➡️ A little JavaScript AI-side..

AI, LLMs and machine learning have caught the imagination of many developers recently, whether through training and deploying models, calling out to third party APIs (like those OpenAI offers), or using tools like GitHub Copilot to write code. It's common, however, for a lot of AI/LLM experimentation to take place in Python, rather than JavaScript..

Nonetheless, there's an increasing number of projects in the JavaScript AI/ML space worth keeping an eye on, as well as an upcoming AI developer event being organized by two folks from the JavaScript space:

- Transformers.js: State-of-the-Art Machine Learning for the Web

- Microsoft TypeChat: An Approach for Type-Safe LLM Responses

- WebLLM: Run LLM Models in the Browser with WebGPU

- TensorFlow.js: Machine Learning for JavaScript Developers


🗣️ Send this to the person who you think is the best at AI and ML!

❓ CHALLENGE #143

📌 Issue 40 / 29.09.2023


📄 The Saga of Google's Closure Compiler

Dan looks back at Google’s Closure Compiler, a JavaScript transpiler Google built in 2004 and used most heavily in the pre-TypeScript era to reduce the size of JavaScript files, check types, and otherwise handle common pitfalls. A neat bit of JavaScript history.

DAN VANDERKAM


📄 One Thing Nobody Explained To You About TypeScript

The author makes a strong case for creating a separate tsconfig.json for each environment your code runs in: “Today, I write about one thing about configuring TypeScript that took me years to realize. I’m sure you’re making the same mistake as I did.”

ARTEM ZAKHARCHENKO


📄 Tesseract.js 5.0: JavaScript OCR for 100+ Languages

A port of the C++-based Tesseract library used to extract text from images. v5.0 is a big deal as there are huge file size reductions resulting in a 50% decrease in runtime size, a similar reduction in memory use, and iOS 17 compatiblity.

TESSERACT TEAM


©️JS WEEKLY

🔥 Open source Fridays with Jarred Sumner and Bun

LIVE NOW on YouTube 🔴

❓ CHALLENGE #143

❓ CHALLENGE #144

🧅👍 Bun is a new Node.js "Killer" JavaScript Runtime with better performance

Tigran Tech

❓ CHALLENGE #145

📌 Issue 41 / 03.10.2023


📄 Honey, I Shrunk the npm Package!

Compression sits under the hood of everything on the modern Web, including npm packages (distributed as gzipped tarballs). Could the standard gzip approach be showing its age in both speed and effectiveness? Jamie runs a package through a few alternatives and gives an update on efforts to modernize npm’s compression defaults.

JAMIE MAGEE


ASIDES:

- A variety of malicious 'typosquatting' packages on both npm and PyPI have been found to be stealing SSH keys from developers. Take care over what you're installing out there.

- 🐢 We recently mentioned a discussion around Node.js getting its own mascot. The discussion has continued with lots of new ideas thrown into the mix.

- Google Cloud SQL's Node.js connector is now generally available.


©️NODE.JS WEEKLY