It's been a wild ride since I discovered and first subscribed to the Bytes newsletter. It really has been my go-to place for information about what is happening across the JS-verse. In the most recent article it was noted that no one had written an article detailing what is so great about their newsletter and so I decided to fix this.
I have almost no experience with other technical newsletters, so there will be limited comparisons in this article. But let's be honest, if you're reading this, you don't really want a comparison, you just want to hear why I love Bytes, and maybe some jokes along the way.
I'd like to say I rewrote my entire newsletter to use Bytes, but frankly, that sentence makes no sense, and I don't write any newsletters. Instead, below are the reasons why Bytes is the only newsletter I subscribe to and why I think you should too.
Bytes provides actually information
I don't subscribe to any other tech newsletter. Maybe you think this is crazy, but honestly, reading Twitter usually gives me a faster flow of information than a semi-regular email that I may or may not check. Bytes is the first and only tech newsletter that I've put in the effort to read regularly, and that is basically because it's comedy gold. When Astro.build hit my radar, it wasn't just because a couple people I follow on Twitter said it was cool (yes, that helped) but because I saw the words Astro.build in a Bytes newsletter and realized I hadn't played with a new library or framework lately and clicked the link. It's not important that I still haven't built anything with Astro (I definitely will) but rather that Bytes was the catalyst that convinced me to say I would try it.
Bytes gives me a reason to get up in the morning read it
Bytes has provided me with content that I love, sarcasm that hurts me (in a good way), programming puzzles that I actually attempt to solve, and a pulse on frameworks that I am actually interested in. While I'm not looking for a job, I still carefully peruse the job listings in each edition so I can a) mock the ones I think are silly and b) mercilessly bombard my friend with links to apply because their job "isn't cool enough, and you should try something new". Sometimes Bytes even includes Twitter content, so that's one less thread I will need to read and like all the replies on.
Bytes doesn't waste time with non-JS stuff
We get it, Rust is awesome, type-safe, and blazingly fast. I'm just not smart enough to learn how to use it. It's always painful to watch two genius-level developers show me how easy it is to write Rust in a YouTube video I can't ignore. Bytes on the other hand understands that I am a lowly front-end developer who loves JS and has been writing it for more than two decades. I get it, I could setup an API with Scala or Go much faster, but I understand Node.js. I use NextJS because it's a framework I wish I had built myself, even if the API setup can be confusing sometimes. Bytes doesn't try to convince me I'm wrong for loving JavaScript, it sits down next to me, nods in agreement, and then helps me find a new helper library to fix something underscore solved a long time ago.
Summary
Maybe you finished this article and you thought, "wait, do you actually think I SHOULD read Bytes?" and the answer is yes. If you want content that is actually interesting, gives you non-farming takes on web tech, and understands that you love JS even if there are other options out there, then you want to read Bytes. It's basically the wordle that you only have to remember once a week and you always win in under four guesses. Take the W and go subscribe to Bytes for a way better read than this article was.
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