JavaScript Jabber

Noam Rosenthal has worked in both web and native technologies. He leads off with a discussion of the history of the web, browsers, and specifically webkit. The panel then goes into how browsers and built and discuss the differences between the different browsers.

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Steve Edwards
Dan Shappir

Guest

Noam Rosenthal

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight:

BlinkOn

Steve Edwards:

Dan Shappir:

Eggs

Noam Rosenthal:

Follow Noam on Twitter > @realnoam
Hyperisolation
The Art of Storytelling

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Special Guest: Noam Rosenthal.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 432: Internet of Things (IoT) with Joe Karlsson

Tue, 05 May 2020 10:00:00 +0000

Joe Karlsson is a developer advocate at MongoDB. He and the panel walk through the different approaches, uses, and libraries for building IoT with JavaScript

Panel

Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
AJ O’Neal
Dan Shappir
Steve Edwards

Guest

Joe Karlsson

Sponsors

G2i | Enjoy the luxuries of freelancing

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight:

Cutting Your own Hair
Joe's Appartment

Charles Max Wood:

Steve Edwards:

Pearls Before Swine

Dan Shappir:

Joe Karlsson:

Follow Joe on Twitter > @JoeKarlsson1
MongoDB.live

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Special Guest: Joe Karlsson.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 431: Personal Branding for Developers with Morad Stern

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000

The JSJ panel talks with Morad Stern from Wix about personal branding; what it is, why it’s important for developers, and how to build it.

Panel

Steve Edwards
AJ O’Neal
Dan Shappir

Guest

Morad Stern

Sponsors

Taiko
Educative.io | Click here for 10% discount

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Steve Edwards:

Follow Steve on Twitter > @wonder95, Website
Six13 Uptown Passover - an "Uptown Funk" adaptation for Pesach

Dan Shappir:

Follow Dan on Twitter > @DanShappir
Scott Lynch

Morad Stern:

Follow Morad on Twitter > @morad
This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See: Seth Godin

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Special Guest: Morad Stern.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 430: Learning JavaScript in 2020 with Matt Crook

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000

Matt Crook joins the conversation to talk with the JavaScript Jabber panel to talk about his experience going through Nashville Software School. The panel discusses and asks questions about getting into programming, working through the bootcamp, and what prospects are for bootcamp graduates.

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Steve Edwards
Dan Shappir

Guest

Matt Crook

Sponsors

Taiko
Educative.io | Click here for 10% discount

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight:

Charles Max Wood:

Steve Edwards:

Dan Shappir:

Matt Crook:

Follow Matt on Twitter > @mgcrook, Instagram, LinkedIn
Swolenormous
Fireship
Static Headz
Yugen

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Special Guest: Matt Crook.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 429: Learning about Postman with Joyce Lin

Tue, 14 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000

Join us as we talk to Joyce Lin, a developer relations advocate with Postman, and we talk about this amazing tool for interacting with APIs. We discuss it’s more well-known features, and also learn about other less well known, but very powerful features that allow users to greatly increase the usefulness of the tool, both for front end and back end developers.

Panel

Aimee Knight
Steve Edwards

Guest

Joyce Lin

Sponsors

G2i | Enjoy the luxuries of freelancing
Educative.io | Click here for 10% discount

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

Steve Edwards:

The Big Red NO! Button Desktop Sound Toy

Joyce Lin:

Follow Joyce on Twitter > @petuniaGray
The Science of Well-Being by Yale University | Coursera

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Special Guest: Joyce Lin.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 428: The Alphabet Soup of Performance Measurements

Tue, 07 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000

May 14th to 15th - register now!

Dan Shappir takes the lead to explain all of the acronyms and metrics for measuring the performance of your web applications. He leads a discussion through the ins and outs of monitoring performance and then how to improve and check up on how your website is doing.

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Steve Edwards
Dan Shappir

Sponsors

Taiko, free and open source browser test automation
Educative.io | Click here for 10% discount

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

<picture>: The Picture element - HTML: Hypertext Markup Language | MDN

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

The Way of Kings
Taco Bell

Aimee Knight:

Dan Shappir:

New accessibility feature in Chrome Dev Tools: simulate vision deficiencies, including blurred vision & various types of color blindness. In Canary at the bottom of the Rendering tab.
Better Call Saul

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 427: How to Start a Side Hustle as a Programmer with Mani Vaya

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 10:00:00 +0000

May 14th to 15th - register now!

