Snapchat’s UI framework 📱, PyTorch co-founder leaves 🤖, dead framework theory 💀

Valdi is a cross-platform UI framework developed by Snapchat designed to deliver native performance without sacrificing developer speed ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

Sign Up |Advertise|View Online TLDR Together With  TLDR Dev 2025-11-10 Cut your QA cycles down from hours to minutes with automated testing (Sponsor) If slow QA processes bottleneck you or your software engineering team and you're releasing slower because of it — you need to check out QA Wolf. They get engineering teams to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage and help them ship 5x faster by reducing QA cycles from hours to minutes. QA Wolf takes testing off your plate. They can get you: Unlimited parallel test runs 24-hour maintenance and on-demand test creation Human-verified bug reports sent directly to your team Zero flakes, guaranteed The result? Drata's team of 80+ engineers achieved 4x more test cases and 86% faster QA cycles. No flakes, no delays, just better QA — that's QA Wolf. Schedule a demo to learn more 🧑‍💻 Articles & Tutorials How Did I Get Here? (14 minute read) This website uses a custom traceroute program called ktr to visualize the journey of internet packets between the server and your IP address. The traceroute works by sending ICMP packets with increasing TTLs to map the routers and networks (autonomous systems) involved. These networks peer with each other using the Border Gateway Protocol to exchange routing information and determine the best path for data transmission. Inside Modal Notebooks: How we built a cloud GPU notebook that boots in seconds (15 minute read) Modal Notebooks are a cloud-based Jupyter notebook environment that offers fast GPU access and real-time collaboration. Engineering-wise, the notebooks use sandboxes for safe kernel execution, lazy-load container images for quick startup, and VolumeFS for persistent data storage. Why is Zig so Cool? (25 minute read) Zig is a programming language that is great at compiling C code and cross-compiling to different architectures, setting it apart from other languages. This is a beginner-friendly guide to Zig that covers variable declarations, structs, loops, arrays, pointers, functions, and object-oriented programming concepts. 🧠 Opinions & Advice Dead framework theory (13 minute read) React's dominance is self-reinforcing due to LLMs favoring it in code generation, creating a barrier for new frameworks, libraries, and web platform features. This is because LLMs are trained on existing data, where React is statistically dominant, and tools are incentivized to output React to meet developer demand. Startup Lessons from my Piracy Website (4 minute read) This author fostered a loyal user base while running the piracy streaming site HeheStreams through prioritizing customer service, personalized communication, and honest recommendations. A key growth strategy involved using Reddit's API to encourage user referrals in relevant online communities. These principles apply to all businesses, except in this case, the author went to jail since the site itself was illegal. Becoming a compiler engineer (13 minute read) Compiler engineers implement programming languages, focusing on optimization and maintenance rather than language creation. The job market is competitive due to limited demand and high entry barriers, with opportunities in startups, larger tech companies, academia, and quant finance. Interviews for compiler engineers usually have questions on LeetCode-style data structures and algorithms (in C++), language design, intermediate representation, and compiler optimization passes. 🚀 Launches & Tools AI prototyping for product leaders (Sponsor) Assessing AI prototyping isn't just about "which tool is best?" It's "what helps make confident decisions fastest?" Miro's guide provides a framework + scorecard so you can commit resources confidently — plus a method for turning early ideas into editable prototypes, before committing to code. Get the guide. Valdi (GitHub Repo) Valdi is a cross-platform UI framework developed by Snapchat designed to deliver native performance without sacrificing developer speed. It allows developers to write UI code once in TypeScript, which is then compiled directly into native views for iOS, Android, and macOS. Valdi has automatic view recycling, optimized component rendering, and a C++ layout engine for better performance. MarkoJS (Website) Marko is a declarative, HTML-based language that extends standard HTML to enable building dynamic and reactive user interfaces. It prioritizes performance with features like streaming, an optimizing compiler, and granular hydration. Ribir (GitHub Repo) Ribir is a non-intrusive Rust GUI framework that enables building cross-platform applications from a single codebase. The framework has a declarative language using Rust macros, a widget composition system, a layout system inspired by Flutter, and a theme system. 🎁 Miscellaneous Leaving Meta and PyTorch (8 minute read) After eleven years at Meta, including nearly eight years working on PyTorch, which he co-founded, Soumith Chintala is leaving to pursue something new and smaller, driven by curiosity and the desire to avoid regret. He's confident in PyTorch's future, as a capable and value-aligned team is in place to guide its continued evolution. AI isn't replacing jobs. AI spending is (6 minute read) Despite claims of AI-driven job displacement, AI is not the primary cause of recent layoffs. Tech sector layoffs are more likely due to factors like over-hiring during the pandemic and financial stress from massive AI infrastructure spending that isn't generating enough revenue. Companies are using AI as a convenient excuse for cost-cutting measures when faced with financial pressures. ⚡ Quick Links Reverse engineering Codex CLI to get GPT-5-Codex-Mini to draw me a pelican (8 minute read) OpenAI's open-source Codex CLI tool was reverse-engineered using Codex itself to create a command that allows direct prompting of the GPT-5-Codex-Mini model, ultimately getting it to (poorly) generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle and uncovering the API endpoint used by the tool. From web developer to database developer in 10 years (6 minute read) After years as a web developer and manager, the author transitioned to a database developer role at EnterpriseDB by pursuing side projects, community involvement, and networking, landing a position focused on Postgres extensions. Work, After Work: Notes From an Unemployed New Grad Watching the Job Market Break (19 minute read) A new computer science graduate describes the current job market as broken due to automation and the rise of AI, which are thinning out entry-level positions and pressuring individuals to become exceptional "out of distribution humans" to compete with AI. Apple is crossing a Steve Jobs red line (4 minute read) Apple, under Tim Cook, is betraying Steve Jobs' core principle of prioritizing customer experience over profit by introducing advertising into its products like Apple Maps and the App Store. Love TLDR? Tell your friends and get rewards! Share your referral link below with friends to get free TLDR swag! https://refer.tldr.tech/d0af4569/3 Track your referrals here. Want to advertise in TLDR? 📰 If your company is interested in reaching an audience of web developers and engineering decision makers, you may want to advertise with us. Want to work at TLDR? 💼 Apply here or send a friend's resume to jobs@tldr.tech and get $1k if we hire them! If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email! Thanks for reading, Priyam Mohanty, Jenny Xu & Ceora Ford Manage your subscriptions to our other newsletters on tech, startups, and programming. Or if TLDR Dev isn't for you, please unsubscribe.