WeAreDevelopers Dev Digest

Issue 163: Write nothing, deploy nowhere.

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Hello fellow developer, this week we talked to Andy Piper of Mastodon, we hear about the case against conversational interfaces, how to write LLMs and Agents and how people use ChatGPT to fake recipes and passports. And you may be surprised why your company does not fix bugs although they are obvious! 

Mastodon, do you know it? Do you use it? What the heck is it? Following up our interview with Eric Bailey on BlueSky we met with Andy Piper, a former Twitter engineer to explain us if Mastodon is an alternative to the big social media platforms and why it is different. If you're confused about the Fediverse, check out the video to learn more about it. 

What's happening in AI

• The case against conversational interfaces.
• AI masters Minecraft: DeepMind program finds diamonds without being taught.
• 12 Graphs That Explain the State of AI in 2025.
• AI crawlers cause Wikimedia Commons bandwidth demands to surge 50%.
• Courses on HuggingFace: AI Agents Course and LLM Course!

Security and Privacy

• Cyberattacks by AI agents are coming.
• Using ChatGPT-4o to create a passport replica and to fake receipts.
• GitHub found 39M secret leaks in 2024.
• The “S” in MCP Stands for Security.
• Everyone knows all the apps on your phone
• Fun with Timing Attacks

Software Development

• Breaking down circular dependencies in JavaScript
• First Look at The Modern attr()
• Best Practices of File Upload With JavaScript
• Creating a “Course Navigation” Component
• Relative colours

Tips, Tricks and Tools

• DeepSite - a DeepSeek powered "Vibe Coding" editor in the browser.
• "I have read and agree to the Terms" fixed.
• Share your curl commands easily with others.
• Bare - run JS everywhere.
• SVG filters.

Procrastination corner and Wonderful Weird Web

• No code is the best way to write secure and reliable applications. Write nothing; deploy nowhere! - also make sure to check the pull requests for extra LOLs.
• Art with TypeScript, Jupyter, Polars, and Observable Plot.
• A steam locomotive from 1993 broke my yarn test.
• 1995 Was the Most Important Year for the Web.

• The Reality of Working in Tech: We're Not Hired to Write Code.
• Why the Latest JavaScript Frameworks Are a Waste of Time.
• A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs.
• Refactoring to understand and "vibe coding"
• Why Companies Don’t Fix Bugs.

Companies to check:

• Software-Tester at PDV.group
• Data Engineer at trivago
• Lead Engineer in Berlin at Expert Systems
• Fullstack Spring Boot / Java Dev at Baros Solutions
• Mobile App Developer at WeLove9am

More jobs here: Remote positions - Germany - Austria