The Loop

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Anyone working in the JavaScript ecosystem should keep their eyes on Bun, a new Javascript runtime designed to make building software faster and less frustrating. Having noticed an increasing degree of complexity and speed bumps in Node.js, the developers of Bun wanted to create a framework that would allow developers to use their favorite JS technologies without having to spend too much time worrying about the setup and maintenance of their favorite tech. Here are just a few reasons to get excited about Bun:

• Bun works as a drop-in replacement for Node.js, transpilers, bundlers, package managers, and testing libraries
• Perhaps the most exciting feature of the Bun toolkit is the Bun runtime. Bun is up to 4x faster than Node.js, an improvement that its developers attribute to Apple’s WebKit engine (rather than the Google V8 engine that powers Node.js and other runtimes)
• Perfect compatibility is impossible, but Bun can run virtually any Node.js application in the wild
• Here are a few examples of Bun’s API in action:
  • Bun.file() lazily loads a file at a particular path
  • Bun.write() is an API for writing almost anything to disk
  • Bun.serve() spins up an HTTP server
• Make sure to keep an eye on Bun as it continues to grow and develop - with 1.0 out now, Bun promises to be one of the most exciting new parts of the JavaScript ecosystem!

​Cicada is a tool that allows developers to write their CI/CD pipelines in TypeScript, a much safer way of building infrastructure.

• Using TypeScript for CI/CD pipelines gives developers heightened safety thanks to type-checking, syntax highlighting, and in-line documentation
• Cicada’s support for the TypeScript ecosystem allows users to integrate a wide range of packages and modules into their pipelines
• Teams can also test their pipelines locally by using Docker/Podman
• Cicada is a viable option for anyone who has faced challenges with building YAML-based pipelines and wants a more scalable and secure framework for developing infrastructure

With its latest release, the popular open-source web framework Astro has become the first major web framework to support the View Transitions API.

• With Astro View Transitions, native browser transition effects like fades, slides, morphs, and persistent UI elements are now easily achievable
• View Transitions have wide cross-browser compatibility, including fallbacks for browsers that don’t fully support the View Transitions API yet
• Astro 3.0 also comes with significant performance improvements: most components are rendering 30% faster due to refactoring
• Image optimization is now stable, with updates to the Image component including full support for Vercel’s built-in image service and utilization of the Sharp image optimization library

If you’ve ever used TypeScript, you might have run into some confusion about when to use types and when to use interfaces. Here are some best practices you can follow about when to use each of them:

• In general, types should be the default keyword until you need a specific feature of interfaces, such as extends (types can mimic the extends syntax by using an &, but it is less optimal and should be avoided)
• Interfaces can declaration merge: multiple interface definitions with the same name create a combined object; trying to do this with types will cause an error
• Interfaces have some major limitations: they can’t express unions, mapped types, or conditional types; Types can express any type
• While types have an implicit index signature, interfaces do not, meaning that types are assignable to types with an index signature, but interfaces aren’t and will error if this is attempted

The popular hosting service Deno Deploy now offers native support for npm modules via npm: specifiers. Over 2 million npm modules can now be seamlessly integrated with Deno, without any transpilation, bundle steps, or polyfill injections.

• Developers can now host their Node.js apps globally with reduced latency, high availability, and instant deploys, enhancing user experience
• You can now host your Node.js applications at the edge using npm modules such as Fastify or integrating the OpenAI SDK for AI completions
• Support for npm and Node.js in Deno means a better developer experience, with no transpilation or bundling steps; code that works locally will also work on Deno Deploy
• Deno Deploy supports most of Node.js’ built-in modules, expanding the range of npm packages that can be used (however, some npm packages might not work due to sandboxing restrictions)

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The Loop is written and edited by Hank Mason, John Kaufmann, Noah Gribbin, Victoria Lebel, Chris Breen, and Marie Stotz.