Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Full Stack Developers Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski dive deep into web development topics, explaining how they work and talking about their own experiences. They cover from JavaScript frameworks like React, to the latest advancements in CSS to simplifying web tooling.
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Episode's summary

Someone just clean-room ported seven Adobe apps to Rust, and Wes is shocked at how good it is. Scott and Wes break down what it gets right, what’s still missing, and why copying software is easy but inventing what comes next is the hard part. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:12 Adobe Is in Trouble: A Clean Room Port of the Entire Suite ArtCraft 02:22 Scott’s Long Running Adobe Grudge Since 2017 03:42 Figma Is Not a Raster Tool: Why Every Alternative Falls Short 04:40 Opening Real Photoshop Files: Masks, Half Tones and Blend Modes PhotoCraft Github 06:30 What Clean Room Porting Actually Means 09:54 A Familiar Interface, Entirely Built in Rust 10:15 Don’t Trash the Whole Thing Over One or Two Bugs 12:14 What’s Missing: Artboards and the Tiny UI Interactions 13:53 Where Are the Vibe Coded Photoshops? Four Months Later 14:33 Figma’s Locked Down MCP and the Backlash 17:22 Dylan’s Clap Back at Anthropic’s Own Closed Ecosystem 18:08 The Real Photoshop Replacement Will Be a New Way of Working 21:35 Good UI Is…

Episodes

1051-

1047: Adobe has a big problem

Someone just clean-room ported seven Adobe apps to Rust, and Wes is shocked at how good it is. Scott and Wes break down what it gets right, what’s still missing, and why copying software is easy but inventing what comes next is the hard part. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:12 Adobe Is in Trouble: A Clean Room Port of the Entire Suite ArtCraft 02:22 Scott’s Long Running Adobe Grudge Since 2017 03:42 Figma Is Not a Raster Tool: Why Every Alternative Falls Short 04:40 Opening Real Photoshop Files: Masks, Half Tones and Blend Modes PhotoCraft Github 06:30 What Clean Room Porting Actually Means 09:54 A Familiar Interface, Entirely Built in Rust 10:15 Don’t Trash the Whole Thing Over One or Two Bugs 12:14 What’s Missing: Artboards and the Tiny UI Interactions 13:53 Where Are the Vibe Coded Photoshops? Four Months Later 14:33 Figma’s Locked Down MCP and the Backlash 17:22 Dylan’s Clap Back at Anthropic’s Own Closed Ecosystem 18:08 The Real Photoshop Replacement Will Be a New Way of Working 21:35 Good UI Is…

14 Oct 2026
1050-

1046: The Pi Updates are insane

Scott, Wes, and CJ break down the latest Pi updates, including durable long-running agents, Codemode, and MCP support, then debate whether pull requests are dead in favor of issues. Plus Supabase picks up Turso, Screen Studio 4 drops, JavaScript Composites bring value-based equality, and a stack of new AI models from Google, OpenAI, Cloudflare, and more. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax Weekly 00:46 example.com gets a facelift Oliver Dunk’s post IANA’s reply 04:37 The death of pull requests Sindre Sorhus’ post Dave Kiss’ post SWC’s post Andreas Kling’s post Yusuke Wada’s post Wes’ NiimBlue PR JSON Alexander 12:46 pi v1.0 24:14 Brought to you by Sentry! 25:08 Turso Joining Supabase 28:13 Screen Studio Updates Screen Studio 4.0 upscaling 33:24 Svelte 3.0 Release 35:32 Effect 4.0 38:14 Alchemy Cloudflare’s Programmatic configuration 42:59 Foldkit 44:10 OpenAI Dev Day Announcements Dots Rahim Nathwani’s reply regarding Luna Plugin Extensions Sites in ChatGPT 56:40 Cloudflare Clef Decision Model 01:01:25 Gemini…

12 Oct 2026
1049-

1045: Who can actually max out 5 AI subscriptions?

Scott and Wes answer listener questions about what replaced blogging, what to do while your AI agent works, and who should pay for token costs. They also cover keeping agents from going off the rails, getting your team excited about AI, and staying motivated when AI takes the fun out of coding. Show Notes 00:00 Intro 00:40 Welcome to Syntax! 01:37 What’s the Modern Day Equivalent of Blogging? 08:35 What Should You Be Doing While Your Agent Works? Vibe Stretch 13:23 Brought to you by Sentry! 14:02 How Much Should Your Employer Cover for Token Spend? 18:32 Tracking What You Actually Burn with Codex Bar 20:26 How Do You Code HTML Emails in 2026? 25:22 How Do You Keep an Agent From Going Off the Rails? Swamp Club 30:23 Steering an Agent Mid Turn: Which Harness Does It Best? 32:44 How Do I Get My Engineers Interested in AI? 35:48 Beyond Telegram: Better Interfaces for Non Coding Agents 38:41 Staying Motivated When AI Takes the Fun Parts of Coding 41:55 Killing Rogue Node Processes and Restarting Your Machine…

07 Oct 2026
1048-

1044: Ruby on Rails is Dead

Scott, Wes, and CJ ask whether Ruby on Rails is really dead (and whether Rust is just Rails you don't have to read), then dig into Meta's new Muse agent, which is free, comes with its own VM, and is already reading messages nobody asked it to. Plus: upm, a tiny TypeScript npm replacement, Opus 5.5 moonlighting as a motion designer, Tart VMs on Apple Silicon, and a foundry for gloriously bad web fonts. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome 01:11 upm is a tiny fast npm Pooya Parsa’s launch post 07:34 Zuck cooked with Muse Mark Zuckerberg’s post Safety and Security in Muse Privacy concerns Ray Wong’s post 19:21 Ruby on Rails is Dead 27:55 loco - Rails for Rust 31:06 Brought to you by Sentry! 33:12 How should new developers learn? 41:40 Opus 5.5 First Impressions Stephan Livera’s motion graphics with Opus 5.5 Kenn Ejima’s single prompt motion graphics Andras Bacsai’s Coolify motion graphics Tyler Shukert’s Supabase motion graphics Ben Vinegar’s Modem motion graphics Wes’ gym builder GFX 58:27 Tart - virtualization toolset…

05 Oct 2026
1047-

1043: I’m Using GPUI For Everything

Scott and Wes ditch Electron and Tauri for GPUI, the GPU accelerated Rust UI framework from the Zed team. They get into its React-like API, styling that feels a lot like Tailwind, GPUI Kit components, the community fork drama, and the tiny desktop apps Scott has built with it. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! GPUI 01:24 Electron, Tauri, and the Trouble With Web Views 04:05 Enter GPUI: Why We Don’t Take Money to Talk About Tools 05:32 Brought to you by Sentry.io 05:59 What GPUI Is: GPU Accelerated, Cross Platform, Native All the Way Down 06:50 A React Like API in Rust: Divs, Flex, and Chained Methods 09:35 Components, Props, and State in GPUI Scott’s GPUI Demo Gist 11:21 How Much of CSS Does GPUI Actually Reimplement? 12:52 Flexbox Everywhere, But Where Is CSS Grid? 14:17 Where Does Your App Logic Live? No RPC Layer Needed 15:53 Render vs RenderOnce: Stateful and Static Components 16:57 GPUI Kit: The shadcn of GPUI 18:46 GPUI CE: The Community Fork and Ecosystem Tension 21:29 Apps Scott Built With GPUI:…

30 Sep 2026