Hot New Web Dev – February 2023

Welcome to Hot Web Dev February 2023, featuring the latest news on web development technologies. This month features a threat that targets a popular package manager. Long live web design. Is web design dead in the twenty-twenties? The web tool of the month is codings answer to Grammarly.

Python PyPI Threat

Where ever you go in the web sphere you will likely encounter something malicious from time to time. Python is a popular programming language. Its simplicity makes it favourable amongst new programmers. For those who do not know, PyPI is a distribution for delivering packages via a terminal. This speeds up productivity and saves time. There are many packages available, 447,230 at the time of writing. This makes it an ideal target for hackers to use the system to spread malicious code.

The malicious packages were first discovered in November 2022. Since then 450 malicious packages have come to light. The names of the packages have similar spellings to some of the most popular libraries. Pygame, matplotlib and beautifulsoup are a few of them. This typosquatting technique makes packages look like their genuine counterparts.

The rogue chrome extension tracks cryptocurrency addresses copied to the windows clipboard. Once detected, the browser extension replaces it with a set of hardcoded addresses. By doing this any crypto transactions are directed to the fraudster’s account.

Source – Bleeping Computer

Is Web Design Dead?

This title is a little harsh but after reading an article on Speckyboy, a blog I have followed for more than a decade. Ten years ago the majority of the content on the web was design based. You would see lots of web design blogs and portfolios and inspiration was plentiful.

Fast forward to the 2020s and the majority of blogs have now shifted to developer resources. HTML5, CSS frameworks and tools like Tailwind, anyone can build a website and customise it. Online website builders are more flexible for novice users to create their portfolios. This makes it cheaper than hiring a web designer to do the job for you. HTML and CSS are still valuable to learn but you won’t make as much money as you once could.

Coding Resources

If you want to learn web development you can find a whole host of resources over on web.dev. It’s in-depth you can learn subjects such as HTML, CSS, forms, PWA, privacy, accessibility and images. On the subject of development, there are certain concepts that every developer should learn.

Two of the big subjects are Object Orientated Programming and data structures. If you are unsure about choosing a programming language to learn first. Two of the most popular are JavaScript and Python but can you do the same with both? JavaScript has come a long way over the last decade. If you have dabbled with it in the past and want to start again you may need to say goodbye to some bad practices.

Web Tool Of The Month

February’s tool of the month is Kodezi, an AI Developer tool, touted as Grammarly for code. It can convert code to different programming languages, debug, auto-optimise, auto-comment and create docstrings for your code. You can use it as a standalone web editor inside your browser or as a Visual Studio Code extension. There are plans available including a free limited account, which gets you 50 free credits a month. Other plans start from USD 5.99 when paid annually.

The Best of the Rest in February 2023

• 40 Tools & Resources For Creating Holographic Effects
• HTML & Coding Introduction – Course for Beginners
• A Step-By-Step Guide To Building Accessible Carousels
• 6 Ways To Improve Your Essay Writing Before the Exam
• Rock 5 vs. Raspberry Pi 4: Which Should You Buy?