966: A Look Back at Web Dev in 2025

2025-12-24

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Wes and Scott revisit their 2025 web development predictions, grading hits and misses across AI, browsers, frameworks, CSS, and tooling. From Temporal and AI coding agents to React, Vite, and vanilla CSS, they reflect on what actually changed, what stalled, and what it all means heading into 2026. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 866: 2025 Web Development Predictions 01:26 Temporal API will ship in the browser 03:33 On-device AI becomes common 06:14 WebGPU unlocks fast local machine learning TypeGPU 07:10 Models will plateau

Wes and Scott revisit their 2025 web development predictions, grading hits and misses across AI, browsers, frameworks, CSS, and tooling. From Temporal and AI coding agents to React, Vite, and vanilla CSS, they reflect on what actually changed, what stalled, and what it all means heading into 2026.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
- 866: 2025 Web Development Predictions
01:26 Temporal API will ship in the browser
03:33 On-device AI becomes common
06:14 WebGPU unlocks fast local machine learning
- TypeGPU
07:10 Models will plateau
10:32 Is there an actual use case for video and photo gen AI?
13:27 Text to UI tools get really good
16:25 Framework choice will matter less
18:53 Web components in Standard Stack, Web Awesome takes off
21:37 AI browsers and Copilot Workspace-style tools will become normal
22:56 AI browsera will become inevitable, OpenAI will launch a browser
27:51 Relative color will feel fully “safe to use”
29:02 Vanilla CSS will make a comeback
30:33 Brought to you by Sentry.io
30:58 CSS mixins and functions spec solidifies
- CSS Custom Functions and Mixins Module Level 1
33:25 Container style queries will ship everywhere
- CSS if statements
35:40 Vertical centering jokes will stubbornly persist
36:20 VS Code will reach feature parity with Cursor
38:47 More VS Code forks will appear
39:46 React Compiler drops Babel
40:34 React server components will pop
42:17 Remix re-emerges as something new
43:17 React Native will have its time
44:21 TanStack Start and Tanstack will pop
45:46 SvelteKit gets more granular data loading
46:06 Local first apps will take off
46:43 Bun keeps doing “wild but loved” non-standard features, Bun will launch a platform-as-a-service
48:22 Vite stays king
51:07 Laravel will release a CMS
52:44 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs