0:00

What up nerds? I'm Jared

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and this is Change

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Log News. For the

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week of Monday, March

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3rd, 2025. Remember Skype?

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Microsoft recently announced on

0:14

X that starting in

0:16

May of this year,

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it's going by by.

0:21

As early days podcasters,

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we had a love-hate

0:25

relationship with the OG

0:28

video calling platform, especially

0:30

after Microsoft took it

0:32

over. Skype hasn't been

0:35

relevant for years, but it's still

0:37

a bit sad to see it go.

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I don't miss the software, but I'll

0:41

always have a soft spot in

0:44

my heart for its classic

0:46

incoming call sound. Okay, let's

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get into the news. JavaScript

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fatigue strikes back. Alan Pike

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returned to the JavaScript ecosystem

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after a 10-year hiatus. A

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lot has improved in the

0:58

interim, but he found one

1:00

constant. Quote, these changes have each

1:03

boosted the ecosystem in its own

1:05

way, and each has fueled one

1:07

dynamic that has not changed. Choosing

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the right JavaScript framework is hard,

1:11

man. In quote, Alan thinks through

1:14

some framework choosing decisions, then ends

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his post on an upbeat, quote,

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I think though, and this may

1:20

just be my innate optimism, that

1:22

the situation has improved a lot,

1:24

and now that the JavaScript ecosystem

1:27

is building frameworks that can share

1:29

code between the client and server,

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but keep most of it from being

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sent to the browser, the next 10

1:35

years of evolution should be less

1:38

disruptive than the last. I

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hope you're right. The early

1:42

days of Linux. Lars Wozenius

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was there at the birth

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of Linux, having met Linus

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Torvalds at the University of

1:50

Helsinki in 1988. In this

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2023 contribution to lwn.net, Lars

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tells the story from his

1:56

perspective. It all started with

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a typo. Quote. the

2:00

end of that first year, we

2:02

had gotten access to a Unix

2:05

server, and I accidentally found Usenet,

2:07

the discussion system, by mistyping RM

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as RN, the Usenet reader. I

2:11

told Linus about it, and we

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spent way too much time exploring

2:15

this." End quote. There's lots of

2:17

fun gems shared here, like this

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one that shows Linus' humble aims.

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Quote, in August 1991, Linus mentioned

2:24

his new colonel in public for

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the first time, Indy. Comp.os.minx News

2:29

Group. This included the phrase, I'm

2:31

doing a free operating system, just

2:33

a hobby, won't be big and

2:35

professional, like new. End quote. For

2:37

many of us, Linux has always

2:39

been a core piece of our

2:41

computing lives. It's easy to forget

2:43

that it hasn't always existed, or

2:45

that its dominance was at one

2:47

time unsure, even unlikely. Stories like

2:49

this one. told by the people

2:51

who live them always remind me

2:53

of this great insight from Steve

2:55

Jobs who said everything around you

2:57

that you call life was made

2:59

up by people that were no

3:01

smarter than you and you can change

3:03

it you can influence it you can

3:06

you can build your own things that

3:08

other people can use and the minute

3:10

that you understand that you can poke

3:13

life and actually something will you know

3:15

if you push in something will pop

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out the other side that you can

3:20

you can change it you can mold

3:22

it. That's maybe the most important thing,

3:24

is to shake off this erroneous notion

3:27

that life is there and you're just

3:29

going to live in it, versus

3:31

embrace it, change it, improve it,

3:33

make your mark upon it. I

3:35

think that's very important. And however

3:38

you learn that, once you learn

3:40

it, you'll want to change life

3:42

and make it better, because it's

3:44

kind of messed up in a

3:47

lot of ways. Once you learn

3:49

that, you'll never be the same

3:51

again. If it is worth keeping,

3:53

save it in Markdown. Piotr McDowell

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says that as a data scientist,

3:58

he turns things into Vecta. But

4:00

as an unabashed archivist, he turns

4:02

things into Markdown. Quote, Markdown files

4:05

are essentially plain text with some

4:07

extra syntax for common elements like

4:10

sections, bullet points, and links. The

4:12

format deliberately avoids precise control over

4:14

display details like font selection. Following

4:17

the rule of least power, I

4:19

consider this limitation a feature. For

4:22

contrast, consider PDF. A format so

4:24

powerful that it can run doom.

