A Tasty Treats NEWSLETTER for Web Developers

Issue #37:

ByteDance just launched their own AI code editor called Trae, and it's giving Cursor a run for its money (~~totally not because they forked VS Code or anything~~)
A spicy take twofer on API design – should your frontend be the boss of your backend?
Plus: A fresh batch of CS papers that'll make you sound smart in meetings

ByteDance Launches a Cursor Competitor

selected by WES

TikTok just forked VS Code?!

ByteDance launched Trae - an AI code editor meant to compete with Cursor, Copilot and Windsurf.

Wes gave it a shot and it's very close to Cursor - especially the Agent mode. Video Here

Computer Science Papers Every Developer Should Read

CJ'S LINK

Deepen your knowledge by reading foundational papers in computer science. The article provides a guide and on ramp if you’ve never read a research paper before.

CSS ATTR getting an upgrade

FROM: wes TO: YOU

Have you ever wanted to access HTML attributes in CSS? Looks like we’re about to get that. Una from Chrome team details a really neat use case.

Things People Get Wrong About Electron

HAND-SELECTED BY CJ

This article clears up many criticisms and misconceptions people have about Electron.

ArkType: A new TypeScript Data Validator

wes'S LINK

ArkType is a runtime validation library that can infer TypeScript definitions 1:1 and reuse them as highly-optimized validators for your data.

Introduction to WebAssembly

cj'S LINK

What is wasm anyway? This article breaks it down.

All Hail The Algorithm

Some good stuff™ we posted this week

The Feed

New episodes 2×/week + other video content sprinkled in!

Windsurf forked VS Code to compete with Cursor. Talking the future of AI + Coding

Node + TypeScript in 2025

The Secret To Inbox Zero and Conquering Your Email

don't gitignore your lock files!

SHAMELESS PLUG

Building a strong testing culture doesn’t have to be painful. Join Chetan Patil & Tom Hu as they go over how they made testing part of their team’s DNA.

RSVP

Brotzky

@brotzky_

Another hot take:

Your frontend should dictate your API not the backend.

If you backend engineers are defining your API response data you're gonna have a bad time. https://twitter.com/emilwidlund/status/1878581523441750298

emil

@emilwidlund

hot take - When building an API - never start with the systems architecture. Start by designing the ideal syntax, and work your way backwards. DX and consumer ergonomics is the most important thing when it comes to API, library & frameworks design.

12:16 PM • Jan 13, 2025

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Some teams build back-end APIs first, Brotzky argues your front-end should dictate your back-end

Adam Wathan

@adamwathan

The whole HTML/CSS "separation of concerns" thing is built on this completely false premise that you would ever be able to redesign a website by just editing a CSS file.

Good luck turning the site on the left into the site on the right without changing the HTML.