Together with

ISSUE 500
A Milestone, Memories, and Farewell

Welcome to Our 500th Weekly Newsletter—and My Last!

It’s a momentous week here at The New Stack. You’re reading our last weekly newsletter of 2025 — and our 500th weekly newsletter overall. It’s been 500 weeks of stories, insights and conversations with our community.

And it’s my last newsletter. I’m retiring and come the turn of the year, a new editor in chief will be leading TNS. In early January, you’ll learn mored about that new leader and their vision for The New Stack’s future.

As a publication, we’re grateful for your readership, your viewership, and your fellowship when we see you at tech events around the globe. We’re grateful for your ideas for how we can serve you better, and even for your feedback on our (hopefully infrequent) missteps.

I’ve been at TNS since the spring of 2021 and have been its editor-in-chief for just over two years. My tenure has overlapped with a revolutionary change in how software is built, deployed and managed: the emergence of generative AI. The introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3 in late 2022 was a momentous change, akin to the introduction of Kubernetes in 2014 — the year TNS was founded, catching a wave that keeps rolling.

Over its decade-plus, TNS has caught a number of waves as they’re rolled through the industry. Remember serverless? What about low-code/no code and “citizen developers”? Pour one out for the blockchain. And then there’s platform engineering and WebAssembly — trends that rose, dipped and seem lately to be gaining traction once again. Vibe coding seems poised for that cycle now.

I leave with gratitude for this adventure — for our kick-ass staff, and especially for my friend and colleague Joab Jackson, who recruited me to TNS, and to publisher and founder Alex Williams, for hiring me. Alex has been my partner in steering us through the fast-moving AI wave, one whose impact is beginning to wash away less nimble media companies.

We’ve stayed strong and steady, and that’s because of you.

So, what’s next? For me, at least for a while, travel and time with friends and family. For TNS, new leadership as the tech world turns from cloud native to AI native.

The wave is going to keep getting bigger, but TNS will continue to help you navigate it. Stay in our boat, and you’ll have fun storming the castle.

— Heather Joslyn, editor-in-chief, TNS

Cloud DR Restores Data. Infrastructure Recovery Restores Business

Traditional cloud DR stops at data. Real recovery depends on identity, networking, scaling, and config state. This white paper shows how rebuilding cloud infrastructure as code makes recovery predictable, auditable, and repeatable—when outages happen.

Sponsored

"It’s like every customer, every engineering team was faced with evaluating 10 different vendors. That’s not going to get us to a more secure foundation that we need”

— Docker’s Mike Donovan, "Docker Sets Free the Hardened Container Images"

The Developer's Guide to Cloud Infrastructure, Efficiency and Sustainability

In this popular eBook, TNS author Charles Humble dives deep into the cloud’s role as both a contributor and a potential solution for greenhouse gas emissions. His go-to resource for understanding sustainability in cloud computing is still  available, and you won’t want to miss it!

No Code Is Dead
Industry experts say no-code platforms are dying due to AI-powered "vibe coding." But others argue AI will transform visual development into something new.

Why React Is No Longer the Undisputed Champion of JavaScript
React, the once dominant JavaScript framework, is now being challenged — by modern browsers, more discerning developers, and new tools.

2025 Is the Last Year of Python Dominance in AI: Java Comin’
Like Omar Little stalking the streets of Baltimore in HBO’s 'The Wire,' Java is coming for Python's AI territory — and in the enterprise, resistance may be futile.

Vibe Coding, Six Months Later: The Honeymoon’s Over
Six months after the hype began, is vibe coding sustainable? We look at the pros and cons, and why blending vibes with structure is key.

Kubernetes Finally Solves Its Biggest Problem: Managing Databases

Learn the operator pattern that makes PostgreSQL management seamless.

Stop Writing Code, Start Writing Docs

When it comes to AI, says Keith Ballinger of Google, developers need to slow down to speed up the process: write clear guides for AI agents, focus on architecture and create a project plan.

Confronting AI’s Next Big Challenge: Inference Compute

Inference computing will become a very heterogeneous space, with solutions tailored to different use cases — and agentic AI will turbocharge demand, said Sid Sheth of d-matrix in this episode of The New Stack Makers.

Kafka at Scale: Smarter Architectures for Real-Time Business Impact

Apache Kafka is the backbone of modern digital-native businesses, but running Kafka at scale often brings cost and operational headaches. In this insightful session, Greg Harris and David Esposito of Aiven explored how leading companies are using Kafka to deliver real business impact.

Why Your IaC Strategy Still Sucks in 2025

In this webinar,  Firefly’s Gal Gibli joins TNS Host Chris Pirillo to share best practices and actionable tips to optimize your software delivery pipeline. If you’re looking for actionable solutions to get your IaC strategy back on track, this webinar is for you.

Connect with The New Stack