Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Someone just clean-room ported seven Adobe apps to Rust, and Wes is shocked at how good it is. Scott and Wes break down what it gets right, what’s still missing, and why copying software is easy but inventing what comes next is the hard part.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!

00:12 Adobe Is in Trouble: A Clean Room Port of the Entire Suite

ArtCraft

02:22 Scott’s Long Running Adobe Grudge Since 2017

03:42 Figma Is Not a Raster Tool: Why Every Alternative Falls Short

04:40 Opening Real Photoshop Files: Masks, Half Tones and Blend Modes

PhotoCraft Github

06:30 What Clean Room Porting Actually Means

09:54 A Familiar Interface, Entirely Built in Rust

10:15 Don’t Trash the Whole Thing Over One or Two Bugs

12:14 What’s Missing: Artboards and the Tiny UI Interactions

13:53 Where Are the Vibe Coded Photoshops? Four Months Later

14:33 Figma’s Locked Down MCP and the Backlash

17:22 Dylan’s Clap Back at Anthropic’s Own Closed Ecosystem

18:08 The Real Photoshop Replacement Will Be a New Way of Working

21:35 Good UI Is Still the Moat

22:28 Caring About Your Project Past Two Days

23:05 Audio Crackles and Paper Cuts: The Bugs Only Humans Chase

24:56 Brought to you by Sentry!

26:28 Copying Is Easy: The Hard Part Is Inventing What Comes Next

27:28 DaVinci Resolve Keeps Shipping Useful Releases

28:26 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

Scott: KWS V2 Rack

Wes: Insta360 Luna

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Scott, Wes, and CJ break down the latest Pi updates, including durable long-running agents, Codemode, and MCP support, then debate whether pull requests are dead in favor of issues. Plus Supabase picks up Turso, Screen Studio 4 drops, JavaScript Composites bring value-based equality, and a stack of new AI models from Google, OpenAI, Cloudflare, and more.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax Weekly

00:46 example.com gets a facelift

Oliver Dunk’s post

IANA’s reply

04:37 The death of pull requests

Sindre Sorhus’ post

Dave Kiss’ post

SWC’s post

Andreas Kling’s post

Yusuke Wada’s post

Wes’ NiimBlue PR

JSON Alexander

12:46 pi v1.0

24:14 Brought to you by Sentry!

25:08 Turso Joining Supabase

28:13 Screen Studio Updates

Screen Studio 4.0 upscaling

33:24 Svelte 3.0 Release

35:32 Effect 4.0

38:14 Alchemy

Cloudflare’s Programmatic configuration

42:59 Foldkit

44:10 OpenAI Dev Day Announcements

Dots

Rahim Nathwani’s reply regarding Luna

Plugin Extensions

Sites in ChatGPT

56:40 Cloudflare Clef Decision Model

01:01:25 Gemini 4 Argon

Google’s announcement post

01:09:04 Flux 3 Image Model

01:11:50 Claude Mods

01:13:44 Muse Gadgets

Nat Friedman’s post

01:17:27 Nvidia Lyra 2.0 World Model

01:27:30 Game Recomps and Decomps

01:30:54 JS Composite Type

01:35:00 RFC 1149 Auction

First implementation of the Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol

01:37:49 eslint cssicorn

01:39:15 Syntax Meetup

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Scott and Wes answer listener questions about what replaced blogging, what to do while your AI agent works, and who should pay for token costs. They also cover keeping agents from going off the rails, getting your team excited about AI, and staying motivated when AI takes the fun out of coding.

Show Notes

00:00 Intro

00:40 Welcome to Syntax!

01:37 What’s the Modern Day Equivalent of Blogging?

08:35 What Should You Be Doing While Your Agent Works?

Vibe Stretch

13:23 Brought to you by Sentry!

14:02 How Much Should Your Employer Cover for Token Spend?

18:32 Tracking What You Actually Burn with Codex Bar

20:26 How Do You Code HTML Emails in 2026?

