Article Roundup - August 24, 2018

Setting up constants via proxies
This is not a long article, but it is a great example of how you can use the Proxy class in JS. It also gives you JS enums.

JavaScript engine fundamentals: optimizing prototypes
Understanding how the various JavaScript engines work can help you write better code and is full of good compiler and data structures info. This article goes into how prototypes are handled in JS engines. It’s part of a series and getting pretty in-depth.

An Exploration of Variable Fonts
Variable fonts have been around for a few years now and most major browsers support them. They can provide both efficiency, by requiring fewer network requests, and responsiveness. The article summarizes a talk given to BCC developers and designers.

Announcing Netlify Drop - The simplicity of BitBalloon, with the added power of Netlify
Netlify is a wonderful host for static websites, especially when using static site generators. They have recently pulled into their main offerings a tool that allows you to drop a folder onto their website and have your new site up and running in minutes.

JavaScript Web Apps and Servers Vulnerable to ReDoS Attacks
ReDoS or Regular Expression Denial of Service, attacks have been known about for a while but new research found that ReDos vulnerabilities are becoming more common in the JavaScript landscape. This is a significant issue because Node servers generally run on a single thread. If that thread is spending seconds or minutes on a single request the application comes to a halt.