Front-End Fire

jQuery is the JavaScript library that just won’t quit. 20 years after its inception the team released jQuery 4.0.0, and it brings some notable modernizations including removed support for IE 10, a migration to ES modules, and support for Trusted Types. 
Node.js creator Ryan Dahl declared earlier this week that “the era of humans writing code is over”, and considering how good AI coding agents have gotten lately, he’s probably not wrong. 
Cloudflare also announces it has acquired popular JavaScript framework Astro. Cloudflare has been a good steward to other OSS projects in the past, and this acquisition allows the Astro team to focus on making the framework even better.
Timestamps:
0:50 - jQuery 4.0
7:58 - Is the era of humans writing code over?
18:23 - Cloudflare acquires Astro
24:54 - Vertical tabs are coming to Chrome
29:37 - Apple is going to use Gemini for Siri
43:07 - What’s making us happy
News:
Paige - Ryan Dahl declares humans writing code is over
Jack - Cloudflare acquires Astro
TJ - jQuery 4.0
Lightning News: 
Chrome adds support for vertical tabs
Apple and Google enter agreement to use Gemini for Apple Intelligence
What Makes Us Happy this Week:
Paige - Onyx Storm book
Jack - Learning to play Born to Run on guitar
TJ - Only Murders in the Building TV series and Dungeon Crawler Carl book series
Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube.
Front-end Fire website
Blue Collar Coder on YouTube
Blue Collar Coder on Discord
Reach out via email
Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire
Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

A new year, a new tactic to stem the flow of npm supply chain attacks. This time, the proposal is for “Staged Publishing” which introduces a review window that a package owner must approve before a package release becomes publicly available.
Vercel Labs is out with a new AI tool called json-render that lets users generate dashboards, widgets, apps, and data visualizations from prompts, and constrains the response to JSON for only components pre-defined by the user.
Finally, The Simpsons character Ralph Wiggum is the biggest thing in AI coding recently. Ralph is an AI development pattern using a while loop (like a bash script) to repeatedly run an AI agent on the same task, feeding its output back as context, and forcing it to iterate until a specific completion promise is met, rather than letting the AI stop prematurely. Interesting? Yes! Useful in practice? Still tbd.
Chapter Markers:
1:04 - npm to implement staged publishing
8:16 - Vercel’s json-render
16:13 - Ralph Wiggum loops
30:53 - Claude Code tips
33:52 - Firefox 147 and anchor positioning
35:42 - Fire starter
39:40 - What’s making us happy
News:
Paige - npm to implement Staged Publishing
Jack - Vercel Labs’ json-render
TJ - Ralph Wiggum loops
Lightning News: 
Firefox 147 and anchor positioning
Fire Starters:
CSS @container scroll-state()
What Makes Us Happy this Week:
Paige - Rolife Book Nook Garden House miniature
Jack - Blade Runner live at the symphony
TJ - Coffee advent calendars
Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube.
Front-end Fire website
Blue Collar Coder on YouTube
Blue Collar Coder on Discord
Reach out via email
Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire
Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

We’re back with our first episode of 2026, and prominent software developer and YouTuber, Theo Browne, made waves recently when he announced he’d migrated his T3 Chat app from the Next.js framework to TanStack Start. It isn’t that Next.js is bad, but that the requirements of T3 Chat were better supported by TanStack Start’s architecture, and Theo breaks down his evaluation process to reach that decision.
For the 10th year in a row, the JavaScript Rising Stars report drops, and the most popular projects (by GitHub stars) for the year include n8n (a workflow automation platform), react-bits (gorgeous animated React components), shadcn/ui (more UI components), and Excalidraw (virtual whiteboard for sketching and diagramming).
In less stellar news, the creator of the wildly popular CSS library Tailwind announced he’s had to lay off 75% of his engineering team because AI has killed traffic to its website (and by association, Tailwind’s commercial products that drive revenue). It was hard enough before the rise of AI for OSS to get funding, and this is just another cautionary tale that we need to support the people building the tools and products so many of us use every day in our jobs.
Timestamps:
1:54 - Theo moves off Next.js and resulting buzz
11:32 - A look at the 2025 JS rising stars
23:25 - Is AI hurting Tailwind?
31:03 - Lego smart bricks
35:45 - What’s making us happy 
News:
Paige - Is AI killing OSS now? Tailwind thinks so
Jack - Theo moved off Next.js to TanStack Start and the internet is buzzing 
TJ - 2025 rising stars
Lightning News: 
Lego smart bricks
What Makes Us Happy this Week:
Paige - Flip-It! Bottle emptying caps
Jack - Miami Hurricanes football team 
TJ - New Pokemon GO features
Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube.
Front-end Fire website
Blue Collar Coder on YouTube
Blue Collar Coder on Discord
Reach out via email
Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire
Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