Mani Vaya joins Charles Max Wood to talk about how developers can add the enterepreneur hat to the others they wear by starting a side gig. They discuss various ideas around entrepreneurship, the books they got them from, and how they've applied them in their own businesses.

Panel

Charles Max Wood

Guest

Mani Vaya

Sponsors

Taiko

__________________________________________________

__________________________________________________

Picks

Mani Vaya:

Charles Max Wood:

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabbber

Special Guest: Mani Vaya.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 426: Killing the Release Night with Progressive Delivery with Dave Karow

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 10:00:00 +0000

May 14th to 15th - register now!

Dave Karow is a developer evangelist for Split. He dives into how you can deliver software sustainably without burning out. His background is in performance and he's moved into smooth deliveries. He pushes the ideas behind continuous delivery and how to avoid getting paid to stay late in "free" pizzas.

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Dan Shappir

Guest

Dave Karow

Sponsors

G2i | Enjoy the luxuries of freelancing
Taiko - free and open source browser test automation
CacheFly

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

Aimee Knight:

Dan Shappir:

web.dev

AJ O’Neal:

Charles Max Wood

Dave Karow:

Accelerate

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabb

Special Guest: Dave Karow.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 425: The Evolution of JavaScript

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 10:00:00 +0000

Dan Shappir takes the lead and walks the panel through the history of JavaScript and a discussion on ES6, TypeScript, the direction and future of JavaScript, and what features to be looking at and looking for in the current iteration of JavaScript.

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Steve Edwards
Dan Shappir

Sponsors

Taiko - free and open source browser test automation
Split

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight:

Charles Max Wood:

Steve Edwards:

Dan Shappir:

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 424: UI5 and web components with Peter Muessig

Tue, 10 Mar 2020 13:00:00 +0000

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber the panelists and guest delve into the advantages of the shadow dom, transitioning from polymer js polyfills to native web components when moving for SAP UI to UI5, which works within React, Vue, Angular, and others.

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Steve Edwards
Dan Shappir

Guest

Peter Müßig
Follow Peter on Twitter > @pmuessig, Github

Sponsors

Taiko, free and open source browser test automation

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight

Announcing Div Ops as the Slack and Reddit communities

Steve Edwards

Today on Pearls Before Swine - Comics by Stephan Pastis

Dan Shappir

Peter Müßig

JavaScript Jabber

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Special Guest: Peter Muessig.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 423: State of JS

Tue, 03 Mar 2020 11:00:00 +0000

The panelists discuss that latest State of JS survey. They begin talking about the merits and methods of the survey and then discuss the value you can extract from the survey. They also consider the various comparisons and trends presented by the survey and what they may mean.

Panel:

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Dan Shappir

Sponsors:

G2i | Enjoy the luxuries of freelancing

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links:

The State of JavaScript 2019

Picks:

Aimee Knight:

Fruit and Veggie Trays
A curated list of Chaos Engineering resources.

AJ O’Neal:

Gear.Club Unlimited

Charles Max Wood:

Dan Shappir:

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Twitter > @JSJabber

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 422: CSS and Houdini with Una Kravets

Tue, 25 Feb 2020 11:00:00 +0000

Una Kravets talks to the panel about CSS and its future. We dive into what Houdini is and how much of it is implemented in the browsers. She explains how the changes outlined in Houdini will improve the user experience on the web and developer experience for web developers.

Panel:

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

Guest:

Una Kravets

Sponsors:

Split

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links:

Picks:

Aimee Knight:

Things you can do with a browser in 2020

AJ O’Neal:

Charles Max Wood:

Una Kravets:

Follow Una on Twitter - @Una
Una's Podcast - Toolsday
Web Series: Designing in the Browser
Having a nice Couch
Bob's Discount Furniture

Special Guest: Una Kravets.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 421: Semantic HTML with Bruce Lawson

Tue, 18 Feb 2020 11:00:00 +0000

Bruce Lawson is an expert in and proponent of semantic HTML. After receiving some good natured ribbing, Bruce walks the panel through the benefits of semantic HTML. He provides several examples on how it's used and in particular how it helps with other issues like accessibility and navigability on your websites.

