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WebDevPro #87: Real-World Dev Wins, Rust That Flies, IDEs That Think, and AI on the Move 🌍🔍

Crafting the Web: Tips, Tools, and Trends for Developers

HubSpot has announced new developer features, designed to speed up development and embed integrations more deeply into the areas where users are most productive

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From more extensible APIs to customizable UI, discover how HubSpot's latest developer tools empower you to build tailored solutions. Explore powerful integration tools and enhanced capabilities that let you create exactly what your customers need, right where they're getting work done.

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Hi ,

AI agents, smarter IDEs, faster compiles, and a little security reality check; this issue packs a punch—whether you're coding with Copilot, navigating the Spring ecosystem, or wondering why Node.js is popping up in threat intel reports.

We’ve rounded up what’s shipping, what’s shifting, and what the dev world is buzzing about right now. From JetBrains' new AI smarts to OpenAI’s $3B agentic ambitions, it’s a week of big moves and bold takes. Also on deck: faster Rust builds, smarter CSS tools, and a wild Edge update that lets Copilot literally see what you’re working on. 👀

Here’s your TL;DR to jumpstart the scroll:

Want to be featured or just drop some dev wisdom? Hit reply!

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Latest news: what's new in web development? 🧑‍💻

From AI agents to smarter IDEs, this week’s updates are sharp, not showy. OpenAI is plotting big moves, JetBrains is thinking ahead, and Spring is quietly tightening up its stack. Ruby gets cleaner, and dev tools just got a little more clever. It’s all about leaner, faster, smarter.

🧩 Spring AI 1.0.0 M7: The Final Milestone Before RC1!: Spring AI 1.0.0 M7 just dropped and it's the last stop before RC1. Expect modular project layouts, cleaner artefact handling, and a smoother path to GA. It’s all about tighter structure, better dev flow, and serious performance prep.

⚡ IntelliJ unlocks smarter completions: JetBrains just dropped IntelliJ IDEA 2025.1—and it’s flexing hard on AI. Their new smart code completions understand your intent, not just your syntax. Bonus points for tighter Copilot integration and a revamped UX that makes everything feel faster, smoother, smarter.

🌱 Spring ships updates across the stack: Spring Framework 7.0.0-M4 lands with performance tuning and DX refinements ahead of GA. If you're not quite ready to ride the milestone train, fresh stable releases are here too—6.1.19 and 6.2.6 are now live, keeping your builds current without breaking stuff.

💎 Ruby cleans up with 3.4.3: Ruby 3.4.3 is out, and while it’s not flashy, it is essential. Think bug fixes, improved stability, and one nasty threading patch that makes this a no-brainer update if you’re already on the 3.4 train.

🧠 OpenAI goes all-in on agentic AI: OpenAI is reportedly closing in on a $3B deal to acquire WindSurf, a stealth startup specializing in AI agents. Translation? They're not just training LLMs—they’re building the infrastructure for next-gen bots that do the work. If this goes through, it could reshape what "AI integration" means for devs.

Expert corner: what's the web community talking about?🎙

This week’s chatter cuts through the hype and hits the nerve. Node.js raises security flags, Copilot gets screen-aware, and Rust compiles faster than ever. Plus, a low-code reality check that every team should read.

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🛑 Node.js draws unwanted attention: Node.js is popping up in more malware toolkits—and not just in obscure forums. A recent report from Cyber Insider shows a rising trend of Node being used for phishing, credential theft, and remote access malware. It’s not the language that’s at fault, but the ease of bundling malicious scripts into legit-looking packages. Time to rethink your security assumptions around npm packages.

💻 Can classic web dev survive the AI wave?: AI is already rewriting design workflows and churning out clean code. So where does that leave human devs? CMSWire dives into the shifting power balance between traditional dev and AI-assisted builds. Spoiler: it’s not all doom—just a demand for smarter roles, sharper oversight, and way more architectural thinking.

👁️ Copilot gets eyes on your screen: Microsoft’s Copilot is no longer just listening—it’s watching. The new Edge update lets Copilot see and interpret what’s on your browser window, unlocking full contextual assistance. That means smarter replies, page summaries, and better help docs—but also fresh questions around privacy and dev oversight.

🖱️ Cursor dev tip: duplicate pages to get unstuck: Cursor, the AI-powered coding assistant, just shared a low-key dev trick: duplicate the page you’re stuck on. Why? Because the act of forking your code contextually gives the AI more room to rethink and retry. It’s not about clean code—it’s about creative momentum. If you’ve ever hit a wall mid-build, this one’s worth trying before rage-quitting.

🦀 Rust compiles faster with bold new trick: Feldera just pulled off something wild: slashing Rust compile times from 30 minutes to just 2 for a 1000-crate build. Their not-so-secret weapon? Aggressively tuning crate graph resolution and build orchestration. It’s a must-read if you're knee-deep in Rust or running CI/CD pipelines that feel more like waiting rooms.

🧱 Low-code promises break under pressure: The dream of drag-and-drop dev isn’t dead—but it’s definitely dented. InfoWorld lays out 7 brutal realities that sabotage low-code and no-code tools in the real world. From vendor lock-in and hidden complexity to scaling headaches, it’s a no-nonsense read for any team considering a shortcut to production.

