PodRocket

• Semantic HTML still matters with Jono Alderson

  Jono Alderson joins the podcast to discuss why semantic HTML still matters today. He shares how thoughtful markup can improve accessibility and performance, from using the picture tag and responsive images to optimizing with content-visibility CSS. The conversation dives into common pitfalls like div soup, the shift toward more template-centric design, and techniques for improving the critical rendering path. Jono also discusses preloading, HTTP early hints, and the evolving role of structured data, LLMs, and Google’s trust signals in shaping a more meaningful and efficient web. Links Website: https://www.jonoalderson.com X: https://x.com/jonoalderson BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jono.id LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonoalderson Resources Why semantic HTML still matters: https://www.jonoalderson.com/conjecture/why-semantic-html-still-matters/ Chapters 00:40 Meet Jono Alderson: SEO Consultant and Web Performance Expert 02:00 Why Semantic HTML Still Matters in 2025 05:00 Accessibility, Performance, and the 15% Market Opportunity 08:00 The Cost of Div Soup and Framework Abstraction 10:30 Finding Balance: Developer Experience vs User Experience 13:00 Template-Centric Thinking vs Component-Centric Development 16:00 What Is a Page? Rethinking How the Web Works 18:30 Structured Data, Schema.org, and Google’s Trust Signals 21:00 Quick Round: Picture Tag, Content Visibility, and Performance 23:30 The Worst HTML Anti-Patterns Developers Still Use 25:00 Will LLMs Reward Good Markup or Ignore It? 26:00 Where to Find Jono Alderson and Closing Thoughts We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey (https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu)! Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]), or tweet at us at PodRocketPod (https://twitter.com/PodRocketpod). Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form (https://podrocket.logrocket.com/get-podrocket-stickers), and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. (https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr)

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• WASM 3.0 with Andreas Rossberg

  Andreas Rossberg unpacks WASM 3.0, covering new capabilities like garbage collection, exception handling, tail calls, and support for 64-bit addressing with multiple memories. The discussion explores deterministic profiles following relaxed sim, WebAssembly’s capability-based security model, and advances in sandboxing and module design. Andreas connects these features to practical use cases in JavaScript engines and applications like Google Sheets, then looks ahead to experimental work on threading, stack switching, and async programming models shaping the next phase of the WebAssembly ecosystem. Links Website: https://people.mpi-sws.org/~rossberg GitHub: https://github.com/rossberg Resources WASM 3.0 Completed: https://webassembly.org/news/2025-09-17-wasm-3.0 Chapters 00:00 Intro – Andreas Rossberg and the WebAssembly 3.0 Update 01:05 The State of WebAssembly Today 02:15 Why WebAssembly Exists Beyond the Web 03:20 From WebAssembly 2.0 to 3.0 – What’s Actually New 04:30 Garbage Collection: A Game-Changer for Managed Languages 06:00 The Vision of WebAssembly as a Universal Compilation Target 07:40 How GC Support Unlocks Java, Kotlin, and Dart on WASM 09:10 Expanding to 64-bit Memory – Performance and Limits 10:40 WebAssembly for Databases, AI, and LLMs 12:00 Sandboxing and Security by Design 13:10 How Capabilities and Static Analysis Keep WASM Safe 14:30 Multi-Memory Support and Real-World Use Cases 16:00 Developer Ergonomics vs. Specification Purity 17:20 Tail Calls and Functional Programming Benefits 18:40 Function Tables and Secure Indirection 20:00 Exception Handling Finally Arrives 21:10 Determinism, Efficiency, and Why It Matters for Blockchain 22:30 SIMD and Hardware Divergence Across Platforms 24:00 Balancing Portability with Performance 25:20 The Design Philosophy Behind WebAssembly 26:30 Why WASM Rejects Language-Specific Features 27:40 Proposal Process: Who Decides What Gets In 29:00 Browser Vendors and Implementation Challenges 30:10 Early Deployments: GC, Tooling, and Adoption Stories 31:30 Threads, Stack Switching, and the Future of Concurrency 33:00 Async/Await and Coroutines on WebAssembly 34:30 What’s Coming Next for WASM Developers 35:40 How to Get Involved – Working Groups and Proposals 37:00 Closing Thoughts and Thanks We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey (https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu)! https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]), or tweet at us at PodRocketPod (https://twitter.com/PodRocketpod). Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form (https://podrocket.logrocket.com/get-podrocket-stickers), and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. (https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr)