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Dan Shappir

Guest

Bruce Lawson

Sponsors

____________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

WebAIM: Web Accessibility In Mind
<input type="date">
The 4 minute business case for accessible online shopping

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Better Mic Sound
Canon T4i 650D
Canon T5i Course
Magic Lantern
Filmic Pro & Promovie

Aimee Knight:

AddyOsmani.com - Native image lazy-loading for the web!

Charles Max Wood:

Codineer - 100 days of Vue challenge

Dan Shappir:

Alex Russell - The Mobile Web: MIA
Bruce Lawson Website

Bruce Lawson:

Taffy music band
Follow Bruce on Twitter @brucel

Special Guest: Bruce Lawson.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 420: OpenAPI, Redoc, and API Documentation with Adam Altman

Tue, 11 Feb 2020 11:00:00 +0000

Adam dives into how to document your application using OpenAPI (formerly Swagger) and then how to generate great documentation for your API's using Redoc. He gives us the history of Redoc, breaks down the process for building API documentation, and understanding the OpenAPI specification.

Panelists

Aimee Knight
Dan Shappir
AJ ONeal
Steve Edwards

Guest

Adam Altman

Sponsors

____________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

Steve Edwards:

Aimee Knight:

https://github.com/ErikCH/DevYouTubeList

Dan Shappir:

Old Kingdom Book Series

AJ O’Neal:

Final Fantasy VII and VIII (Physical Copy, English) on Play Asia

Adam Altman:

concepts.app

Special Guest: Adam Altman.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 419: Google App Script with Ben Collins

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 11:00:00 +0000

Today’s guest is Ben Collins, who creates online courses, writes tutorials, and teaches workshops around G Suite and App Script. Apps Script is a scripting platform developed by Google for light-weight application development in the G Suite platform. It is an implementation of JavaScript with the express purpose of extending Google apps. App Script was started 10 years ago as a side project, and it eventually took on its own life. Ben talks about some of the different things that App Script can do and where things are stored. They discuss different ways you can get into the script and how to import external scripts from a CDN. Ben gives two examples, one simple and one sophisticated, that you might build from App Script. He talks about event triggers and how authentication is handled. He goes over the three deployment options, namely web app, app executable, sheets add-on, and deploying from the manifest. Ben talks about how triggers are managed in App Script and options for debugging. There is also the option to develop locally as well as in the browser. The show ends with him talking about how to build using HTML in App Script.

Panelists

Aimee Knight
Steve Edwards
Dan Shapir

Guest

Ben Collins

Sponsors

G2i
Split

____________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

Steve Edwards:

King Kong Apparel

Aimee Knight:

Developers Mentoring Other Developers

Dan Shapir:

The Web Almanac

AJ O’Neal:

Photography
Magic Lantern

Bem Collins:

Cold Turkey app
Follow Ben at Benlcollins.com and Twitter

Special Guest: Ben Collins.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 418: Security Scary Stories and How to Avoid Them with Kevin A McGrail

Tue, 28 Jan 2020 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber the panel interviews security expert, Kevin A. McGrail. He starts by explaining what security frameworks and what they do. The panel wonders how to know if your developers are capable of self-auditing your security or if you need help. Kevin shares recommendations for companies to look at to answer that question.

Aimee Knight explains the hell she has been in making changes to be compliant with CCPA. The panel considers how policies like this complicate security, are nearly impossible to be compliant with and how they can be weaponized. They discuss the need for technical people to be involved in writing these laws.

Kevin explains how you can know how secure your systems actually are. He shares the culture of security first he tries to instill in the companies he trains. He also trains them on how to think like a bad guy and explains how this helps developers become security first developers. The panel discusses how scams have evolved and how the same scams are still being run. They consider the importance of automated training and teaching developers to do it right the first time.

Finally, they consider the different ways of authentication, passwords, passphrases, sim card, biometrics. Kevin warns against oversharing or announcing vacations. The panel discusses real-world tactics bad guys use. Kevin explains what he trains people to do and look out for to increase security with both social engineering and technical expertise.