Packt catalogue: must-read dev books📚

Want to stay sharp and inspired? Here’s our top pick this week from the Packt shelf!

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Node.js Design Patterns, Third Edition

Level up your Node game with time-tested design patterns, async mastery, and real-world recipes using Redis, RabbitMQ, and more. Whether you're building microservices or wrangling streams, this guide keeps your code clean, scalable, and production-ready.

GRAB YOUR COPY!

Exclusive Excerpt from the Pages ✍️

This week, we're diving deeper into Node.js Design Patterns, Third Edition—the same book featured above.

Design patterns aren’t just for theory—they’re your best defense against chaos in production. This excerpt drops a dead-simple, zero-downtime restart technique that every scaling team should know. One of those “wait, I can do that in Node?” moments.

📘 Scroll down to read the excerpt!

Zero-downtime restart

A Node.js application might also need to be restarted when we want to release a new version to our production servers. So, also in this scenario, having multiple instances can help maintain the availability of our application.
When we have to intentionally restart an application to update it, there is a small
window in which the application restarts and is unable to serve requests. This can
be acceptable if we are updating our personal blog, but it's not even an option for a
professional application with a service-level agreement (SLA) or one that is updated very often as part of a continuous delivery process. The solution is to implement a zero-downtime restart, where the code of an application is updated without affecting its availability.

With the cluster module, this is, again, a pretty easy task: the pattern involves
restarting the workers one at a time. This way, the remaining workers can continue
to operate and maintain the services of the application available.
Let's add this new feature to our clustered server. All we have to do is add some new code to be executed by the master process:

import { once } from 'events'
												// ...
												if (cluster.isMaster) {
												// ...
												process.on('SIGUSR2', async () => { // (1)
												const workers = Object.values(cluster.workers)
												for (const worker of workers) { // (2)
												console.log(`Stopping worker: ${worker.process.pid}`)
												worker.disconnect() // (2)
												await once(worker, 'exit')
												if (!worker.exitedAfterDisconnect) continue
												const newWorker = cluster.fork() // (4)
												await once(newWorker, 'listening') // (5)
												}
												})
												} else {
												// ...
												}

This is how the preceding code block works:

The restarting of the workers is triggered on receiving the SIGUSR2 signal. Note that we are using an async function to implement the event handler as we will need to perform some asynchronous tasks here.
When a SIGUSR2 signal is received, we iterate over all the values of the cluster.workers object. Every element is a worker object that we can useto interact with a given worker currently active in the pool of workers.
The first thing we do for the current worker is invoke worker.disconnect(), which stops the worker gracefully. This means that if the worker is currently handling a request, this won't be interrupted abruptly; instead, it will be completed. The worker exits only after the completion of all infl ight requests.
When the terminated process exits, we can spawn a new worker.
We wait for the new worker to be ready and listening for new connections before we proceed with restarting the next worker.

Note: Since our program makes use of Unix signals, it will not work properly on Windows systems (unless you are using the Windows Subsystem for Linux). Signals are the simplest mechanism to implement our solution. However, this isn't the only one. In fact, other approaches include listening for a command coming from a socket, a pipe, or the standard input.

Now, we can test our zero-downtime restart by running the application and then
sending a SIGUSR2 signal. However, we fi rst need to obtain the PID of the master
process. The following command can be useful to identify it from the list of all the
running processes:

ps -af

The master process should be the parent of a set of node processes. Once we have the
PID we are looking for, we can send the signal to it:

kill -SIGUSR2 <PID>

Now, the output of the application should display something like this:

Restarting workers
												Stopping worker: 19389
												Started 19407
												Stopping worker: 19390
												Started 19409

We can try to use autocannon again to verify that we don't have any considerable
impact on the availability of our application during the restart of the workers.

Note: PM2 (nodejsdp.link/pm2) is a small utility based on cluster, which offers load balancing, process monitoring, zero-downtime restarts, and other goodies.

AI in the spotlight 🔦

Know a hot AI update we missed? Send it our way—we might feature it in the next drop. 👀

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Tiny O4s pack a fast punch!

OpenAI just rolled out the O4 mini models, a leaner sibling to its flagship GPT-4. Available via the new /v1/chat/completions endpoint, these models promise better performance per dollar and faster responses. It's OpenAI’s way of saying: “Yes, you can have speed, brains, and budget-friendliness—all at once.” Ideal for devs looking to embed smarter AI without melting their wallets.

Developer tip of the week 💡

Time to Go Cross-Platform with OpenSilver!

Think full-text search in PostgreSQL is sluggish? Think again. With the right setup: precomputed tsvector columns, proper indexing, and smart query structuring, Postgres can deliver lightning-fast text search at scale.

It’s all about shifting the work from query time to write time.

If you’re still calling to_tsvector() in every SELECT, it’s time for an upgrade.

And that's a wrap 🎬

From stealth-mode AI deals to Spring’s next leap, this week’s drop was all about progress with purpose. If it helps you code cleaner, ship quicker, or think sharper—we’re covering it.

Got a hot take, tool, or trend? Hit reply. We might just feature it next week.

Until then—keep building.

Catch you next week. ✌️