Loren Stewart

Happy "View Transitions Level 1 support in all major browsers" Day! 🎉

With Firefox 144 now stable, everyone gets beautiful transitions with Astro ClientRouter

Learn how: docs.astro.build/en/guides/vi...

Frontenders, I am *begging* you to earn whatever pride you take in your work. How? By testing what you make on the devices and networks most people have. It's not hard, doesn't take long, and there are great automations like webpagetest.org that can make it even simpler.

Lit is Joining the OpenJS Foundation! Lit is officially joining the OpenJS Foundation as an Impact Project!

Lit is joining @openjsf.org! 🎉

Today at JSConf, The OpenJS Foundation announced Lit is officially joining as an Impact Project!

We're beyond excited for this move and look forward to continuing our work to build the open web with OpenJS!

Read more on our blog: lit.dev/blog/2025-10...

📝 New Post: The Killer Feature of #webcomponents

A quick dive into the Custom Elements Manifest and why this community standard is a 10x effort multiplier.

daverupert.com/2025/10/cust...

Spicy! Please explain 🙏

No Kings As the president escalates his authoritarian power grab, the NO KINGS non-violent movement continues to rise stronger. We are united once again to remind the world: America has No Kings and the power ...

If you haven't already, figure out where your local No Kings event is next weekend and make a plan. Inflatable frog costume totally optional:

nokings.org

All good! I should have paid closer attention to context

Sorry about that

I'm not dunking on all the hard work, and quite frankly engineering genius, that has gone into react. But I do think the fundamental architecture (e.g. vdom) is starting to put react at a disadvantage.

I think the notion that react is complex to use is being highlighted more and more by next-gen frameworks (svelte and solid, imo) that have a simpler mental model, smaller API surface, and smaller bundles.

To say using react is "extremely easy" means you suffer from the curse of knowledge.

A cheeto/potato chip used to lock a door

Practical visualization of how using robots.txt works to prevent AI bots from going through your site.

Astro is a great framework for keeping complexity and bloat at bay. It’s also the only HTML-first framework with a lot of backing and popularity.

It’s an enabling technology for what I call Progressive Complexity

C.f. www.lorenstew.art/blog/progres...

Thank you! I’m working on a framework comparison post that acts as a Part Two of this post. I’ve created the same app with 6 or 7 different frameworks so we have something empirical to examine. One version of the app is built with Vue/Nuxt. I think I’ll be done with the blog post in 2 or 3 weeks

I lived there during the pandemic when Portland was advertised as being over run by antifa militants. If you ever visited the city there were protests around like two square blocks. The exaggeration is insane.

Sorry I think you’re referring to Portland. Yeah! So damn war torn 😂

What are you referring to?

I'm going to have to write a blog post on this trampoline pattern.

It's very fast, as I found out, but also it lets you have code that runs sync or async depending on the data and consumer, like generators do.

The DX isn't as nice as generators, but for a small perf-critical core, it's not bad.

ICYMI, @open-web-advocacy.org keeps receipts:

open-web-advocacy.org/blog/apples-brow…

are these web components!?!?

I like this take

By harping on this one point, have have missed the entire point of the article.

rendezvous with cassidoo A weekly newsletter with web development content for everyone, from beginners to pros.

I have a fun coding question for ya this week, a joke that made me chuckle, some interesting web links, and also I fangirl about Lea Salonga. What more could you want?

Next issue is heading to your inbox now:
cassidoo.co/newsletter/

React Won by Default—and It’s Killing Frontend Innovation, by @cheddybop.bsky.social:

https://www.lorenstew.art/blog/react-won-by-default

#react #svelte #solidjs #qwik #frameworks

A Progressive Complexity Manifesto, by @cheddybop.bsky.social:

https://www.lorenstew.art/blog/progressive-complexity-manifesto

#manifestos #complexity #webapps #html #htmx

I must confess my bias here. I like to choose tools with the least amount cognitive overhead. React is more complex, and has a larger API surface, than the other frameworks mentioned. Less complexity leads to increased velocity, fewer bugs, and shorter onboarding periods.

I don't think I made my point very well bc I've seen several of these takes. React is definitely innovating!

This issue is that most of the community only notices React's innovations at the expense of lesser-known frameworks. Framework diversity, and thoughtful choices are what I'd like to see.

Great article by @cheddybop.bsky.social about front-end frameworks and innovation in this field. Give it a read! www.lorenstew.art/blog/react-w...

A screen capture of Firefox Nightly running a Codepen that uses standard CSS modules to style a custom element.

📰 Firefox just landed support for native CSS Modules! 🥳

Here's Firefox Nightly with layout.css.module-scripts.enabled running a Codepen that uses standard CSS modules.

codepen.io/justinfagnan... *

*updated from @chriscoyier.net's original

That makes Chrome & Firefox w/ support. Next up Safari 🙏

How fast is fast enough? I'll be exploring this question in my #PerfNow keynote. I hope to see you there! And if you have your own thoughts on this question, I'd love to hear them!

#webperf #sitespeed #pagespeed #ux

I find it amazing that this is such a polarizing take