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• State of CSS in 2025 with Adam Argyle and Kevin Powell

  In this episode of PodRocket, Adam Argyle and Kevin Powell discuss the results of the latest State of CSS survey and share how new capabilities like functions, mixins, nesting, and container queries are changing the way developers approach styling. We dive into the ongoing conversation around Tailwind and pre-processors, and look at the practical impact of features such as scroll driven animations, view transitions, and cascade layers. Adam and Kevin also explain how advances like relative color syntax and app property are making CSS variables more dynamic and reliable. Along the way, we touch on browser interoperability and imagine what’s ahead for CSS, from motion blur to fit text and beyond. Links Adam Argyle Website: https://nerdy.dev X: https://x.com/argyleink LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamargyle YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBGr3ZMcV5jke40_Wrv3fNA GitHub: https://github.com/argyleink Kevin Powell Website: https://www.kevinpowell.co X: https://x.com/kevinjpowell BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/kevinpowell.co Mastodon: front-end.social/@kevinpowell Github: https://github.com/kevin-powell YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kevinpowell Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/kevinpowellcss Resources State of CSS 2025: https://2025.stateofcss.com Chapters 01:00 Why CSS Remains Irreplaceable 05:00 Misunderstandings About CSS 09:00 Is CSS a Programming Language 12:00 Pre-processors, Post-processors, and Native Features 15:00 Too Many Features in CSS 18:00 The CSS Learning Curve and Growth Cycle 19:30 Resources for Keeping Up with CSS 20:30 New CSS Functions Explained 23:00 Complexity and Abstractions in CSS 24:00 Browser Collaboration and Interop 30:00 Using New CSS Features in Production 36:00 The App Property Feature 41:00 Future CSS Features Wishlist 46:00 Final Thoughts on CSS in 2025 48:00 Outro and Guest Links We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey (https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu)! Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Em, at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]), or tweet at us at PodRocketPod (https://twitter.com/PodRocketpod). Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form (https://podrocket.logrocket.com/get-podrocket-stickers), and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. (https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr) Special Guests: Adam Argyle and Kevin Powell.

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• Google’s antitrust win, AI mandates, npm attacks and robots.txt