25:22 How Do You Keep an Agent From Going Off the Rails?

Swamp Club

30:23 Steering an Agent Mid Turn: Which Harness Does It Best?

32:44 How Do I Get My Engineers Interested in AI?

35:48 Beyond Telegram: Better Interfaces for Non Coding Agents

38:41 Staying Motivated When AI Takes the Fun Parts of Coding

41:55 Killing Rogue Node Processes and Restarting Your Machine

44:12 Custom Internal Harnesses: Worth It or a Token Hog?

47:47 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

Scott: Driving Rogue

Wes: Amazon Basics Electric Screwdriver

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Scott, Wes, and CJ ask whether Ruby on Rails is really dead (and whether Rust is just Rails you don't have to read), then dig into Meta's new Muse agent, which is free, comes with its own VM, and is already reading messages nobody asked it to. Plus: upm, a tiny TypeScript npm replacement, Opus 5.5 moonlighting as a motion designer, Tart VMs on Apple Silicon, and a foundry for gloriously bad web fonts.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome

01:11 upm is a tiny fast npm

Pooya Parsa’s launch post

07:34 Zuck cooked with Muse
Mark Zuckerberg’s post

Safety and Security in Muse

Privacy concerns

Ray Wong’s post

19:21 Ruby on Rails is Dead

27:55 loco - Rails for Rust

31:06 Brought to you by Sentry!

33:12 How should new developers learn?

41:40 Opus 5.5 First Impressions

Stephan Livera’s motion graphics with Opus 5.5

Kenn Ejima’s single prompt motion graphics

Andras Bacsai’s Coolify motion graphics

Tyler Shukert’s Supabase motion graphics

Ben Vinegar’s Modem motion graphics

Wes’ gym builder

GFX

58:27 Tart - virtualization toolset for Apple Silicon

01:01:43 jevgrep
is-jeven

01:06:49 SHOW ME YOUR RACK

01:09:04 Chrome gets responsive iframe resizing

01:10:25 Bastardica - bastard web font foundry

01:14:23 Sonnet 5.5 Released

01:16:37 OpenAI Dev Day

01:20:02 Syntax SF Meetup

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Scott and Wes ditch Electron and Tauri for GPUI, the GPU accelerated Rust UI framework from the Zed team. They get into its React-like API, styling that feels a lot like Tailwind, GPUI Kit components, the community fork drama, and the tiny desktop apps Scott has built with it.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!

GPUI

01:24 Electron, Tauri, and the Trouble With Web Views

04:05 Enter GPUI: Why We Don’t Take Money to Talk About Tools

05:32 Brought to you by Sentry.io

05:59 What GPUI Is: GPU Accelerated, Cross Platform, Native All the Way Down

06:50 A React Like API in Rust: Divs, Flex, and Chained Methods

09:35 Components, Props, and State in GPUI

Scott’s GPUI Demo Gist

11:21 How Much of CSS Does GPUI Actually Reimplement?

12:52 Flexbox Everywhere, But Where Is CSS Grid?

14:17 Where Does Your App Logic Live? No RPC Layer Needed

15:53 Render vs RenderOnce: Stateful and Static Components

16:57 GPUI Kit: The shadcn of GPUI

18:46 GPUI CE: The Community Fork and Ecosystem Tension

21:29 Apps Scott Built With GPUI: Gendo, File Bro, and Mr. Space

22:48 Why Tiny Utility Apps Should Stay Tiny

24:25 File Bro: File Automations a la Hazel

25:27 Mr. Space: Building a macOS Window Manager

27:05 The Downsides: No Native UI Elements and No Browser DOM

Scott’s Rust Best Practices Skill

29:56 Testing GPUI Apps With Jev and the Accessibility Tree

gpui-agent

30:39 GPUI Mobile: Experimental, But It Works

GPUI Kit Mobile Docs

gpui-mobile

31:52 Final Verdict: GPUI for Personal Desktop Software

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