Alex

Building · Writing · Designing · Photographing npmx.dev lover github.com/alexdln · alexdln.com/blog atsky.app · robindoc.com · nimpl.dev · slidebook.dev London She/They • 🏳️‍🌈/🏳️‍⚧️

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Longform Stories

A home for my story

For the first time, I carried thoughts that had nowhere to land. The search for a home for my articles led me not just to yet another platform, but to the idea of my own blog - built on top of the AT …

Apr 28·8 min read·1527 words

Facets as a Formatting Engine

Formatting is an important tool for emphasizing your point. We use it to highlight key parts of our work every day, including when developing services. One interesting example is Facets - a formatting…

Apr 22·1 min read·41 words

Open Social Software. npmx

We’ve just celebrated reaching 3,000 stars, made a number of major releases, and the team gave a really great presentation at atmosphereconf... But it seems I still hadn’t actually answered so many qu…

Apr 2·10 min read·1910 words

The month. npmx

npmx - a fast, modern browser for the npm registry. You've definitely heard about this project, and it’s probably got you just as excited as it has me. We've had a month of exciting and invaluable exp…

Mar 3·15 min read·2987 words

Next.js v15 — What’s new under the hood

Hello! This is another article about next.js. And finally, about the new version! Each release is a set of new, interesting, and controversial features. This version will be no exception. However, new…

Oct 17·16 min read·3010 words

Website Performance. Big Basic Checklist

A fast website is something very obvious and simple: the site loads quickly and does not freeze. “If you make people wait 3 seconds, you start losing users” is a rule that probably every web developer…

Sep 13·26 min read·5103 words

Vercel Edge — what is it and how is it

Edge runtime. One of the main functionality of Vercel — the company that developed and maintains next.js. However, its influence on the edge runtime has gone far beyond its frameworks and utilities. T…

Jul 14·11 min read·2198 words

Measure twice and release once. A/B tests of static sites

A release starts with an idea. When that perfect idea comes in the brainstorming, the idea that will appeal to all users and attract new customers. The idea is presented to a team of managers, markete…

Jun 4·11 min read·2079 words

React Conf 2024. React v19 RC

The first day of React.js Conf just concluded. This much-anticipated conference took place almost 3 years after the previous one. The React updates were just as eagerly awaited. The conference began w…

May 16·7 min read·1315 words

Caching in next.js. Gift or Curse

The App Router significantly expands the functionality of next.js — partial pre-rendering, templates, parallel and interceptable routes, server components, and much more. However, despite all these im…

Mar 19·10 min read·1880 words

History of Vercel 2020-Present (7/7). Zeit is now Vercel

In April 2020, tech company Zeit announced a major rebranding. This new turn allowed Guillermo Rauch to return to big business, but at the same time, it became the most controversial decision in the e…

Feb 28·7 min read·1364 words

History of Vercel 2015–2020 (6/7). Zeit and Next.js

After leaving Automattic in 2015, Guillermo founded a new company — Zeit. Co-founders were Tony Kovanen and Naoyuki Kanezawa.

Feb 21·6 min read·1110 words

History of Vercel 2013–2015 (5/7). Automattic

Automattic. A company that played a massive role in shaping the modern internet and deserves a separate series of articles. However, it will only be touched on superficially here.

Feb 14·5 min read·934 words

More libraries to the library god or how I remade i18n [next.js v14]

There are dozens of amazing libraries made for internationalization, such as i18n, react-intl, next-intl. They all do an excellent job of adding translations to an application or website. Most of them…

Feb 13·7 min read·1394 words

History of Vercel (4/7). 2013. Cloudup. Drag. Drop. Stream.

Cloudup is a clear and fast file-sharing service for files, videos, links, music, documents, code, text, and so on, which is both user-friendly and recipient-friendly. Drag. Drop. Stream.

Feb 7·7 min read·1254 words

History of Vercel (3/7). 2009–2013. LearnBoost. Team that has become a leader in open source

…one of the most technologically advanced companies… socket, stylus, mongoose, n, express… Nathan Rajlich, Aaron Heckmann, TJ…

Jan 31·11 min read·2185 words

Next.js App Router. Experience of use. Path to the future or wrong turn

Two years ago, the Next.js team introduced a new approach to routing, which was supposed to replace the so-called Pages Router and added a range of fundamentally new functionality.

Jan 25·12 min read·2308 words

History of Vercel (2/7). LearnBoost. A leading tech company

The first startup, investments, developments. An educational platform that became a leading tech company of its time.

Jan 24·8 min read·1472 words

History of Vercel (1/7). 1990–2009. Guillermo Rauch. Childhood and first steps in programming.

He was born in a small town in Argentina, did not finish school, went to work in Switzerland at the age of 17, and emigrated to the US at 18 to start implementing his ideas as an entrepreneur.

Jan 17·7 min read·1348 words

Compression of css classes. Next.js. Let’s make the web Even faster.

For many years, there have been debates about how best to name classes — according to BEM, by objectives, by components or however you like, but with the addition of a hash. And this is indeed an impo…

Jan 15·5 min read·877 words

Next.js v13: What's New and What's Coming

Next.js is the largest framework for web application development. It was created six years ago, on October 25, 2016. Since then, 12 major releases have been issued, making the web faster and faster. D…

Oct 24·9 min read·1638 words

Next.js Layout RFC: Changing Everything to Make the Web Faster

In May of this year, Next.js unexpectedly published an RFC (request for comments) on its blog. It primarily discusses a new abstraction - layouts - as well as a host of related changes aimed at speedi…

Oct 24·9 min read·1654 words

Theming, Part 3: Themeizer - A Young Companion to Styles

It’s time to acknowledge that theming isn’t about imposing a soulless black-and-white world or catering to personal whims; it’s a crucial step in ensuring service accessibility and maximizing conversi…

Feb 15·14 min read·2611 words

Theming. Part 2. New Browser APIs. Theming with SSR. Choosing Between SPA, SSR, and SSG.

According to data collected by Android Authority (2,514 respondents) and an analysis by Thomas Steiner, over 80% of users use a dark theme. Of course, it’s hard to call this sample entirely representa…

Jan 12·10 min read·1817 words

Next.js 12 Release

Who would have thought that just four months later, these ideas would resurface and take on even greater significance?

Nov 4·7 min read·1357 words

Next.js: Where is it going, where did it come from, and what does Google have to do with it?

It’s been almost two weeks since the Next 11 presentation. Today, I'd like to talk about which technologies soon received comprehensive support, understand who helped implement them, and what goals th…

Jun 28·12 min read·2302 words

Thematization: History, Causes, and Implementation

A dark theme for nighttime use isn’t the only reason for adding theming to a website. Another important goal is service accessibility. Worldwide, there are 285 million people with total or partial vis…

Jun 18·20 min read·3904 words