#165

18 February 2026

Hey, it’s me, Mat Marquis, from over at the JavaScript for Everyone course!

Listen, I don’t have much time to explain — I dumped a big box of CSS variables onto the floor out in the hallway, and all of them are for slightly different shades of gray. If I know Andy, the sight of it has sent him into a fugue state and he’ll be distracted until he gets the whole mess sorted out. Meanwhile, I’ve snuck into the control room, wedged the door shut with a curly brace, and seized control of The Index mainframe.

That’s right — I’m running this show now, and you know what that means: I’m runnin’ a little long, baby. Strap in!

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Ah, it feels like it comes around earlier every year. Why, I remember back when Paul Irish first boldly proposed the use of * { box-sizing: border-box }, lo those many years ago.

Sure, maybe the holiday has become a little commercial since then, but leave us not forget the the true meaning of the season: that time we all agreed that early Internet Explorer got one thing right.

npmx is intended to serve as an improved user interface for the npm registry — not a new package manager, just a better way to browse what npm has on offer. I’m certainly not gonna argue with that; I think it looks great.

Maybe just as noteworthy, though, is the explosive community development effort that has gone into building it over the past few weeks. If you’re looking to dip a toe into open source development but don’t know where to start, check out their “good first issue” tag and get in the mix, yeah?

I tell you, Neocities brings me genuine joy. The websites people are building there feel like love-letters to the web and all of its creative, expressive potential, penned in the visual language of a time when that potential felt so much closer to its surface. I need that reminder, sometimes — that for all the glossy, clinical, blocky-sans-serif, purple-on-black, tracking-script-festooned corporate websites we’re stuck wading through every day, the original spirit of the web is still alive and well, if you know where to look.

The Explicit Resource Management proposal hasn’t yet landed in the ECMAScript standard proper, but it is close enough that browsers have started implementing it, and that means we can start trying it out for ourselves. With this proposal comes a consistent new method for managing objects that need cleaning up at the end of their lifespans (closing WebSocket connections and open files, for example) and a brand new way to declare variables that can clean up after themselves.

Dunno who the author is, but he seems smart and handsome. Not sure why he keeps bringing up The Muppets, but that’s none of my business.

P.S. this is a good website from personalsit.es.

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Hey, thanks for humoring me through this issue of The Index. If you found your way here by way of the ol’ information superhighway, then I, for one, think you should subscribe — and I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend you check out JavaScript for Everyone course, while you’re in the neighborhood.

Okay. Now, before he manages to get in here, let me just figure out how to sen—

—oh, hey Andy!

No, yeah, I know. That… I guess that just, uh, fell against the door, maybe? Weird!

Hm?

No, I— I didn’t mess with it. I mean, you know I’m no good with computers. I wouldn’t even know how to send The Index out! What would it even be, like… this key? No? This one? I see. Okay. Not that I’d ever need to know! Haha.

Anyway, I’m just gonna… I gotta mosey. So. Oh, hey, look over there for a sec?

- Mat