Panelists

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood
Dan Shappir
Steve Edwards

Guest

Kevin A McGrail

Sponsors

____________________________________________________________

"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today!

____________________________________________________________

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Aimee Knight:

The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM

AJ O’Neal:

Dan Shappir:

Kevin A McGrail:

Steve Edwards:

Special Guest: Kevin A. McGrail.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 417: Serverless with Microsoft Azure with Burke Holland

Tue, 21 Jan 2020 11:00:00 +0000

Burke Holland works for Microsoft on the Azure team in developer relations. He starts the show talking about how he got started in serverless. He’s careful to note that just because things are marketed as serverless doesn’t always make them so. In order for something to be serverless, it must be sufficiently abstracted in terms of technology, only require payment for what is used, and infinitely scalable. He talks about the statelessness of serverless, and the panel discusses what it means to be stateless. Burke reminds listeners that serverless is not for long-lived operations, but there are features in serverless providers that can help you get around this. Burke talks about how writing serverless code differs from standard or previous coding approaches and practices. He advises that serverless functions are best kept small, and talks about how to fit them in with other kinds of APIs.

The panelists talk about the multi-cloud and why people would want to be on multiple cloud servers. Burke talks about what Microsoft has done with Serverless Frameworks to accomplish multi-cloud compatibility. The JavaScript experts discuss the advantages and disadvantages of picking JavaScript over other languages, and Burke talks about why he prefers TypeScript and the Easy-Off feature. They talk about speed on a serverless platform, especially concerning the cold start time, which Azure is relentlessly trying to lower. He does talk about some things that can be done to decrease load time and about premium functions. The panel discusses how to debug serverless functions and tools that are available, such as the Azure Functions extension.

They talk about ways to set up more secure functions to keep things from racking up charges. Burke talks about some things Microsoft does internally to control cloud costs, such as sending monthly reports with reminders to delete and using tools like Azure Reaper to delete short-lived projects. Azure can also put spending caps on subscriptions, but when you hit that cap you can’t serve any more requests. Burke concludes by saying that most of the time, going serverless is a lower-cost way to improve productivity, and because it’s event-driven, it allows you to tie into things that you’re already doing in the cloud. Serverless almost always justifies itself from an ease of use point of view and a cost point of view.

Panelists

Aimee Knight
Steve Edwards
Dan Shapir
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

Guest

Burke Holland

Sponsors

____________________________

> "The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today!

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

Steve Edwards:

Louis L'Amour books, especially The Lonesome Gods
Ultra Sabers Azure Reaper

Burke Holland:

Follow Burke on Github

Dan Shapir:

Taking a vacation

AJ O’Neal:

Charles Max Wood:

The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job
Buy Me a Coffee
Devchat is looking for show hosts and sponsors!

Special Guest: Burke Holland.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 416: GraphQL Developer Tools with Sean Grove

Tue, 14 Jan 2020 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber the panel interviews Sean Grove from OneGraph; asking him questions about GraphQL tooling and common complaints about GraphQL. Sean starts by explaining what GraphQL is and how it benefits frontend developers. GraphiQL is a frontend open sourced tool produced by OneGraph, Sean explains how this handy tool simplifies GraphQL.

Authentication and authorization are one of the biggest criticisms of GraphQL. Sean walks the panel through the solution, getting a schema definition language and adding directives to build a simple authentication and authorization. The panel defines authentication and authorization and explains the difference.

The next issue common with GraphQL that the panel discusses is migration. Sean explains how OneGraph helps with migration using a Rust network layer and how it works. They also discuss how to migrate without this tool. Without the tool it is painful and he recommends incremental migration.

Sean explains that another problem in GraphQL is poor documentation. He explains why the documentation is poor and explains how they hope to fix it at OneGraph. The last issue they cover is the length of queries. Sean tells the panel how they can handle this problem with depth analysis or persistent queries. The episode ends with an elevator pitch for Reason.

Panelists

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood
Dan Shappir

Guest

Sean Grove

Sponsors

____________________________________________________________

"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today!

