Rodney Lab Newsletter — February 2024Rodney Lab Newsletter — February 2024
🔥 Remix Vite #
Remix Vite is now stable. Remix offers an alternative to Next.js for building SSR apps in React. It follows an ethos of Using the Platform. In brief, this means picking web standard forms over custom JavaScript alternatives where possible, for example. The philosophy and the Remix route-based design can lead to faster websites, especially when combined with caching and other optimizations.
Remix was originally built around Express server, and it felt slow, compared to running React in Astro or a custom Vite app. With Remix Vite in development for some months now, it’s exciting to see a stable release. Looking forward to seeing the speed and portability expected from modern tooling.
The new release arrives with Remix support for Cloudflare and Netlify Remix Vite deploys. Don’t forget, you also now have access to the Vite plugin ecosystem from your Remix app too!
🧑🏽💻 Follower Feedback — Game Dev Posts #
I started writing content on both C++ and Rust Game Dev, documenting my learning experience. I have completed the Hands-on Rust book by Herbert Wolverson, building a Flappy-bird inspired game and a 2D Dungeon crawler. In parallel, I have also been exploring the Modern C++ Game Dev scene, trying out Raylib and Unreal Engine. Those, and a host of C++ tooling and libraries!
Excited to receive some fantastic feedback on these posts. Here is a selection, in case you missed them.
- C++ Game Dev Libraries: Raylib & Flecs 💪🏽
- Rust for Gaming: Rust Game Development Engines 2024 🎮️
- Unreal Engine with Neovim: Config for Game Development 🎮️
Let me know if you find these useful, and if there are other game related-topics you would like to see content on, or even other areas!
📢 Fun Finds #
- Tools Git Butler — I still haven’t had a chance to try it, but Git Butler, a local Git client with a GUI, looks like a good alternative to using the GitHub website over a slow connection. I already enjoy using the GitHub CLI, lazygit and git-stack, so eager to take Git Butler for a spin. Let me know your thoughts if you have already tried it.
- Security — cargo-audit & cargo-auditable: cargo-audit is Rust tooling that lets you know of security advisories related to crates used in your Rust project. cargo-auditable is a little different; when you use it to build your Rust binaries, it embeds version info for the crates you use. Just by inspecting the generated binary, with cargo-audit, or other tools, you can get a list of the versions of components used in that particular build. Invaluable for checking if a particular binary might need rebuilding, if security advisories are released against its dependant crate version. You can run both locally, or in GitHub actions.
- Projects Ray Tracing in One Weekend — whether you’re curious on how basic lighting works in video games or if you want to start learning 3D rendering, this series of online books will set you on your way. I have completed the first, which you can do as a side-project over a weekend or a few weekends, depending on your commitments! Interestingly, Ray Olson built the Rust rayn path tracing library from this book!
👋🏽 Until next time! #
Hope there was something valuable in here for you. As always, reach out with feedback. Here are some links to recent content, which I hope you will find useful: