Phacks’ weekly roundup #4 — September 10th issue

Talks

Anjana Vakil — Immutable data structures for functional JS At this year’s JSConf.EU, Anjana Vakil talked about immutability and functional programming, how it works behind the scenes, and what it means for the Javascript codebases and web apps we build.

Articles

James K Nelson — How can I use CSS-in-JS securely?
CSS-in-JS libraries took over the React ecosystem by storm. The flexibility and practicality of using tools like Styled Components or Glamorous for managing the styles of React components is now a given. Although, as a wise man once said, “With great power come great responsibilities”: CSS-in-JS comes with its lot of potential security flaws. So read on, and don’t forget to never trust user input.

Tobias Koppers — Advanced Frontend Optimization (with Webpack)
Although not a proper article, this impressive slide deck is a gold mine for fine-tuning Webpack configurations for performance. Tree shaking, Code Splitting, inlining, Server Side Rendering, you name it, it’s all there!

Henrik Joreteg — Betting on the Web
The team at Starbucks just released a preview of their upcoming PWA. One of the dev in the team reflects on the Web as a future-proof platform, and how PWAs will (possibly) become the new go-to platform, leaving native apps behind. Interesting and optimistic piece about what what the future of the Web (and IOT, and mobile) may well be!

David Robinson — The Incredible Growth of Python
Stack Overflow reflects on the incredible growth of Python, based on their (tremendous) data. As a developer, it’s always interesting to have a look at global trends on languages or frameworks.

Libraries

Electron Webpack Dashboard
Want to feel like you’re working at NASA while having a look at your build process? Want to impress your colleagues with a shiny, Minority Report-like dashboard while keeping in check your bundle size? Who would’t — I mean, look at this:

Electron Webpack Dashboard screenshot

The folks at Formidable forked the respectable Webpack Dashboard and made a stunning UI using Electron: feel free to try it out!