Wrapping up 2023, modern CSS features you can use today, and a detailed guide to parallel routes in Next.js 14

Yo yo yo, or should I say ho ho ho, what up devs?

It's Yoav, back from some parental leave after we had our second child - it's a girl! It's taken a toll on my sleep hours, but it has not reduced the amount of posts I've been reading or videos I've been watching ??.

I've got a special end-of-year edition for you all here on the Dev Drop.

What a year, huh? Not only was it the year of AI and signals, but it also included significant version releases for many web frameworks and runtimes, TypeScript drama, Tailwind drama, and a lot of Rust.

As the year is ending, it's only fitting that we share our top 10 posts of the year from the Builder blog!

But, before we do that, I must start with a holiday spirit dad joke:

Why did the coder get a Christmas tree tattoo?

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Because they wanted to show their love for "branching" in code! ??????

1. Almost a year ago,?Steve ?showed us?how to modernly deep-clone an object in JavaScript . In it, he explains how to use structuredClone and the differences between other options.
2. Our post about?generating Figma designs with AI ?with the Builder Figma plugin resonated with many readers. It allows writing a text prompt within Figma to get designs made for you and even import them into Builder!
3. Of course, AI was a hot topic this year, and in our blog, Steve shared?how to avoid building AI products like everyone else is doing .
4. 2023 was the year of Signals in the JavaScript ecosystem.?Mi?ko ?saw it coming before it became such a hot topic! He dived into it in his post "useSignal() is the future of web frameworks" .
5. For React's 10th anniversary,?Vishwas ?looked at the?React ecosystem in 2023 ?and what it offers.
6. Vishwas shared?50+ ChatGPT prompts for web developers .
7. We also published a?complete visual guide to understanding the Node.js event loop . This series, written by Vishwas, illustrates the entire event loop!
8. Steve suggested using?maps more and objects less ?at the start of the year. Using them will change your JavaScript game.
9. Builder launched Visual Copilot — our Figma to code plugin. The blog post for its announcement shot up to top 10 status in just two months!
10. Last but not least, in number 10, we've got another post from Steve. This one begged the question:?is useReducer the cure for React useState hell ?

• In time for 2024, I (Yoav ) had a chance to look at some?new features of CSS you can use today: nesting, layers, and container queries .
• Vishwas made?a detailed guide to Next.js 14 parallel routes .
• Our buddy from marketing,?Mike , did a year-in-review post on the?top 14 new features in Builder ?we shipped this year.

• Jacob Jackson ?wrote about how he thinks?Tailwind has a scalability problem and has thoughts on how to solve it .
• I ran into this?SVG tutorial advent calendar ?that goes quite deep into it.
• If you want some advice on?becoming a 10x developer , this post is for you.
• The Fetch API is great, but?you may need to handle errors correctly .
• Flavio Copes, the renowned web educator, follows up on similar posts by Kent C. Dodds and Lee Robinson with his write-up: "Why I Use Astro ?".
• Harry Roberts wrote a deep dive perf post about?the 3 C's: concatenate, compress, and cache .
• Sebastian Lorber , of this week in React, upped his meme game with?this one about RSCs .
• The React docs have been updated . In this update, documentation for ??????(), ????????????????????????(), ??????????????????????????(), ??????????????????????????(), the new ??????????() function, as well as more information about "use client" and "use server".
• Ryan Carniato, Mr. Solid & signals, wrote his yearly post about?JavaScript frameworks heading into 2024 .
• Lea Verou, of CSS fame, wrote a deep dive thought piece about?composability as the antidote to overfit .
• Speaking of CSS, here’s all the latest and greatest in CSS wrapped 2023 .

• Deno hits 1.39 . They've titled it: "Return of WebGPU".
• The Moment.js alternative?DateFNS has released version 3 . It comes with TypeScript support, date extensions, strings as arguments, and more.
• SolidStart beta 2 is finally out . It's fully SPA-capable, backed by?Nitro , powered by?Vinxi , has super serializing server functions, and its router/metadata are library agnostic.
• Tailwind CSS v3.4 is out . With dynamic viewport units, :has() support, balanced headlines, subgrid, and more.
• React Aria Components has released v1.0.0 . Now, you have a big headache deciding which component library to use.
• Just in time for Christmas,?TanStack Router v1 is out .
• Nuxt 3.9 was released . Upgrades to Vite 5, adds interactive server components, new composables, a new loading API, and more.
• The folks at TailwindUI released?Catalyst ?- a component library (or UI kit) for React based on HeadlessUI and Tailwind.
• Bun 1.0.19 is out, with some more performance and Node.js compatibility improvements.

That's a wrap!

Goodbye 2023, hello 2024.

Please bring us fewer bugs, more love, patience, and many new exciting releases. Also, ensure that AI only increases productivity and does not take our jobs ??.

Hoping you all have enjoyed this year’s Dev Drop, and if not, let us know how we can improve!

Have a fabulous and happy new year! ??

See you next year.

Yoav.