News: JavaScript Edition! Build Tools, Date Handling APIs, and SSR Benchmark Wars

Front-End Fire

We’ve got a good show for you today! It’s chock full of new build tools, better date handling in JavaScript, and SSR benchmarks to prove which framework is truly the fastest.

The rust-ification of JavaScript build tools continues, as next generation build tool Rspack hits v1 and claims it’s ready for primetime. Rspack boasts (almost) complete compatibility with the webpack API while also being 10x faster.

JS dates are about to be fixed thanks to the new Temporal API proposal, which is currently in stage 3 of the TC39 process of adding new features to the JavaScript language.

A new benchmark war has erupted online: this time benchmarking which JavaScript SSR frameworks are the fastest. Benchmarking results are dubious at best because everyone’s application is different, and has different requirements, but this one got a lot of heat due to the author using an LLM to generate the code to run in these different frameworks (React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Fastify, etc).

Finally, the CSS Survey 2024 is out now! Fill it out, be amazed at how much more there is to CSS than you previously thought, and write in Front-end Fire in the podcast section of the survey if you like our show. We greatly appreciate it!

News:

• Paige - Rspack v1.0
• Jack - The SSR benchmark wars of 2024 begin
• TJ - Temporal Dates Coming to JavaScript and temporal polyfill

Bonus News:

• CSS Survey 2024 — write in Front-End Fire!

What Makes Us Happy this Week:

• Paige - Photoroom photo editing app
• Jack - 1password password manager
• TJ - Bench power supply

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 Tweet us on X @front_end_fire.

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