Hey friends,

Welcome to August — the only month where both pumpkins and pool floats are considered seasonal décor. 🌞🎃

Thinking Too Hard 🤔

There used to be certain things in web development that I thought were reserved for the elite — stuff that wasn't really done by normal plebs like myself. Things like: speaking at a conference or publishing a public web package. Well now, with the release of Choreo, I've done both!

I can now report that, in both cases, the bar was lower than I thought. Both stemmed from a problem I was trying to address. In the case of Choreo, we needed an orchestration layer for motion-heavy static sites, something that would let us have what we needed up front without stepping on each other — especially when multiple developers were working on the same site. So we built a minimal TypeScript layer that handles:

• Initialization and dependency ordering (sometimes init order matters VERY MUCH)
• Providing access to common events, like resize and motion preference changes (less chance of multiple listeners for the same events)
• No dependencies, making it as light as possible (fill the need and then get out of the way)
• Focus on ergonomics, leaning into co-location within the Astro component files (easier for multi-dev development as well, less shared files)

I have no expectations that this will become a big thing, but it solves a problem for us and makes life a little easier — which makes it well worth it! If you have some idea, no matter how small (and Choreo is a very small idea!), I'd encourage you to share it. Just maybe it'll help someone else too!

Interesting Web Bits 🍜

Web Stuff

• Claude has released a new guide on context engineering for the new v5 models. A lot of it involves unhobbling your conflicting context and skills.
• A fun tour of how Postgres works in the style of Sim City.
• In case you blinked and wondered what happened to the frontend, David Poblador i Garcia has got you.

Other Stuff

• Turns out architects (or developers cosplaying as architects) have found a use for the Vision Pro.
• Milk on it's 21st birthday and can some bacteria survive boiling water?

👽 Weird, 📺 Watch, and 🎮 Play

• 👽 A collection of web interfaces that mimic retro desktops (I love that there's enough of these for a whole site dedicated to listing them!)
• 👽 Decker is a modern take on Hypercard.
• 🎮 Drive through a procedurally generated post-apocalyptic landscape.
• 🎮 None of your BEE'S WAX! (It's a game about bees.)