Holy Dev Newsletter June 2024
Welcome to the Holy Dev newsletter, which brings you gems I found on the web, updates from my blog, and a few scattered thoughts. You can get the next one into your mailbox if you subscribe.
What is happening
This month has been under the start of Wolframite, as we are trying to make good on our promises to Clojurists Together. We have focused on UX and bugs and stabilized the API. There are no more code-related issues that need to be fixed for v1, and an alpha of v1 has been released to Clojars. Now we need to get the site up to date and up, and write tutorials. We also wait for some advice from Wolfram Engineering.
Gems from the world wide web
WebAssembly: A promising technology that is quietly being sabotaged
According to the author, the long awaited Component Model is over-engineered and bloated, and WASM becomes even more so worth the planned support for Async. C. M. brings a whole language to describe types and methods, so languages could exchange objects.
👓 Abandoning Rust for game dev after 3 years [rust, criticism, experience]
An insightful article from a tiny indie game dev studio about Rust for game dev. My inaccurate summary is that you are forced to spend a lot of time arguing with Rust, and that quickly iterating on ideas isn't possible.
Disclaimer: it is rather long, so I haven't read it in full.
An interesting quote: " Rust is also a language that will force the user to refactor much more often than other languages. It doesn't take a lot to suddenly be backed in a corner with the borrow Checker...".
👓 microsoft/roosterjs: roosterjs is a framework-independent javascript rich text editor. [library, javascript]
Microsoft's framework-independent JavaScript rich-text editor.
👓 How to Use CSS background-size and background-position — SitePoint [webdev, css]
Great trick for making an image "responsive" so that the most important part of the image is displayed even when the screen is smaller. We use something like -
- cover means to completely cover the area of container (the img's parent), showing as much of the image as possible but without distorting it
- position then determine which part of the image to focus on when the whole of it does not fit - here the point at 50% horizontal and 25% vertical of the image will be aligned with the 50/25 point of the container (See details & an example at MDN.)
(Originally inspired by 🇳🇴 https://parenteser.mattilsynet.io/responsive-bilder/.)
👓 Teranoptia - Tunera Type Foundry [webdev, asset, look&feel]
Teranoptia is a typeface without letters, a peculiar contraption that allows you to imagine chimeric creatures just by typing letters with your keyboard. Its design has been inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry and by medieval illustrations, as well as by children's books. You can use it to create border ornaments, to daydream about monsters or just to spice your layouts with marginalia. Free to use. (Via Frontend Focus.)
--
Thank you for reading!