  Is the web breaking under the weight of AI crawlers, platform consolidation, and nonstop security breaches? We dive into the state of browsers, developer burnout, and whether tech regulation can actually keep up. In this panel discussion: We debate if robots.txt and AI licensing standards like RSL can realistically control how AI scrapes the web. The fallout from DIA’s acquisition by Atlassian and what it means for indie browser innovation (like the Helium browser, Zen) in a Chromium-dominated world. Why Google’s antitrust victory might embolden other tech giants, and what that means for competition. How supply chain attacks like the NPM malware and Shai Hulud worm are exploiting GitHub workflows and package vulnerabilities. The pushback against AI mandates at work, including Coinbase’s controversial policy requiring developers to use Copilot. Resources Inside the battle for the future of the web: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-microsoft-openai-fight-standards-limit-ai-access-websites-2025-9 The web has a new system for making AI companies pay up: https://www.theverge.com/news/775072/rsl-standard-licensing-ai-publishing-reddit-yahoo-medium The Browser Company, maker of Arc and Dia, is being acquired: https://www.theverge.com/web/770947/browser-company-arc-dia-acquired-atlassian Google stock jumps 8% after search giant avoids worst-case penalties in antitrust case: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/02/google-antitrust-search-ruling.html Massive data breach sees 16 million PayPal accounts leaked online - here's what we know, and how to stay safe:https://www.techradar.com/pro/massive-data-breach-sees-16-million-paypal-accounts-leaked-online-heres-what-we-know-and-how-to-stay-safe PayPal’s Glitch Puts €10 Billion on Ice Across European Banks: https://fintechnews.ch/payments/paypal-glitch-freezes-european-banks-10-billion-transactions/77974/ npm Author Qix Compromised via Phishing Email in Major Supply Chain Attack: https://socket.dev/blog/npm-author-qix-compromised-in-major-supply-chain-attack Compromised files replace npm packages with a combined 2 billion weekly downloads: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/compromised-files-replace-npm-packages-with-a-combined-2-billion-weekly-downloads Shai-Hulud: Ongoing Package Supply Chain Worm Delivering Data-Stealing Malware: https://www.wiz.io/blog/shai-hulud-npm-supply-chain-attack Coinbase CEO explains why he fired engineers who didn’t try AI immediately: https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/22/coinbase-ceo-explains-why-he-fired-engineers-who-didnt-try-ai-immediately/ Chapters We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey (https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu)! Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]), or tweet at us at PodRocketPod (https://twitter.com/PodRocketpod). Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form (https://podrocket.logrocket.com/get-podrocket-stickers), and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. (https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr)

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• Unpacking the NPM supply chain attacks with Feross Aboukhadijeh

  Feross Aboukhadijeh, founder of Socket, joins us to break down the recent wave of NPM supply chain attacks hitting the JavaScript ecosystem, including how attackers used phishing to target developers, snuck malware into popular packages like Prettier and "is", and even abused tools like Claude, Gemini, and TruffleHog. We dig into how GitHub Actions vulnerabilities were exploited, what makes postinstall scripts risky, and and what you can do to protect yourself from future attacks. Links Website: https://feross.org X: https://x.com/feross GitHub: https://github.com/feross LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feross YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHM4OEvQDUq8UszyUrdov-w Resources npm Author Qix Compromised via Phishing Email in Major Supply Chain Attack: https://socket.dev/blog/npm-author-qix-compromised-in-major-supply-chain-attack Compromised files replace npm packages with a combined 2 billion weekly downloads: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/compromised-files-replace-npm-packages-with-a-combined-2-billion-weekly-downloads Shai-Hulud: Ongoing Package Supply Chain Worm Delivering Data-Stealing Malware: https://www.wiz.io/blog/shai-hulud-npm-supply-chain-attack Chapters 00:00 Intro: NPM supply chain attacks explained 01:10 What is a software supply chain attack? 02:00 NPM phishing campaign: Fake login pages 03:00 Prettier ecosystem compromised 04:00 The “is” package malware incident 05:30 NX package breach (August 27 attack) 06:40 AI-powered supply chain exploit 08:00 GitHub Actions misconfiguration 12:00 Lessons from recent NPM attacks 20:00 How malicious packages get published 25:00 Why install scripts are so risky 30:00 Limitations of banning install scripts 35:00 Open source maintainer challenges 40:00 Smarter approaches to dependency updates 44:00 The future of open source supply chain security 47:00 Closing thoughts and resources We want to hear from you! How did you find us? Did you see us on Twitter? In a newsletter? Or maybe we were recommended by a friend? Fill out our listener survey (https://t.co/oKVAEXipxu)! Let us know by sending an email to our producer, Elizabeth, at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]), or tweet at us at PodRocketPod (https://twitter.com/PodRocketpod). Follow us. Get free stickers. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, fill out this form (https://podrocket.logrocket.com/get-podrocket-stickers), and we’ll send you free PodRocket stickers! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket provides AI-first session replay and analytics that surfaces the UX and technical issues impacting user experiences. Start understanding where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com. Try LogRocket for free today. (https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr) Special Guest: Feross Aboukhadijeh.

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