Babel 8 RC Arrives, Gatsby Lives, Lodash Resets

#​771 — February 3, 2026 Read on the Web JavaScript Weekly Four Heavyweights Drop Updates Four stalwarts of the JavaScript ecosystem all shipped notable releases this week, and odds are you're using at least one of them: Gatsby v5.16 proves Gatsby, once considered neck-and-neck with Next.js in the React world, is not 'dead'. The headline feature is React 19 support. Babel 7 just shipped its final release. "After years in the making, Babel 8 is finally ready," in release candidate form , at least. Rspress 2.0 is a major release for the high-performance Rust-powered, but JavaScript-facing, static site generator. Lodash 4.17.23 sounds minor, but it's a 'security reset' for the still heavily used utility library and is designed to provide a base for a longer future. Only Fools Write Tests — Modern engineering teams like Notion, Dropbox, Wiz, and LaunchDarkly use Meticulous to maintain E2E UI tests that cover every edge case of your web app. Meticulous sponsor 🦀   OpenClaw: The Runaway AI A