Best of The New Stack — June 2025

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    Article
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    Node.js 24: Your Next Big Frontend Upgrade?

    Node.js 24 brings significant improvements including native TypeScript support, better ES Module compatibility, explicit resource management for automatic cleanup, and enhanced performance through V8 optimizations. Despite these advances, many developers continue using outdated versions like Node 12 and 18, creating security risks. The update addresses long-standing JavaScript challenges with resource management and introduces Watt, an application server that enables multi-threading and even PHP integration within Node.js applications.

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    Article
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    How To Set up MacOS as a Development Machine

    Setting up macOS for development involves installing essential tools like Homebrew for package management, choosing a better terminal application, and configuring development environments. Key steps include switching shells if needed, installing Git, setting up window management tools like Rectangle, and installing development tools such as Node.js through NVM and Docker. The process leverages macOS's Unix-like foundation and extensive tool availability to create a productive development environment.

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    Article
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    Linux: Install a Web-Based Admin Console on Ubuntu Server

    Cockpit provides a web-based graphical interface for managing Ubuntu Server, eliminating the need for command-line administration. The installation process involves installing the cockpit package, enabling the service, configuring firewall access on port 9090, and optionally adding Podman support for container management. Users need sudo privileges to access administrative functions, and the interface can be extended with additional plugins for features like file sharing.

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    Article
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    Why 90% of Microservices Still Ship Like Monoliths

    Most organizations with microservice architectures still use monolithic release processes, batching changes together for testing and deployment. This approach negates the core benefits of microservices like independent deployments and team autonomy. The main culprits are expensive integration tests and limited shared environments. Sandbox environments offer a solution by enabling individual change testing against real dependencies without full infrastructure duplication, dramatically reducing deployment time from days to hours while improving code quality and developer productivity.

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    Article
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    Ubuntu 25.10 Replaces sudo With a Rust-Based Equivalent

    Ubuntu 25.10 will replace the traditional sudo command with sudo-rs, a Rust-based equivalent developed by Trifecta Tech Foundation. The new implementation leverages Rust's memory safety guarantees to eliminate vulnerabilities common in C-based software, including null pointer dereferences, use-after-free errors, and data races. While sudo-rs is designed as a near drop-in replacement, some less secure features like LDAP distribution of sudoers files won't be supported. Users can currently install sudo-rs alongside traditional sudo for testing, and Canonical plans to keep the original sudo available in archive repositories for those who prefer to roll back.

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    Article
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    8 Linux Desktop Distributions to Try

    Eight Linux desktop distributions are highlighted for their unique strengths: Rhino Linux for innovative package management, Pop!_OS for creative work and gaming, Zorin OS for Windows/macOS migrants, Nitrux for modern app deployment, Nobara for gaming-focused Fedora, Elementary OS for elegant design, Manjaro for accessible Arch Linux, and Ubuntu for reliable foundation. Each distribution targets different user needs, from beginners to power users, emphasizing that the best choice depends on individual requirements and preferences.

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    Article
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    Async Programming in Java Repositories

    The Repository pattern in Java provides an abstraction layer for data access operations, similar to how a librarian manages book access. When combined with asynchronous programming using CompletableFuture and Virtual Threads, it can significantly improve performance by allowing multiple data source queries to run concurrently. This approach reduces the total response time from the sum of all individual query times to just the time of the slowest query, while maintaining clean separation between business logic and data access protocols.

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    Article
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    Cache vs. Database: How Architecture Affects Performance

    A comprehensive comparison between caches and databases reveals fundamental architectural differences that impact performance. Memcached excels at memory efficiency and pipelined requests, storing 101 million items versus ScyllaDB's 61 million before evictions. However, ScyllaDB achieves higher disk throughput with its direct I/O approach and supports complex data models. The choice depends on workload requirements: simple key-value operations favor Memcached, while complex data models and persistence needs favor databases like ScyllaDB. Both systems can maximize hardware utilization with predictably low latencies when properly configured.

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