____________________________________________________________

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Aimee Knight:

http://ergonomictrends.com/hand-wrist-exercises-computer-users/
Cats in your lap

AJ O’Neal:

Dan Shappir:

Guatemala
Tigana

Sean Grove:

Yuki Li: “Breaking Out of Box”

Charles Max Wood:

Special Guest: Sean Grove.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 415: Progressive Web Apps with Maximiliano Firtman

Tue, 07 Jan 2020 11:00:00 +0000

Maximiliano Firtman is a mobile web developer from Buenos Ares, Argentina. He has been a developer for 24 years and his most recent focus has been on progressive web apps, or PWAs. Steve and Max reflect on the technologies they were using when they first got started in web development and talk about their experience with mobile development. One area that Max emphasized was bringing the web into the mobile space. They discuss the progression of web access on mobile and some of the available tools. Max notes that responsible design has a very high cost in web performance for mobile devices, which requires unique approaches. They discuss some of the issues with latency in mobile, even on 4G. The solution to this latency is PWAs.

Progressive web apps are a set of best practices to create web apps that are installable. They can work offline at high speeds on several operating systems. Once installed, it looks like any other app on the system. Max delves into more details on how it works. He talks about how the resources for your application are managed. He assures listeners that it’s just a website that’s using a new API, they’re not changing the way the web works, and that when that API is there, the app can be installed. It will also generally use your default browser. Steve and Max discuss how local data is stored with PWAs. To write PWAs, you can use Angular, React, JavaScript, or Vue, and it’s a pretty transparent process. Max talks about some common tools used for local storage and some of the PWAs he’s worked on in the past. The benefit of using PWAs is that they generally run faster than regular web apps. To get started, Max advises listeners to install one and start exploring.

Panelists

Steve Edwards

Guest

Maximiliano Firtman

Sponsors

____________________________

____________________________________________________________

Links

Picks

Steve Edwards:

The Club

Maximiliano Firtman:

Llama
Follow Max on Twitter

Special Guest: Maximiliano Firtman.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 414: JavaScript Jabber Still at RxJs Live

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber Charles Max Wood continues interviewing speakers at RxJS Live. First, he interviews Mike Ryan and Sam Julien. They gave a talk about Groupby, a little known operator. They overview the common problems other mapping operators have and how Groupby addresses these problems. The discuss with Charles where these types of operators are most commonly used and use an analogy to explain the different mapping operators.

Next, Charles talks to Tracy Lee. Her talk defines and explains the top twenty operators people should use. In her talk, she shows real-world use cases and warns against gotchas. Tracy and Charles explain that you don’t need to know all 60 operators, most people only need about 5-10 to function. She advises people to know the difference between the different types of operators. Tracy ends her interview by explaining her desire to inspire women and people of minority groups. She and Charles share their passion for diversity and giving everyone the chance to do what they love.

Dean Radcliffe speaks with Charles next and discusses his talk about making React Forms reactive. They discuss binding observables in React and how Dean used this in his business. He shares how he got inspired for this talk and how he uses RxJS in his everyday work.

The final interview is with Joe Eames, CEO of Thinkster. Joe spoke about error handling. He explains how he struggled with this as did many others so he did a deep dive to find answers to share. In his talk, he covers what error handling is and what it is used for. Joe outlines where most people get lost when it comes to error handling. He also shares the three strategies used in error handling, Retry, Catch and Rethrow and, Catch and Replace. Charles shares his admiration for the Thinkster teaching approach. Joe explains what Thinkster is about and what makes them special. He also talks about The DevEd podcast.

Panelists

Charles Max Wood

Guests

Mike Ryan
Sam Julien
Tracy Lee
Dean Radcliffe
Joe Eames

Sponsors

ABOUT YOU |aboutyou.com/apply
Sentry -use the code "devchat" for 2 months free on Sentry's small plan
CacheFly

____________________________________________________________
"The MaxCoders Guide to Finding Your Dream Developer Job" by Charles Max Wood is now available on Amazon. Get Your Copy Today!
___________________________________________________________

Links

Special Guests: Joe Eames, Mike Ryan, Sam Julien, and Tracy Lee.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 413: JavaScript Jabber at RxJs Live

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber Charles Max Wood does interviews at RxJS Live. His first interview is with Hannah Howard at RxJS Live about her talk. Hannah is really enthusiastic about RxJS especially when it comes to frontend development. Her talk is about how to architect full-scale apps with RxJS. Hannah gives a brief summary of her talk. Charles having met Hanna previously at Code Beam asks her how functional programming and reactive programming work together in her mind. Hannah describes how she sees programming.

