Weekly Tech - May 12th of 2025

An alternative to Chromium, the security of your cars, the current state of SSL, FrankenPHP and the reinvention of the wheel in the frontend, yes, there's all of that this week, ready?

Hey everyone! Hope you’re all doing great.

The break’s over and we’re back to our usual weekly rhythm. I’ve deliberately packed things a little full this time – some info doesn’t really need a deep dive.

Enough said, let’s get to it?

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Common knowledge

So, we’re kicking things off with a general overview, specifically a look at Ladybird – a new browser aiming to be an alternative to Chromium and the like (I’m not entirely convinced just yet, but we’ll see if the idea holds up!). Then, we have another presentation – technically interesting and quite fascinating – about automotive MPUs and their impact on vehicle safety (really informative about remote access).

Finally, the Devoxx France talks have dropped, and I have to say, a real highlight.

• The origins of Ladybird browser - Youtube

• Are automotive MPUs really secure? - Youtube

• Is AI the future of web development? Always was

• Expo, an open-source platform for making universal applications

• Google is working on integrating Zero Knowledge Proofs in its wallet

• The french Devoxx talks are now available - Youtube

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Database

A slight detour into the database world to hear about a user experience with Elasticsearch as a primary data source.

• Using Elasticsearch as a data backbone

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Cloud computing

Another little detour into the cloud world – a rundown of the different SSL stacks using Varnish, plus the general availability of Postgres in serverless mode via Koyeb.

• Rocal, a full-stack WASM framework

• The current state of SSL stacks

• Koyeb finally in general availability the serverless Postgres database

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Machine learning

Back to machine learning – we’ve discovered Pruna, a library for optimizing your local models, plus a user experience report on building a compute unit to run large-scale models (the network impact is pretty significant and will likely introduce latency pretty quickly).

• Building your own AI data center in 2025 - Youtube

• Observability in the age of LLMs - Youtube

• MCP can now use streamable HTTP flow

• Jan, an alternative to ChatGPT 100% local

• Pruna, a library to make your models smaller (and faster)

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PHP

Let’s go back to the classics with PHP, specifically a look at the client/server approach for MCP (thanks to the creator of TransformersPHP – definitely follow them, it’s a must!). Also, FrankenPHP has moved under the PHP Foundation’s wing – use it, your infrastructure will thank you (second order!)

• Adding AI helpers in your Symfony application

• Ensuring reliable JSON output from LLMs

• Flight, a micro-framework

• How Liip built a faster serializer back in the days

• A MCP server built in PHP by the creator of TransformerPHP

• A MCP client built in PHP by the create of the MCP server

• FrankenPHP is now officially supported by the PHP Foundation

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Rust / Go

A quick detour into Rust – we’ve discovered two libraries for creating GUIs (nothing particularly noteworthy on my end, the initial tests have been successful!).

• Egui, a GUI builder for Rust applications

• Slint, a GUI toolkit for Rust, C++ and more

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Frontend

Let’s wrap things up with a quick look at the frontend – a sad, but perpetually recurring, observation about developers trying to reinvent the wheel.

• Reinventing the wheel, a JSX snippet at a time

• Upfetch, an advanced fetch client builder

So, that’s the end of this week’s rundown. Don’t hesitate to leave a comment/like – you’re starting to get the hang of it! On my end, I’ll see you next week, same day, same time, same place for another rundown.

In the meantime, have a great weekend and a very good week.

See you Friday.