React Innovations, Postgres Debates, and Measuring Developer Productivity in 2024

Hi there,

This week, I’ve gathered some key updates and ideas that promise to simplify our challenges as technical leaders.

The one I find important this week is about React Strict DOM. The approach of react-strict-dom differs from React Native for Web as it shifts the responsibility of compatibility and API translation more towards the mobile side, as opposed to React Native for Web which focuses on translating React Native components and APIs to be compatible with the web. A huge step for the React Native community!

See you inside!

In The Queue Today

• Measuring Developer Productivity via Humans, React Strict DOM's Universal Apps, and Postgres' ALTER SYSTEM Debate

• Upcoming React Conferences, Mastering Rendering, and Optimizing Jest Execution by 300%

• Next.js 14.2 Boosts Performance, Uber's Accounting Testing Strategies, and 7 Rules for Generative AI Apps

Reduce Friction

State of the CIO, 2024: Change Makers in the Business Spotlight

CIOs are increasingly seen as strategic advisors, driving business innovation and leading digital transformation efforts. They are now expected to chart the course for their organizations, aligning technology with business goals and capitalizing on emerging trends like AI.

Measuring Developer Productivity via Humans

A new approach to measuring developer productivity is emerging. It focuses on capturing insights from developers themselves, rather than solely relying on basic measures of speed and output.

React Strict DOM: The Future of Universal Apps with React Native

React-strict-dom is a unified set of UI primitives with styling that can be used across the board on web and mobile. This article looks at why it matters, how it differs from `react-native-web', and why you should be excited about Meta's first official endorsement of cross-platform UI across web and phone.

The PostgreSQL Community Debates ALTER SYSTEM

The Postgres community is debating whether to merge a brief patch adding a new configuration parameter. The main reason is that this would help improve the "security by default" posture of Postgres in a Kubernetes/Cloud Native environment, although getting that point across can be difficult as the proposal is not intended to be a security patch.

Vision, Conviction, and Hype: How to Build 0 to 1 Inside a Company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma)

Mihika Kapoor, a design-engineer-PM hybrid at Figma, was an early PM on FigJam and is now spearheading development on a new product. She likens the role of a 0-to-1 team within a large company to that of Hestia in Greek mythology.

5 Mistakes That New Tech Leads Make: Learn to Lead Effectively

When an engineer grows into a leadership role, they have to start thinking about the team before they think of themselves. Some new tech leads expect everyone in the team to be equally motivated and self-manage their work. They get frustrated when others don't seem equally diligent with "project management."

Deepen Your Expertise

Improving The Jest Execution Time by 300%

Investigating slow Jest test performance, the author identifies three key issues: inefficient getByRole queries, memory leaks, and unnecessary type checking. Optimizing these areas significantly improves test execution time, saving an estimated 31 developer days annually. The article provides valuable insights into profiling and optimizing test suites for React applications.

Mastering Rendering: A Comprehensive Guide from React to Next.js

Before delving into the intricacies of rendering in React, it's imperative to grasp the fundamentals of Rendering in React. This article aims to demystify these concepts.

Increase Scalability

Evaluate Performance at Massive Scale

These supporting materials from a workshop delivered at an Athens meetup have a lot of useful tidbits on evaluating performance using Grafana k6.

Next.js 14.2

Introducing Next.js 14.2, a major release focused on improving development, production, and caching performance. Highlights include the Turbopack Release Candidate for faster local development, tree-shaking optimizations for reduced bundle sizes, memory usage improvements during builds, and experimental caching controls with 'staleTimes'. The release also brings better error handling, React 19 compatibility, and various other enhancements.

Load Testing

It's crucial to evaluate your system's capability for building robust and reliable software applications. Load testing is a key aspect of this evaluation process. By subjecting your system to different levels of load, you can identify potential performance bottlenecks, stability issues, and scalability concerns. This information is invaluable for optimizing your system.

How to Combat Generative AI Security Risks

Less than a third of organizations have any sort of AI governance policy in place, according to a 2023 Conference Board survey. "Machine learning security is just application security with extra steps, but the extra steps are really scary because you can't control what the user will input," says Anna Belak, director of cybersecurity strategy at Sysdig.

Optimizing Scalability: A Deep Dive into Load Testing with Locust on EKS

Learn strategies for optimizing scalability using Locust for load testing on Amazon EKS. The article provides practical insights into ensuring applications can efficiently handle increasing user loads.

7 Golden Rules for Generative AI Apps: A Playbook from Early Winners

The first AI-native enterprise apps broke from the pack last year. These trailblazers look and feel different from the rest of the pack. They've turned services into software, rewritten core workflows, and introduced novel architectural approaches that innovate on top of the foundation model.

Ensuring Precision and Integrity: A Deep Dive into Uber's Accounting Data Testing Strategies

Uber operates multiple lines of business across diverse global regions. The Financial Accounting Services (FAS) Platform is responsible for financial accounting and has built robust testing, monitoring, and alerting processes. The platform processes big data and stores petabytes of data in Schemaless and Apache HiveTM.

Harnessing the Power of Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning in Software Solutions

Predictive analytics sifts through historical data to forecast what might happen next. In the realm of logistics, this means predicting consumer demand, shipment delays, or inventory needs. Embedded within software solutions, predictive analytics offers a glimpse of what the future might hold.

Just Cool

The Tommykaira ZZ is a stripped-down sportscar made to go fast and pretty much nothing else. At 1,433 pounds it’s light enough to make 178 HP feel like you’re driving a supercar. The one up for grabs today on Bring a Trailer doesn’t even have a proper roof or full doors.

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