Charles’s next interview is with Ben Lesh, a core team member of RxJS. Ben has been working on RxJS for the last four years. In his talk, he shares the future of RxJs, the timeline for versions 7 and 8. With Charles, he discusses his work on RxJS and the adoption of RxJS.

Next, Charles interviews Sam Julien and Kim Maida. They gave a talk together covering the common problems developers have when learning RxJS. In the talk, they share tips for those learning RxJS. Charles wonders what inspired them to give this talk. Both share experiences where they encouraged someone to use RxJS but the learning curve was to steep. They discuss the future of RxJS adoptions and resources.

Finally, Charles interviews Kim alone about her second talk about RxJS and state management. She explains to Charles that many state management libraries are built on RxJS and that it is possible to roll out your own state management solution with RxJS. They discuss why there are so many different state management libraries. Kim shares advice for those looking to roll out their own solutions.

Panelists

Charles Max Wood

Guests

Hannah Howard
Ben Lesch
Sam Julien
Kim Maida

Sponsors

ABOUT YOU | aboutyou.com/apply
Sentry use the code "devchat" for 2 months free on Sentry's small plan

Links

Special Guests: Ben Lesh, Hannah Howard, Kim Maida, and Sam Julien.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 412: Svelte and Sapper with Svelte Master

Tue, 17 Dec 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Noah, a.k.a. Svelte Master, is from Indiana and recently moved to San Francisco. He has been given title Computational Linguist by SoundHound. He starts the show by talking about his Youtube channel all about Svelte. Svelte is a JavaScript framework similar to React and Vue. When you write components, Svelte will compile it into Vanilla JS, CSS, or HTML, and create a small bundle that will be sent to the client. Svelte is a ‘disappearing framework’, so your bundles come out as DOM APIs and there is no Svelte in the end result. Because the Svelte framework doesn’t send with the bundle, bundle sizes are significantly smaller, and it runs on all browsers. Noah shares some Svelte’s performance statistics. Sapper is a companion technology to Svelte that gives you server side rendering, routing, code splitting, and other features.

Noah talks about how to write plugins for Svelte and embedding components. One main difference between Svelte and other frameworks is that it lacks a virtual DOM. This is because since it is just compiling down to JavaScript and the framework is not sent with the package, it doesn’t need a virtual DOM and instead updates as things change. Noah talks more about how this works. Some of Svelte Master’s favorite things about Svelte is that you write less code, especially unnecessary code, and state management is simple. He talks about how routing is handled through other tools like Sapper. The panel talks about methods for testing a Svelte app, adding Svelte components into a website, and pulling in third party libraries. They discuss whether there are things that you can’t do with Svelte that would require React or Vue. The show ends with Noah talking about what the future holds for Svelte and how to get started with it.

Panelists

Steve Edwards
Charles Max Wood

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Guest

Noah (Svelte Master)

Sponsors

Hasura.io
Sentry | Use the code “devchat” for $100 credit

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The Court Jester

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Daniel Caldas:

WaniKani

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JSJ 411: Unit Testing Jest with Daniel Caldas

Tue, 10 Dec 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Daniel Caldas is calling from Singapore. He currently works as a software engineer for Zendesk and has also worked in Portugal and Germany. He has worked primarily on the frontend with Node and JavaScript. He talks about his experience testing JavaScript, how he got started with Jest, and why he likes it. Daniel finds Jest very easy to use and straightforward. He likes that Jest has a single reference page for documentation. He feels that Jest is largely complete out of the box and has only made a small add on to get rid of Boilerplate in some tests.

