Developing JavaScript apps with AI agents

There is a phenomenon in low-code and 4GL systems called the inner platform effect. Essentially, you take a tool and build an abstraction on top designed to make it simpler and end up creating a less powerful version of the same underlying system.

Artificial intelligence is producing something similar at the level of learning. We begin by using AI to control the underlying technology by telling it what we want. Then, we come to the gradual realization that we need to understand those underlying technologies and AI’s role in using them. We try to build an “inner platform” of understanding inside AI, only to discover that we must assume the work of learning ourselves, with AI as only part of that understanding.

With that in mind, this month’s report features the latest news and insights to fuel your JavaScript learning journey.

Top picks for JavaScript readers on InfoWorld

Putting agentic AI to work in Firebase StudioFirebase Studio is among the best-in-class tools for AI-powered development, and it still has a few wrinkles to work out. Here’s a first look at building a full-stack JavaScript/TypeScript app with agentic AI.

Better together: Developing web apps with Astro and AlpineAstro gives you next-generation server-side flexibility, and Alpine provides client-side reactivity in a tightly focused package. Put them together, and you get the best of both worlds.

10 JavaScript concepts you need to succeed with NodeNode is half of JavaScript’s universe. It’s also a major part of the enterprise infrastructure landscape. This article brings together some of the most important JavaScript concepts to understand when using Node, Bun, and Deno.

JavaScript news bites

Microsoft rolls out TypeScript Native Previews

Node.js 24 drops MSVC support

More good reads and JavaScript updates elsewhere

Vite reaches 7.0As seen in the most recent State of JavaScript report, Vite is now a central component of JavaScript’s configuration ecosystem. An exciting sidebar in the latest release announcement is the connections to the VoidZero project and Rolldown, a Rust-based next-generation bundler that is part of the push to modernize Vite’s core. To check it out, just replace the default vite package with rolldown-vite.

What’s coming to JavaScriptThis is a great overview from Deno of JavaScript proposals at all stages of development. One of the more exciting soon-to-be official updates is explicit resource management with using, which lets you declare a resource that will automatically be cleaned up when the block completes. Another is a new async version of Array.from, and much more.

Deno keeps up the fight over JavaScript trademarkYou might not know that Deno is involved in a dispute with Oracle over Oracle’s use of the JavaScript trademark. This is an important area of IP that many JavaScript users will find interesting. In this blog post, Deno and Node creator Ryan Dahl asserts that JavaScript should not be a trademarked brand.

V8 deep dive on optimizations and WasmHere’s a great nerd-out on JavaScript engine internals and their relationship to WebAssembly. This piece is both a close look into the implementation of JavaScript in the real world and a bracing reminder of how much work and mind-power goes into the tools we use in our daily lives. I get the same feeling sometimes on a long road trip, when I suddenly realize: Hey, somebody built all this.