Playwright now offers a UI mode

March 24, 2023 By Mark Otto Off

Speeding Up the JavaScript Ecosystem: npm Scripts — The latest in what has been a fascinating series on finding ‘low hanging fruit’ when it comes to performance in the JavaScript world. The author explains it best himself:

“‘npm scripts’ are executed by JavaScript developers … all the time. Despite their high usage they are not particularly well optimized and add about 400ms of overhead. In this article we were able to bring that down to ~22ms.”

What Marvin does here is a valuable skill for all developers to pick up, and you can enjoy more by going back to the start.

Marvin Hagemeister

Playwright v1.32 – Now with UI Mode — The popular Web testing and automation framework is taking more steps toward ground currently served by tools like Cypress by offering a ‘UI mode’ that lets you explore, run and debug tests in a UI environment, complete with watch mode. ▶️ This video provides a good introduction.

Microsoft

A Grid Component with All the Features & Great Performance — Try our powerful JS data grid component which lets you edit, sort, group and filter datasets with fantastic performance. Includes a TreeGrid, API docs and plenty of demos. Seamless integration with React, Angular & Vue apps.

Bryntum

Why We Added package.json Support to Deno — Deno shares some provenance with Node.js but till recently it hadn’t focused on supporting Node features like npm modules. But with Node and npm compatibility beginning to improve, the team has faced questions about the runtime’s priorities. Ryan Dahl explains more about their thinking here.

Ryan Dahl

???? In other Deno news, Deno 1.32 has been released with… improved package.json support, and more.

How to Start a React Project in 2023 — There are lots of ways, but this well-regarded author explains the pros and cons of a few approaches, and gives you a few options targeting specific use cases you might have.

Robin Wieruch

???? Articles & Tutorials

The ‘End’ of Front-End Development? — A recent narrative doing the rounds suggests that large language models like GPT-4 (or even tools like Copilot X) could soon put some developers out of a job — however, Josh is “optimistic about what these AI advancements mean for the future of software development”.

Josh W. Comeau

In related news, Eric Elliott put ChatGPT through its paces to see if it would make for a good JavaScript tutor. It did well — though with mixed results.

Migrating from ts-node to Bun — A look at adopting performance-oriented Bun when you’re used to using TypeScript with Node.js. John runs us through porting a console app from the ts-node approach over to Bun — “a pretty easy process,” he says.

John Reilly

???? Code & Tools

VueUse: A Collection of Vue Composition Utilities — With over 200 functions targeting both Vue 2 and 3, there’ll be something in this suite of Composition API-based utility functions for you, whether it’s working with state, browser capabilities, animations, Electron, Firebase, and more.

Anthony Fu

OTPAuth: One Time Password (HOTP/TOTP) Library — When you log in to a site that uses 2FA and you’re asked for some digits from an authentication app, that’s probably a Time-based One-Time Password (or TOTP). This library for Node, Deno, Bun and the browser lets you work with TOTPs and HOTPs from JS.

Héctor Molinero Fernández

Software Engineer (Backend) — Join our “kick ass” team. Our software team operates from 17 countries and we’re always looking for more exceptional engineers.
Sticker Mule

Find JavaScript Jobs with Hired — Hired makes job hunting easy-instead of chasing recruiters, companies approach you with salary details up front. Create a free profile now.
Hired

????‍???? Got a job listing to share? Here’s how.

???? Bonus Item

Make Bookmarklets — Create and test bookmarklets directly in the browser. Makes an irritating task slightly easier if you need to do it.

Cullan Luther