--- title: "External import maps, a big Bun release, and Node.js schedule changes" publication: "JavaScript Weekly" issue: 775 published_at: "2026-03-03" canonical_url: "https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/775" --- Plus improving the web's support for WebAssembly, the weakness of JavaScript-powered DRM, and a lot of love for npmx.dev. #​775 — March 3, 2026 [Read on the Web](https://javascriptweekly.com/issues/775) Together with [![Meticulous\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,w_2600,h_373/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:30/s65exulzcd60xe2r5nyk.png)](https://www.meticulous.ai?utm_source=jsweekly&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=26q1&utm_content=primary) JavaScript Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/yd2s7wyaubxm1olt8hnu.jpg)](https://bun.com/blog/bun-v1.3.10) [Bun v1.3.10 Released: A Surprisingly Big Update](https://bun.com/blog/bun-v1.3.10) — Bun’s REPL has been completely rewritten with many improvements (both practical and cosmetic), there's a `--compile --target=browser` option for building self-contained HTML files with all JS, CSS, and assets included (ideal for simple JS-powered single page apps), full support for TC39 stage 3 [ES decorators](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decorators), a faster event loop, barrel import optimization, and more. Jarred Sumner [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_limit,w_480,h_480,q_auto/copm/bd4a72e4.png)](https://www.meticulous.ai?utm_source=jsweekly&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=26q1&utm_content=primary) [Still Writing Tests Manually? Meticulous AI Is Here](https://www.meticulous.ai?utm_source=jsweekly&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=26q1&utm_content=primary) — Notion, Dropbox, Wiz and LaunchDarkly now use a testing paradigm they can’t work without. Built by former Palantir engineers, Meticulous automatically creates an evolving suite of E2E UI tests, delivering exhaustive coverage with no developer effort. Meticulous sponsor [External Import Maps, Today!](https://lea.verou.me/blog/2026/external-import-maps-today/) — Several weeks ago Lea posted about [web dependencies being broken](https://lea.verou.me/blog/2026/web-deps/), but now she has a solution. The core technique employed to emulate support for external import maps isn't obvious, despite being simple, but is already [offered by JSPM 4.0.](https://jspm.org/jspm-4.0-release#import-map-package-management) Lea Verou **IN BRIEF:** - [_The React Foundation_ has officially launched](https://react.dev/blog/2026/02/24/the-react-foundation) taking over ownership of React, React Native and JSX. It has a board of eight founding members (including Meta) with Seth Webster, former head of React at Meta, as exec director. - It's not formal yet, but [this preview post reveals how Node.js's release schedule is changing](https://nodejs-org-git-fork-ulisesgascon-release-announcement-openjs.vercel.app/en/blog/announcements/evolving-the-nodejs-release-schedule) later this year (one major release per year, every release to be LTS, with no more odd/even distinction). - 📢 Monthly roundups have landed from [Svelte](https://svelte.dev/blog/whats-new-in-svelte-march-2026), [ViteLand / VoidZero](https://voidzero.dev/posts/whats-new-feb-2026), and[Astro.](https://astro.build/blog/whats-new-february-2026/) - 🔒 The Angular team [explains two recently patched vulnerabilities in Angular.](https://blog.angular.dev/security-advisory-addressing-recent-vulnerabilities-in-angular-c2656249b799) - [The Navigation API is now Baseline Newly Available](https://web.dev/blog/baseline-navigation-api?hl=en) across all major browsers. **RELEASES:** - [Deno 2.7](https://deno.com/blog/v2.7) – The alternative runtime stabilizes Temporal API support, supports Windows on ARM, adds `package.json` `overrides` support, and more. - [Expo SDK 55](https://expo.dev/changelog/sdk-55) – The popular React Native framework/toolchain. - [Shiki 4.0](https://shiki.style/) – TextMate grammar powered, VS Code-like syntax highlighter. - [Angular 21.2](https://github.com/angular/angular/releases/tag/v21.2.0), [Mediabunny 1.35](https://github.com/Vanilagy/mediabunny/releases/tag/v1.35.0), [Neo.mjs 12.0](https://github.com/neomjs/neo/releases/tag/12.0.0) 