It’s that time of year again: the holidays are nearly upon us and 2026 is fast approaching, so it’s time for our year end holiday spectacular! This year our past predictions for the future of web development come back to haunt us, we make some bold new proclamations for what’s in store for 2026, and of course, share what’s made us happy this year.
Our past predictions were pretty hit or miss. Although a surge in popularity for simpler frontend frameworks like SolidJS and a whole slew of new web APIs didn’t appear (as Jack and Paige predicted), AI agents evolving to be capable of implementing whole new features and debugging bigger problems in code was spot on (point goes to TJ).
Predictions for 2026? With the continued popularity of AI for coding, TJ believes we’ll treat HTML more like assembly code. Paige predicts an uptick in Internet outages and supply chain attacks, and more scrutiny of if AI features are really as valuable as we’ve been led to believe. Jack feels this is the year SolidJS takes off, and “code mode” for AI agents is going to add even more value than the creation of MCP servers last year.
Just like last year, the things that made us happiest are pretty simple: maintaining consistent routines like exercising, reading books, and stepping away from the keyboard. And using the tools often used for work for fun, creative projects like a homemade fanfiction audiobook.
And as always, thank you, Front-end Fire listeners! We wouldn’t be here without you, and we’ve enjoyed getting to know many of you more over the past year. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season, and we’ll be back in 2026 with more frontend goodness.
Timestamps:
2:36 - Revisiting old predictions
18:01 - 2026 predictions
39:26 - What’s making us happy
2024 Predictions Revisited:
Paige - New web APIs
Jack - A return to simplicity in coding frameworks
TJ - AI agents solving bigger coding problems
2026 Predictions: 
Paige - More tech attacks and less AI hype, more AI scrutiny
Jack - SolidJS 2.0 and “code mode” is going to unlock even more AI agent functionality
TJ - We start treating HTML like assembly code
What Makes Us Happy this Year:
Paige - Consistent routines (as boring as that sounds): regular exercise, regularly practicing hobbies and reading books 
Jack - Descript and Claude for a homemade fanfic audiobook
TJ - Reading books
Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube.
Front-end Fire website
Blue Collar Coder on YouTube
Blue Collar Coder on Discord
Reach out via email
Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire
Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

Hot on the heels of the first critical vulnerability discovered in React applications using RSCs last week, two more vulnerabilities have surfaced, which is not uncommon. Even if you already updated for the critical vulnerability, you will need to update again.
In lighter news, Anthropic donates MCP to the Agentic AI Foundation, just one year after introducing it to the world. MCP’s rise has been meteoric: 10,000 active public MCP servers, adoption by ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini, Copilot, VS Code, and more, and now stewardship by the AAIF, which is under the Linux Foundation.
With all the great things coming to CSS lately, the Chrome Dev team created a great CSS Wrapped write up highlighting the big features for 2025. Of the 22 new features added, invoker commands, popover enhancements, and customizable select dropdowns are some of the most exciting additions.
Timestamps:
2:29 - More vulnerabilities in RSCs
6:36 - Anthropic donates MCP to the Agentic AI Foundation
16:04 - CSS 2025 wrap up
25:05 - Disney to allow characters on Sora
29:42 - What’s making us happy
News:
Paige - Anthropic donates MCP to the Agentic AI Foundation
Jack - More vulnerabilities in RSCs discovered
TJ - CSS Wrapped 2025
Lightning News: 
Disney will allow characters on Sora AI video generator
What Makes Us Happy this Week:
Paige - Twinkly Christmas Lights
Jack - 3D printed underwear for the multiboard desk organization
TJ - Mammoth
Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube.
Front-end Fire website
Blue Collar Coder on YouTube
Blue Collar Coder on Discord
Reach out via email
Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire
Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast