good PR is interesting. ~Um,~

Emily: Hope you get a

Paul: They have a long road to climb.

Josh: This is a great PR piece for Deno. The Deno company is probably benefiting more than anyone else with this. Not that they're doing anything wrong.

Emily: ~No, but absolutely.~

Paige: It's very much a David and Goliath sort of situation, where tiny little Dino is taking on Big Bad Oracle.

Emily: Which that is a fight I would like to see and obviously have [00:33:00] Dino win. So fingers crossed. This is what happens. ~Um, all right. Uh, ~we're coming up on time. So before we close out, I want to get all of your predictions for 2025. ~Um, ~Paige. What is your prediction for 2025?

Paige: So I'm going to skip the AI prediction because that's ~kind of ~an obvious one that I think everybody ~is, ~knows is coming, whether we want it to or not. ~Um, ~I'm going to go with more no code and low code development platforms, because that seems to be a thing that is really popping up lately. ~Um, ~it was something that ~is ~been talked about by some of the larger tech companies as well, like GitHub, that they want to help non developers and non professional coders.

To ~build, ~build stuff. And, ~you know, ~it's through ~language, ~large language model interfaces. It's through just really simple,~ uh,~ simple platforms. But I think that there's going to be a lot more proliferation of that. So that people who are not necessarily technical can still build dashboards and, ~you know, ~cool projects or [00:34:00] what have you,~ um,~ without needing to know all the coding that we know.

And of course. We as developers are going to help make those platforms possible, but yeah, I think ~it's going to be, ~it's going to be interesting to see ~who, ~who we need to actually build websites in the next year and if it can be done by people who may not be professional developers for a living.

Emily: Paul, what is your prediction for 2025?

Paul: That I don't know when in history it happened But like when doctors stopped becoming like you could find a generalist anywhere and it's just like much easier to find a specialist Nowadays, it seems like everybody's a specialist ~Um, ~I used to think the AI thing was gonna ~like ~allow more generalists to ~like ~reach further But I just am weirdly seeing like it's more like specialists who are like really good at something can now Run way further with their hyper specialized skills And I have this, I, yeah, just completely switched.

I used to think like more generalizing your skills, like doing more things because of AI, I'm changing that tune. I think it's going to be like people who [00:35:00] are specialists are going to be enabled to do what they're great at better. The same thing that happened to doctors.

of this because I love being a jack of all trades.

Noel: just like a, on the user consumer side. ~Um, ~but I'm hoping that we get to the point. And I think it's happened a lot this year already, but I ~kind of ~hope we finally close this loop on like voice assistant stuff, really being good enough. Like I want to be able to drive around and ~like ~talk to my car and ask questions and ~like ~learn something interactively, ~like.~

~You know, ~while I'm doing something else,~ like,~ and I feel like we're getting close and once we're there, it's going to be great. ~Uh, you know, ~like ~the, ~the big guys are already ~kind of ~advertising this already, but I've not, I haven't seen it like totally good enough ~to, ~to ~kind of ~fool me yet. But. ~I think, ~I think we'll hit it this year.

Emily: ~That's really funny because one of my pet peeves personally is when I'm in a social media app or Spotify or whatever, and they have the talk to~

Noel: ~Oh, I hate doing it when I don't need to, like when I'm on, on, I'm on a, in a phone tree.~

Emily: ~don't make that to~

Noel: ~yeah, yeah, no, I agree. there are situations where I do want it and I'm just like, I wish I could like multitask when my hands are full. Just like, you know, do this thing.~

Emily: ~I'm here for like what you're saying, like better built, more intuitive. Like that's what I want. Yes.~

Josh: ~faster.~

Emily: ~Well, with AI and LLMs, that's going to get here before you know it. Uh, ~Josh, what is your prediction for 2025?

Josh: I think things will be more stable. I think that with a lot of releases targeted to simplifying and cleaning things up. That like the ones we talked about with react router and remix and react [00:36:00] 19. And then also with AI tools getting better and void zero, I think we're going to see a lot of stacks that are just easier to handle.

~Like ~if you're a new developer, you want to make a new react app. That's full stack. It will not take you three days of documentation, reading and hair pulling. It'll just be, ~you know, the, ~the blessed path works and you're happy with it. ~Yet again.~

Noel: I hope so. ~We need, ~we need that. Yeah. We're overdue. ~Yeah,~

Emily: What is shining hope going into the new year?

Paige: Silence. ~Silence.~

Emily: I'm going to close out. Thank you all of you for coming and doing this again. I always enjoy the end of the year podcast. ~Um, ~appreciate all of you for hosting throughout the year. It has been great to get to know ~each one, ~every one of you.

I'm going to do the sappy end of the year stuff. ~Um, ~but it has been a pleasure working with all of you. ~Um, ~let's go around and I'll ask each one of you where people can find you. Paige, where can people find you?

Paige: ~so, uh, ~I host the front end fire podcast every week with my friends, Jack and T. J. So you can find us on all of your podcast players. ~Um, ~and then we talk about web dev news. So similar to this,~ um,~ [00:37:00] and then you can also find me at page knee drink house. com. ~Okay.~

Emily: we'll definitely put all of these ~links in the comment, not comments, sorry. ~Links in the description, so everyone will have access. ~Uh, ~Noel, where can people find you?

Noel: ~uh, ~yeah, if I'm here,~ um,~ blue sky is the only social I'm on, but I'm at nol. minc. how on blue sky.

Emily: Awesome. And Josh, where can people find you?

Josh: I'm Joshua K. Goldberg on basically everything moving from X to blue sky. Hallelujah. I'm also on this podcast and software engineering daily and an organizer of SquiggleConf. So hit me up in any of those things.

Emily: Hell yeah. Alright, everyone for joining me today. Thanks for closing out the year with us,~ uh,~ and we will see you in 2025. Thanks everyone.

Noel: ~Thanks.~