📖 Articles and Videos [Making WebAssembly a First-Class Citizen on the Web](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2026/02/making-webassembly-a-first-class-language-on-the-web/) — WASM has come a long way but remains tricky to work with on the Web, with even performing a `console.log` requiring a lot of glue code. Ryan makes the case that the [WebAssembly Component Model](https://component-model.bytecodealliance.org/) could change this by letting modules bind directly to browser APIs, load directly from `script` tags, and more. Ryan Hunt [We Deserve a Better Streams API for JavaScript](https://blog.cloudflare.com/a-better-web-streams-api/) — _“I’m publishing this to start a conversation,”_ says James who shows off an alternative approach to Web streams that works around the current standard’s _“fundamental usability and performance issues.”_ The end results and James' extensive experience in this area make for a compelling argument. James M Snell [`npx workos:` An AI Agent That Writes Auth Directly Into Your Codebase](https://workos.com/docs/authkit/cli-installer?utm_source=cpjavascript&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=q12026) — Reads your project, detects your framework, writes the integration, then typechecks and fixes its own build errors. WorkOS sponsor [The Illusion of JavaScript-Powered 'DRM'](https://www.therantydev.com/javascript-drms-are-stupid) — An explanation of why building a DRM/copy protection system purely in JavaScript (rather than [EME](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypted_Media_Extensions)-based approaches) is ultimately just _“sophisticated friction”_, at best, and uses a tale of breaking a (NSFW) platform’s protection to make the point. Ahmed Arat [How Cloudflare Rebuilt Next.js with AI in a Week](https://blog.cloudflare.com/vinext/) — [vinext](https://github.com/cloudflare/vinext) is an experimental, Vite-based reimplementation of Next.js’s API surface, letting existing apps run in more environments, though with [some tradeoffs.](https://github.com/cloudflare/vinext#whats-not-supported-and-wont-be) Steve Faulkner (Cloudflare) [Using Val Town to Get Me to the Movies](https://www.raymondcamden.com/2026/03/01/using-val-town-to-get-me-to-the-movies) — [Val Town](https://www.val.town/) is a fantastic platform for quickly writing and deploying JavaScript-powered services. Like this one! Raymond Camden 📄 [Sticky Grid Scroll: Building a Scroll-Driven Animated Grid](https://tympanus.net/codrops/2026/03/02/sticky-grid-scroll-building-a-scroll-driven-animated-grid/) – I’m not a huge fan of scroll-driven effects, but this one [does look neat.](https://tympanus.net/Tutorials/StickyGridScroll/) Theo Plawinski 📄 [From `instanceof` to `Error.isError` for Safer Error Checking](https://allthingssmitty.com/2026/02/23/from-instanceof-to-error-iserror-safer-error-checking-in-javascript/) Matt Smith 📄 [Proxying Fetch Requests in Server-Side JavaScript](https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2026/03/proxying-fetch-requests-server-side-javascript/) Nicholas C. Zakas ▶️ [Why I Chose Electron Over Native (And I’d Do It Again)](https://syntax.fm/show/983/why-i-chose-electron-over-native-and-i-d-do-it-again) Syntax Podcast 📄 [Using React Native to Create Meta Quest VR Apps](https://reactnative.dev/blog/2026/02/24/react-native-comes-to-meta-quest) Chludziński, Jaworski, and Leyendecker 🛠 Code & Tools [txiki.js: A Small, Powerful JavaScript Runtime](https://txikijs.org/) — Stands on the shoulders of QuickJS-ng and libuv and aims to support the latest ECMAScript features while being [WinterTC](https://wintertc.org/) compliant. [GitHub repo.](https://github.com/saghul/txiki.js) Saúl Ibarra Corretgé [numpy-ts: A NumPy Implementation for TypeScript](https://numpyts.dev/) — A recreation of [NumPy](https://numpy.org/), a fundamental piece of the Python scientific computing ecosystem, that works in the browser, Node, Bun, and Deno. 94% of NumPy’s API is covered so far and there’s [an online playground](https://numpyts.dev/v1.0.x/playground) to give it a try. Nicolas Dupont [Ship Real-Time Features Without Real-Time Complexity](https://www.tigerdata.com/timescaledb?