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He goes on to explain how he

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does it. Tools that help. and what

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he liked to see exist in the

4:32

world to make this all easier and

4:34

better. But the main point is the

4:37

main point. When it comes to things

4:39

that have to last, plain text is

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great and marked down is a great

4:43

format for your plain text. It's now

4:45

time for a sponsored news. Next edit

4:47

understands the ripple effect of code changes.

4:49

The newest feature from our friends at

4:51

augment code is one I've won in

4:53

my entire career. Every Dev out there

4:56

knows the pain that follows updating a field

4:58

in one file, and now you're hunting through

5:00

all the various places in the code base

5:02

to update sequel queries, tests, and type definitions,

5:05

if you're into that kind of thing. What

5:07

should be a simple change becomes

5:09

a tedious game of find and

5:11

replace. Next edit is their solution

5:13

to this problem. It extends beyond

5:15

the cursor by understanding the ripple

5:17

effects of your changes and automatically

5:19

suggesting necessary updates across your entire

5:21

workspace. While you code is scanning

5:24

your code base, identifying dependent files,

5:26

and generating contextual suggestions that keep

5:28

your code in sync. And guess

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what? Next edit is available today

5:32

to everyone using Visual Studio Code.

5:34

All you have to do is

5:36

pull the latest update to the

5:38

extension and next edit will be there

5:40

to help you get more done. Curious

5:43

how Next Edit does what it does?

5:45

The augment code team behind it also

5:47

shared their research behind the feature. Cool

5:49

stuff. Links in the newsletter. And thank

5:52

you to augment code for sponsoring Change

5:54

Log News. Get is getting

5:56

gamified. Get Sim Creator, Jacob

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Stopak, is back. with an

6:00

even more ambitious project than

6:02

his original tool to visualize

6:04

get commands. This time he's

6:06

putting everyone's favorite but difficult

6:08

to conceptualize. Distributive version control

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system into a Minecrafty and

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voxel world so you can

6:14

explore a repose history in

6:16

3D. The linked announcement post

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tells the entire Devland's journey,

6:20

including the 2,600 bucks Jacob

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dropped on a domain he

6:24

later realized he couldn't use.

6:26

Ouch. Functions and CSS. Did

6:29

you know CSS is close to

6:31

getting first class function support? You

6:33

can use them today in Chrome

6:35

Canary behind an experimental flag.

6:37

And hopefully in other browsers

6:39

soon. Where to turn for a nice

6:42

rundown? CSS tricks, of course. Quote, arguments,

6:44

return values? That's worse bit my coffee

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out for. I had to learn more

6:48

about them and luckily the spec is

6:51

clearly written, which you can find right

6:53

here, linked in the newsletter. Juan Diego

6:55

Rodriguez does a great job laying out

6:57

all the details on how they work,

7:00

such as they can have type checking,

7:02

they can have list arguments, they cannot

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return early, etc. and imagining cool use

7:06

cases for them. He thinks the future

7:08

is bright. Quote, there will be a

7:11

time when our cyborg children ask us

7:13

from their education pods. Is it true

7:15

you guys didn't have functions in

7:17

CSS? And we'll answer them. No,

7:19

Zeta 5, Lumina, trademark. We didn't. While

7:21

shedding a shedding a tear. and

7:24

that will blow their zetapentium gen

7:26

31 brain chips. That's the news

7:28

for now, but also scan this

7:30

week's companion Change Log newsletter for

7:33

even more links worth clicking on,

7:35

including Ludic's guide to getting software

7:37

engineering jobs. Open source is where

7:39

dreams go to die. Begrudgingly, choosing

7:42

CBOR over message pack, and the

7:44

new feature I'm testing out called

7:46

the Developers Dictionary. If you don't

7:48

subscribe to the newsletter, fix that

7:50

bug at change log.com/news. Last

7:52

week on the pod, Adam

7:55

spoke with Anoraguel from Render,

7:57

and we both Kaizened with

7:59

Gerhard Las. scroll back in your

8:01

feed for those awesome convos and

8:03

stay tuned for some upcoming bangers.

8:06

Redis creator Salvatore San Felipo aka

8:08

anti-res on Wednesday and we play

8:10

friendly feud with our JS Party

8:12

peoples on Friday. Have a great

8:15

week leave us a five-star review

8:17

if you dig the show and

8:19

I'll talk to you again real

8:22

soon.