Web Almanac 2020 and the DigitalOcean App Platform Hackathon | Front End News #011
Tags: frontendnews
Published: 2020-12-21 11:57:51

> **NOTE:** This is issue #011 of my newsletter, which went live on Monday, December 14th. If you find this information useful and interesting and you want to receive future issues as they are published, ahead of everyone else, I invite you to join the subscriber list at [frontendnexus.com](https://frontendnexus.com/).

***

This edition brings you the long-awaited 2020 Web Almanac, and the DEV community is running a hackathon for the DigitalOcean App Platform. There are updates to Deno, Node, npm, VSCode, Vue Router, and more. And don't forget that the advent calendars are still running, so check out [the roundup of active advent calendars in 2020](https://frontendnexus.com/articles/advent-calendar-roundup-2020/).

***

## Web Almanac 2020

The wait is over. We finally got the 2020 version of the Web Almanac. Well, most of it anyway. But there is so much info packed there that by the time we finish processing it, the last few chapters will be done as well.

There's nothing I can say more here to entice you to go read all that treasure trove of information. So I will leave you with this featured quote from the CSS chapter:

> The Web is not a teenager anymore. It is now 30 years old and acts like it. It tends to favor stability over new bling, and readability over complexity, occasional guilty pleasures aside.

Enjoy!

- [https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2020/](https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2020/)

***

## DigitalOcean App Platform Hackathon on DEV

The DEV community is running a hackathon for the DigitalOcean App Platform. You are invited to participate with a project in the following categories: 
- personal site or portfolio
- program for the people
- built for business
- random roulette

The hackathon will run until January 10th, and you can even win some awesome prizes in the end. The full details for the event are available in the official announcement below.

- [Announcing the DigitalOcean App Platform Hackathon on DEV!](https://dev.to/devteam/announcing-the-digitalocean-app-platform-hackathon-on-dev-2i1k)

***

## Browser news

This week the big browser names have been quiet. Instead, we have announcements from WebKit and some of the niche browsers.

### Brave

Brave has announced Brave Today, a newsreader integrated directly into the browser. This service will preserve the privacy of the users by routing all the sources through Brave's new private CDN.

- [Brave Introduces Brave Today, the Privacy-Preserving News Reader Integrated Into the Browser](https://brave.com/announcing-brave-today/)

### Vivaldi

Desktop users of Vivaldi can now upgrade their browsers to version 3.5. This update brings over new ways to manage your tabs, improvements to Media playback, the option to generate QR codes to share URL's with other devices, and more. You can check the release notes below:

- [Vivaldi improves tabs and media playback, adds sharing of URLs with QR codes](https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-improves-tabs-and-media-playback-adds-sharing-of-urls-with-qr-codes/)

### WebKit

It's time for another Safari Technology Preview - the 117th one. As usual, the list of changes is consistent. However, there are a couple of new features that caught my attention, such as better animations using CSS or the Web Animations API and the improved support for Speech Recognition. If you are a Mac user, you should check the official release notes:

- [Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 117](https://webkit.org/blog/11364/release-notes-for-safari-technology-preview-117/)

***

## Software updates and Releases

### Bootstrap 5 Beta 1

The world’s most popular front-end open source toolkit.

- [https://blog.getbootstrap.com/2020/12/07/bootstrap-5-beta-1/](https://blog.getbootstrap.com/2020/12/07/bootstrap-5-beta-1/)

### Bootstrap Icons v1.2.0

Free, high quality, open source icon library.

- [https://blog.getbootstrap.com/2020/12/11/bootstrap-icons-1-2-0/](https://blog.getbootstrap.com/2020/12/11/bootstrap-icons-1-2-0/)

### Deno 1.6

A secure runtime for JavaScript and TypeScript.

- [Deno 1.6 Release Notes](https://deno.land/posts/v1.6)

### Fable v3

Fable is a compiler powered by Babel designed to make F# a first-class citizen of the JavaScript ecosystem.

- [Announcing Nagareyama 4](https://fable.io/blog/Announcing-Nagareyama-4.html)

### Electron React Boilerplate 2.0.0

A Foundation for Scalable Cross-Platform Apps.

- [https://github.com/electron-react-boilerplate/electron-react-boilerplate/releases/tag/v2.0.0](https://github.com/electron-react-boilerplate/electron-react-boilerplate/releases/tag/v2.0.0)

### Node v15.4.0

Asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime.

- [https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v15.4.0/](https://nodejs.org/en/blog/release/v15.4.0/)

### npm v7.1.0

The package manager for JavaScript.

- [https://blog.npmjs.org/post/636604708661886976/release-v710](https://blog.npmjs.org/post/636604708661886976/release-v710)

### Sniffer 4.0

Browser/engine/os/device detection tool.

- [https://github.com/wilddeer/Sniffer/releases/tag/4.0.0](https://github.com/wilddeer/Sniffer/releases/tag/4.0.0)

### Stimulus 2.0

A modest JavaScript framework for the HTML you already have.

- [Announcing Stimulus 2.0](https://discourse.stimulusjs.org/t/announcing-stimulus-2-0/1482)

### VSCode version 1.52

Visual Studio Code is a code editor redefined and optimized for building and debugging modern web and cloud applications.

- [November 2020 (version 1.52)](https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_52)

### Vue Router v4.0.0

The Vue 3 official router

- [https://github.com/vuejs/vue-router-next/releases/tag/v4.0.0](https://github.com/vuejs/vue-router-next/releases/tag/v4.0.0)

***

## Wrapping things up

It has been a lighter issue, but the Web Almanac alone is bound to keep you busy for a long time. And if you run out of things to read, don't forget that the advent calendars are still running, and you will be getting new articles every day until December 25th. You can check [the roundup of active advent calendars in 2020](https://frontendnexus.com/articles/advent-calendar-roundup-2020/) that I put together at the beginning of the month.

That's it for this issue. Have a great and productive week, keep yourselves safe, and I will see you next time!