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=javascript-weekly-newsletter) — TimescaleDB extends Postgres: hypertables, 95% compression, continuous aggregates. Run analytics on live data. [Try free](https://www.tigerdata.com/timescaledb?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=javascript-weekly-newsletter). Tiger Data (creators of TimescaleDB) sponsor [Yoopta Editor 6.0: A Headless Rich Text Editor for React](https://yoopta.dev/) — MIT-licensed library for creating block-based, Notion-style rich text editing experiences. It’s headless at heart, but comes with a variety of UI components to get started fast. [The playground](https://yoopta.dev/playground) offers a live example. Akhmed Ibragimov [AdonisJS v7 Released: 'Batteries-Included' Node.js Framework](https://adonisjs.com/blog/v7) — A popular framework that includes auth, ORM, queues, testing, etc. With v7 comes [an all new web site](https://adonisjs.com/), OpenTelemetry integration, new starter kits to rapidly build new apps, and more. Harminder Virk 🎨 [Color Thief 3.0: Grab Color Palettes from Images](https://lokeshdhakar.com/projects/color-thief/) — Given an image, this uses `canvas` to return a list of the dominant colors. Works in browsers or Node. Now with OKLCH support, Web Worker offloading, ‘live extraction’ for video, canvas and image elements, and more. [GitHub repo.](https://github.com/lokesh/color-thief) Lokesh Dhakar 📊 [ng2-charts: Chart.js-Based Charting Library for Angular](https://valor-software.com/ng2-charts/) — Now with Angular 20 support. Valor Labs [vue-superselect: A Headless Select/Combobox for Vue 3](https://github.com/nemanjamalesija/vue-superselect) Nemanja Malesija - 📄 [React PDF 10.4](https://projects.wojtekmaj.pl/react-pdf/) – Display PDFs in React apps. [v10.4](https://github.com/wojtekmaj/react-pdf/releases/tag/v10.4.0) adds the ability to override colors used in rendering. - 🕹️ [JSNES 2.0](https://github.com/bfirsh/jsnes/releases/tag/v2.0.0) – JavaScript NES emulator for browsers and Node. ([Demo.](https://jsnes.org/)) - [Milkdown 7.19](https://github.com/Milkdown/milkdown) – Plugin-driven WYSIWYG markdown editor framework. - [Peggy 5.1](https://github.com/peggyjs/peggy) – Simple parser generator. 📢 Elsewhere in the ecosystem [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/gdwsmsikbuphb1tyqcm8.jpg)](https://npmx.dev/blog/alpha-release) - 🎉 Three weeks ago we featured [npmx.dev](https://npmx.dev/), a new, fast way to browse and search the official npm registry. Things have got more serious this week with [a full announcement post about the site's alpha release](https://npmx.dev/blog/alpha-release), coupled with a [flurry](https://piccalil.li/blog/finding-an-accessibility-first-culture-in-npmx/) of [enthusiastic](https://johnnyreilly.com/npmx-with-a-little-help-from-my-friends) [blog](https://voidzero.dev/posts/npmx-alpha) [posts](https://roe.dev/blog/virtuous-circle) from around [the community](https://patak.cat/npmx/converging-communities.html) celebrating the project. I can't remember the last time a JavaScript project attracted so many blog posts at the same time. - [Locutus](https://locutus.io/) is a curious project that offers TypeScript ports of standard libraries from fifteen other programming languages (e.g. PHP, Go, Python, Ruby). - [The results of the _State of React Native 2025_ survey](https://results.stateofreactnative.com/en-US/) have been released by Software Mansion and Devographics. - [Detailed notes for performing a TypeScript 5.x to 6.0 migration.](https://gist.github.com/privatenumber/3d2e80da28f84ee30b77d53e1693378f) The author suggests it might be handy to feed to an AI agent of your choice. - [An interactive version](https://editor.p5js.org/isohedral/full/vJa5RiZWs) of the [famous xkcd comic](https://xkcd.com/2347/) about single-person dependencies, courtesy of [p5.js.](https://p5js.org/) - The [Drizzle ORM](https://orm.drizzle.team/) team has [joined PlanetScale.](https://planetscale.com/blog/drizzle-joins-planetscale) - [A list of little, fun programming languages.](https://taylor.town/scrapscript-000) Published by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/) and edited by [Peter Cooper](https://twitter.com/cooperx86) 'JavaScript' is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the US We are not endorsed by or affiliated with Oracle. 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