WeAreDevelopers Dev Digest

Issue 199: Doomed Word, Flawed LLM benchmarks, sorting & CSS mistakes

Hello fellow developer, as we are bombarded by all the "your 2025 with product XYZ" wrapped reports I feel odd as we didn't do anything similar this year with Dev Digest. We might do so after the holidays, but always remember that there is a links archive for you to read. This time we talk about how LLM benchmarks are flawed, why sorting is hard, CSS design mistakes and give you some great tools - one that optimises files in between copy and pasting! Also, learn how to run Doom in Word and how to say "no" like a manager.

AI is heralded as the biggest productivity boost for people, especially developers. But is that really the case? At our AI and productivity day we invited Aris Markogiannakis as one of our guests to talk about how he boost productivity with AI showing his Figma & Playwright MCP Workflows. Check out the video and learn how to be more productive!

What's happening in AI

• 7 Lessons from building a small-scale AI application
• Beyond RAG basics: Advanced strategies for AI applications
• A minimal PyTorch implementation for training your own small LLM from scratch.
• What if you don't need MCP at all?
• Most LLM benchmarks are flawed, casting doubt on AI progress metrics

Security and Privacy

• create-react-app is a zombie application
• Let’s talk about AI and end-to-end encryption
• Top 5 security mistakes software developers make
• Top 5 Active Directory Hacks
• How to defend against hijacking and trojanization of Chrome extensions

Software Development

• The Mistakes of CSS
• The Speed Trifecta: 11ty, Brotli 11, and CSS Fingerprinting
• Why sorting is harder than it seems
• The Hidden Complexity of Scaling WebSockets
• Files are fraught with peril

Tips, Tricks and Tools

• Isometric shot
• Image, video, PDF and clipboard optimiser Copy large, paste small, send fast
• Difftastic a structural diff tool that understands syntax
• Handy - A free, open source, offline, and extensible speech-to-text application
• Repository to diagram

Procrastination corner and Wonderful Weird Web

• Why does man print "gimme gimme gimme" at 00:30?
• Mathematics of the NYT daily word game Waffle
• DooM in WorD

• Master the Art of the Product Manager "No"
• Ode to side project time
• Code reviews: A success story
• Why GOV.UK’s `Exit this Page` component doesn’t use the Escape key
• Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog

Companies to check:

• DevOps Engineer at Deichmann SE
• AI Engineer at Riverty
• Senior DevOps Consultant at AOK Systems
• Senior Backend Engineer Electrical Engineering at envelio
• Senior Backend Engineer at Redcare Pharmacy

More jobs here: Remote positions - Germany - Austria