Daniel explains what a snapshot, how they work, and why he prefers fixtures over factories. He gives tips on how to set up your tests so that they are easy to follow. He finds it helps to structure your scenarios in the fixture description. He talks about gotchas in Jest. While Jest is largely easy to use, Jest has been around for a while and breaking changes do happen. It’s important to check what version your code base is using. While there are a lot of free sources around Jest online, he advises listeners to stick as close to the official documentation as possible, or to people associated with Jest, and to read recent stuff. As for conventions, Jest has pretty much everything out of the box and the built in conventions make it easy to navigate any project that uses Jest.

Daniel talks about some of the features available in Jest, converting observables into promises, and tricks he has used to make tests easier to put together. He talks about his method for keeping his mocks and stubs straight. He advises listeners to have some organizational rules, such as starting the imports alphabetically, and to always follow those rules. He talks about how he runs tests and what environments he uses. While Jest is normally used for unit testing, Daniel has also used it for end to end tests, and he talks about his experience with an open source project doing both types in Jest. Daniel concludes the show by advising listeners starting with JavaScript and frontend, don’t think too much about the library you’re going to use because you’ll probably end up using Jest. It’s more important to have unit tests and a proper testing framework at the beginning than anything else. He also invites listeners to check out his open source work on Github.

Panelists

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

**To receive your 40% OFF coupon for Manning Publications (good for all our products in all formats) visit us on Facebook - click on "Send A Message"and type "YES"**

Guest

Danile Caldas

Sponsors

Sentry | Use the code “devchat” for $100 credit

Links

Picks

Aimee Knight:

The Difference Between Fault Tolerance, High Availability, and Disaster Recovery

AJ O’Neal:

Rubin Report with Lindsay Shepherd

Charles Max Wood:

Daniel Caldas:

Home Alone

Special Guest: Daniel Caldas.

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JSJ 410: Iterating on Open Source

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Today the panel is discussing iterating on open source projects. Aimee and AJ recall a conversation they had in the past on this subject and AJ talks about some of his experience iterating with open source. AJ believes that we have an obligation to capture the value of what you create so that we can reinvest and create more value, though he admits that making money in open source is a unique challenge because donations only really work if you have a project that gets billions of downloads a month. As your project grows, it has to change in order to survive, and eventually you will need to get financial support from your project. The panel agrees that some of the main issues with iterating in open source are maintaining the code and getting feedback from users, financial backing, and roadmapping and integrations.

The panel discusses their methods for getting feedback from their users. This feedback is valuable because it can show you things that you missed. They acknowledge that there can be conflicts of interest between those who only use the project and those who financially support it, and you have to make a choice. Unfortunately, someone is probably going to be inconvenienced no matter what choice you make. When making these decisions, you have to consider who it helps, who it frustrates, and who it may cause problems for. The panelists talk about different ways they’ve handled making these decisions in the past. The JavaScript experts talk about the importance of having data on your user base in order to make good choices for your users. They talk about different methods for notifying your users of upcoming changes and how it will affect compatibility, and some of the challenges with communicating with your users. AJ talks about an iteration he thought was a good idea but that a lot of people hated and how he noticed that the new users liked it but the old users did not. They panel agrees that people in general don’t like change. AJ talks about what he learned from this experience.

Another common issue is integrating with other services. Integrating with cloud services, or at least giving people the option to integrate gives you an opportunity to reach more people and maintain the project long term. AJ gives some final thoughts to close the show, namely that most projects never go anywhere, and that’s ok. If you’ve got something that starts going somewhere, think early on about how you can better serve the community and remember that these people are mostly grateful and semi-willing to support you. He believes that if you are helping people create value, you deserve to see the fruits of your labor. He advises listeners to stay true to your open source ideals, think about your users perspective, and that the earlier you can think about this and make these choices, the better it is for your project

Panelists

Aimee Knight
Steve Edwards
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

**To receive your 40% OFF coupon for Manning Publications (good for all our products in all formats) visit us on Facebook - click on "Send A Message"and type "YES"**

Sponsors

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Links

Picks

Aimee Knight:

Debug Like a Ninja

Steve Edwards:

Jack Ryan

AJ O’Neal:

Why I, as a black man, attend KKK meetings

Charles Max Wood:

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JSJ 409: Swagger and Open API with Josh Ponelat

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Today the panel discusses the difference between Swagger and Open API with Josh Ponelat. Josh details the difference between the two. Swagger is a set of protocols around describing restful APIs. Swagger was taken over by a company called SmartBear, who donated the donated the specification to the Open Linux Foundation, and that became the Open API. Swagger is the tooling surrounding these specifications. Open API is a standardized way to describe a restful API in a YAML file. Once you’ve got a YAML file to describe your API, you can use tooling like Swagger to leverage that and take it to the next level. Using the Open API process is useful for situations where you already have an API in place, but want to codify and document it so that it’s controlled. Then going forward, you won’t introduce contradictions and it remains consistent because it’s documented in a YAML file. The process leaves room for enhancement in the future as well.

