Transformers: JavaScript in Disguise

March 17, 2023 By Mark Otto Off

????  Transformers.js: Running ML Models in the Browser — Transformers are a type of machine learning model often used for natural language or visual processing and while running such models directly in the browser is in its infancy, Transformers.js opens up some ML models to you with some impressive demos here.

Xenova

????  Celebrating 10 Years of Electron — It feels like Electron pops up everywhere (Slack, Spotify, VS Code, and more) so it might feel surprising it’s only been with us for a decade. Slack and Electron developer Erick Zhao gives thanks to Electron’s developers, the community, gives us a bit of Electron related history, and reassures us Electron is still going strong.

Erick Zhao

Announcing TypeScript 5.0 — Note that TypeScript doesn’t follow semantic versioning, so this is as much a ‘major’ release as 4.9 was.. but 5.0 looks cool anyway. This release of the typed JavaScript superset is packed with features like decorators, improved ESM project support for Node and bundlers, const type parameters, and more.

Daniel Rosenwasser (Microsoft)

Turbowatch: File Change Detector and Task Orchestrator — Not just that but it claims to be extremely fast and “if you ever wanted something like Nodemon but more capable, then you are at the right place.” This looks very promising and the README is full of examples.

Gajus Kuizinas

IN BRIEF:

  • BREAKING NEWS: The JS Party podcast has just dropped an episode called ▶️ The Future of React – so new, we haven’t listened to it, but it features Dan Abramov and Joe Savona so may make for good weekend listening..

  • “The most dangerous command you run every day: npm install says Socket, who are introducing what they call ‘safe npm’, a transparent wrapper around npm designed to, well, make it less dangerous.

  • CORRECTION: In issue 627 we suggested the ECMAScript 2023 spec had entered a new draft stage. TC39 member Jordan Harband pointed out to us that it has been in such a state for some time. “There’s still a stage 4 PR not yet merged,” he noted, but there will be some progress in the next month.

  • Defer is a new ‘zero-infrastructure’ background jobs platform for Node.js apps.

  • Recently we linked to ???? Dittytoy, a fun online JavaScript environment for audio coding/experiments. Someone has somehow implemented an entire Commodore 64 SID synthesizer in it!

???? Articles & Tutorials

Chrome 111 Gains a ‘View Transition’ Feature for SPAs — The View Transition API is only supported by Chrome so far, but allows easy animated page transitions within single-page apps (demo here). Luckily it suits progressive enhancement so you can start using it right now without feeling too guilty 😉 Multi-page app support is forthcoming.

Jake Archibald (Chrome Developers)

???? Code & Tools

Template: A Simple Framework for Webapps — The author built it for his own projects, but notes: “It’s a joy to work in, feels “frameworky” but it’s just web standards with <100 lines of convenience JS wrapped around it. There is no magic beyond what the browser provides – I like it that way.” We do too.

William Blankenship

Stable Diffusion Plugin for Photoshop — Writing code that worked with Adobe’s weird JS variant was ghastly, but this uses their new ‘UXP’ based approach, so is interesting enough for that alone. This plugin also opens up the Stable Diffusion generative art system to Photoshop users.

Abdullah Alfaraj

Software Engineer (Frontend) — 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.