Best of Theo - t3․gg — December 2025

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    Shadcn just changed forever

    Shadcn UI introduced a major update called Shadcn Create that puts customization front and center. Instead of websites looking identical with default components, developers can now configure presets, colors, fonts, icon sets, and styles before generating a project. The system supports multiple component libraries (Radix UI and Base UI), offers various design presets (Vega, Nova, Maya, Lyra, Mirror), and allows extensive theming options. Testing shows that providing AI coding assistants with a well-structured component library significantly improves UI generation quality, even for models typically weak at design. The update maintains Shadcn's philosophy of code ownership while making it easier to start with a unique design system.

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    The Github Tax (I can't believe they actually did this...)

    GitHub announced a new fee structure charging 0.008 cents per minute for using self-hosted runners with GitHub Actions, even when compute runs on third-party platforms like Blacksmith or Depot. This pricing change affects all self-hosted runners and has sparked widespread criticism from developers who view it as penalizing users for choosing alternatives to GitHub's infrastructure. The fee applies regardless of whether jobs run for seconds or minutes, and critics argue GitHub is extracting revenue from an ecosystem while failing to invest in improving Actions' performance, reliability, and observability. The change has intensified concerns about GitHub's direction under Microsoft ownership and lack of clear leadership.

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    CSS got WAY better in 2025

    Chrome shipped 22 new CSS and UI features in 2025, including customizable select elements, native popover and dialog controls, scroll-based animations, view transition improvements, and declarative UI patterns. Major additions include invoker commands for JavaScript-free interactions, anchor positioning with container queries, scroll state queries, tree counting functions for staggered animations, and the shape function for complex clipping paths. New text layout controls enable proper vertical centering, while DOM state-preserving moves keep video and iframe state during reparenting. Most features work in Chromium browsers but lack Firefox and Safari support.

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    Avatar of t3dotggTheo - t3․gg·25w

    Software Sucks Now

    Modern software quality has declined significantly, but not for the reasons commonly cited. The real culprit is codebase age and complexity: platforms like iOS, Windows, YouTube, and Twitter have been accumulating code for over a decade without fundamental rewrites. As software grows older and larger, it becomes exponentially harder to maintain, regardless of programming language, AI usage, or framework choice. The industry has consolidated around a small set of aging platforms (iOS/Android, Windows/macOS, Gmail, YouTube) that now carry massive technical debt. Meanwhile, smaller open-source projects maintained by passionate individuals (like Ghostty, Lossless Cut, and Helium) remain stable because they're newer, smaller, and built with focused intent. The solution isn't better tooling or banning AI—it's diversifying the software ecosystem and supporting independent developers building fresh alternatives.

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