urban weekly #108
weekly tech news so you don't have to read all the internet
Good to know
Small Data - Small data appears to be a very exciting movement that is moving the overton window away from Big Data onto much simpler and cheaper solutions. data
A SQL Heuristic: ORs Are Expensive - Query planning is hard. Sometimes. sql
React ViewTransition - Smooth Animations Made Simple react
To AI or not to AI - A two-week experiment building an app with full AI assistance, exploring both the promise and frustrations of LLM-based development workflows. ai 🔥
90% - Three months ago I said that AI changes everything. ai 🔥
The AI coding trap - If you ever watch someone coding, you might see them spending far more time staring into space than typing on their keyboard. ai, engineering 🔥
Migrating to TanStack Start - A while ago, I decided to move away from full-stack React frameworks and use a client-server setup. That is, separate the backend and the frontend, each being a standalone app. tanstack, migration 🔥
CSS Environment Variables Module Level 1 - This specification defines the concept of environment variables and the env() function, which work similarly to custom properties and the var() function, but are defined globally for a document. css, specification
Atuin Desktop - Runbooks that Run — Now Open Source atuin, oss A year of improving Node.js compatibility in Cloudflare Workers - We've been busy. cloudflare, workers, nodejs
Mastering NPX - A Cheatsheet for npm and Node.js Power Users npx, cheatsheet, npm, nodejs 
Organize your Slack channels by How Often, not What - A few weeks ago, I changed my Slack channel sections. productivity, slack 🔥
Effective context engineering for AI agents - Context is a critical but finite resource for AI agents. In this post, we explore strategies for effectively curating and managing the context that powers them. context, ai, agents 🔥
Hiring only senior engineers is the worst policy in the startup industry - In the last 3 months, I've interviewed 134 engineers - students, mid-level, seniors and even CTOs. hiring, engineering 🔥
The Software Essays that Shaped Me - I started reading software blogs before I got my first programming job 20 years ago. engineering
Give your AI eyes - Introducing Chrome DevTools MCP devtools, ai, chrome, mcp 🔥
How much do you really know about media queries? - Earlier this year, I realized that I knew very little about possibly most of the media queries. css, media-queries
A complete guide to HTTP caching - Caching is the invisible backbone of the web. performance, http, caching 🔥
React 19.2 - React 19.2 is now available on npm! react
Why TigerBeetle is the most interesting database in the world - By many measures it’s safe to say that TigerBeetle is the most interesting database in the world. database Distracting software engineers is way more harmful than most managers think - Our work culture changed mainly for the better after COVID-19, but there were also some negative changes - like an increase of 13.5% in the amount of meetings per employee. engineering, culture, meetings 🔥
Asked to do something illegal at work? Here’s what these software engineers did - What would you do if you learned your company is up to something illegal like stealing customer funds, or you’re asked to make code changes that will enable something illegal to happen, like misleading investors, or defrauding customers? engineering, culture
Read it! Read it! Read it!
Increasing your practice surface area - The difference between being good and being great isn’t talent or formal training, but the invisible practice that happens when you're just living life. engineering, career 🔥
Code and Tools
Zustand Sync - A simple, barebones multiplayer middleware for zustand zustand
Snappy - Fastest Snappy compression library in Node.js compression
ESLint - React - You Might Not Need An Effect - Catch unnecessary React useEffect hooks to make your code simpler, faster, and safer. react, eslint
pompelmi - free, open-source file scanner malware, scanner, nodejs 
ffetch - TypeScript-first fetch wrapper with configurable timeouts, retries, and circuit-breaker baked in. fetch, wrapper, typescript
Handy - A free, open source, and extensible speech-to-text application that works completely offline. speech-to-text, offline, extensible 🔥
HTML3D - HTML3D is a lightweight JavaScript library for creating interactive 3D scenes using CSS 3D transforms. html, 3d eslint-plugin-depend - An ESLint plugin for suggesting optimisations in choice of dependency, native equivalents, etc. eslint, optimisation 🔥
oq - Terminal OpenAPI Spec viewer openapi, viewer, terminal 🔥
Resterm - Terminal REST client for .http/.rest files with HTTP, GraphQL, and gRPC support. http, terminal
Elephantshark - Postgres network traffic monitor postgres, network, traffic, monitor
Tutorials
React State Management in 2025 - What You Actually Need react, state
Videos
Vite: The Documentary (Trailer) - Looking forward to this! vite 
Published on 2025-10-06, last updated on 2025-10-24 by Adam
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Adam Urban is fullstack engineer, loves serverless and generative art, and is building side projects like weeklyfoo.com, flethy.com and diypunks.xyz in his free time.
