As with most things in life - life can get in the way of new projects. But here we are and while dusting off a lot of unfinished articles for the main blog - here we are with a lot of interesting developments.

Top Stories

AI and the Rise of Judgement Over Technical Skill

Here is an interesting idea, since Ai can close the skill issue of writing code. It becomes much more important to evaluate and judge the output correctly. Now more then ever it is more important to Know what you want to create, Make meaningful choices, Evaluate Quality and Applying the right solution to the right problem.

This, in turn, will require you to train and shift your skills to: clarify your thinking (you should do that without AI tools), break down and structure problems, and make decisions about what AI output you should pursue.

Full Article: https://www.mapsall.com/blog/ai-and-judgement

How to thrive as a junior engineer: Tips and insights

From the perspective of the junior engineer - If you want to grow as an engineer, you should develop a couple of skills like:

• Embracing the learning curve, i.e. be open to learn from your mistakes.
• Making your growth and progress visible - share what you are learning, what you are working on, highlight the impact you are making.
• Communication is key - talk and get the work done together.
• Building a network - getting to know other people at the company is going to have longterm benefits

From the perspective of the team:

• Be patient - newcomers to a team are overwhelmed about all the new technical and domain knowledge they have to learn. Help them by sharing resources, like blogs, teams sessions, give them assignments that are simple but a great learning opportunity

Full Article: https://github.blog/developer-skills/career-growth/how-to-thrive-as-a-junior-engineer-tips-and-insights/

State of JS 2025

Staying current with the JavaScript ecosystem often feels like a full-time job. To avoid falling into the trap of ‘hype-driven development,’ I’ve started using the State of JS Survey as my compass. It helps me filter the noise and identify which language features, frameworks, and tools are actually gaining traction—and which ones are worth my time to learn.

Full Article: https://2025.stateofjs.com/en-US/features/

Random Tips

Using TypeScript 7.0 - preview

You can try out new and faster Typescript 7.0 based on Go. For this you have to install the preview:

npm install -g @typescript/native-preview

Then you can use the compiler by using tsgo instead of tsx.

In VSCode you can also switch to the new compiler by enabling in the settings TypeScript › Experimental: Use Tsgo.

Or by adding this in your settings.json:

{
"typescript.experimental.useTsgo": true,
}

For smaller React or React-Native projects, I encountered no issues and, overall, it was significantly faster than before.

VSCode new Dark Theme

The newest version of VSCode ships with a new experimental Dark theme - you should check it out.

By Pressing CMD-P > Preferences: Color Theme.

Or by setting it directly in your settings.json:

{
"workbench.colorTheme": "Experimental Dark",
}

macOS 26 - Quicker way to access Writing Tools

With Apple Intelligence you are given a new set of Writing Tools. It can be quite tedious and complicated to use. Instead of navigating to the Menu, you can set up your own custom keyboard shortcut to quickly access the tool.

1. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts.
2. On the left, select App Shortcuts.
3. Open All Applications.
4. Add a new shortcut by typing ‘Shift-Command-R’. For the menu title, enter ‘Rewrite’.

Now, if your app supports the Apple Writing tools integration, you can select text and rewrite it by simply pressing the shortcut.

Tool Updates

Typescript 6.0 Beta

This is planned to be the last version of Typescript with the current JavaScript base. The main purpose of this release is to ensure that the tsconfig is cleaned up for the upcoming TypeScript 7.0 based on Go.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/typescript/announcing-typescript-6-0-beta/

React-Native 0.84.0

This version ships the Hermes V1 engine, that should give your app a performance improvement without the need for any fancy migrations. (React Native Upgrade Helper)

https://reactnative.dev/blog/2026/02/11/react-native-0.84