Josh talks about some of the benefits of standardizing your API and some of the use cases besides tooling. A standardized API can help show developers how to use your API, SDKs, and service stubs by knowing your API is consistent in style. This makes it easier to find breaking changes and more. Josh talks more about Swagger, a finite set of tooling around Open API, most of which are open source. He talks about other tools that test APIs and do linting on YAML files. Some of the companies that use Open API include Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Josh talks about how Amazon implements Open API.

Josh talks about the book he’s writing, Designing APIs with Swagger and Open API. The book goes over describing APIs today, how to design APIs without writing code first, and how to get the most out of the system. The show concludes with Josh talking about the power of consistency and writing things down on paper. He discusses where implications that the standardization of APIs has on the text industry.

Panelists

Dan Shapir
Charles Max Wood

Guest

Josh Ponelat

**To receive your the 40% OFF coupon for Manning Publications (good for all our products in all formats) visit us at Facebook - click on "Send A Message"and type "YES"**

Sponsors

Sentry | Use the code “devchat” for $100 credit

Links

Picks

Dan Shapir

Saga of Pliocene Exile

Charles Max Wood

Josh Ponelat

Special Guest: Josh Ponelat.

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The MaxCoders Guide To Finding Your Dream Developer Job

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 19:00:00 +0000

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JSJ 408: Reading Source Code with Carl Mungazi

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Carl Mungazi is a frontend developer at Limejump in London. He is a former journalist and switched to programming in 2016. Today the panel is discussing the benefits of reading source code. Carl began reading source code because he came into programming late and from a different field. His first project was with Mithril, and he read the source code and documentation to help him understand it. The panelists discuss how reading the source code has helped them and others to improve their coding. They compare reading and understanding source code to learning a foreign language, and discuss different methods.

Carl gives some suggestions for reading source code effectively. He advises people to be patient and step through the code. Accept that you will probably take a wrong path at some point or another, but the more you read, the more you will see patterns in how libraries are structured. He also encourages listeners to approach the authors, as they are often happy to lend a hand. Reading source code is an active approach of stepping through, debugging, putting in break points, checking the stack, and so forth. It’s also important to do outside research.

Since he has been reading source code, Carl has come to prefer plain JavaScript and libraries with as little code as possible. The panel discusses the benefits of small, simple libraries. Carl gives examples of techniques that he learned from reading a library source code and how he applied it to his own coding style. Reading source code has made him more careful about mixing logic and UI, and now he separates them. He also is more confident in seeing a problem, going to a preexisting library, and just importing the fix for that problem rather than the whole library. Reading source code is really about understanding the code you use in your project. It may slow you down, but you’ll be thankful in the long term because it will help you solve future bugs more efficiently. Carl talks more about his debugging process. He still relies on a debugger, but reading a library helps you to see patterns and guess the output of a function. These patterns persist in other libraries as well. Once you can guess correctly what will happen, you go back to reading the code and find instances where the output is unexpected, and fix it. Carl’s closing thoughts are that through reading source code, he has learned that although code is used differently in each library, they are all written in the same language, and therefore interrelated. This gave him more confidence in reading code because they’re all fundamentally the same. When a bug is discovered, he encourages listeners to look at the source code before googling a solution.

Panelists

AJ O’Neal
Dan Shapir
Steve Edwards
Charles Max Wood

Guest

Carl Mungazi

Sponsors

Hasura.io
Sentry | Use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Adventures in Angular

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal

Dan Shapir

Programming Pearls book
Lord of Light

Steve Edwards

Jabra Elite 65T

Charles Max Wood

Carl Mungazi

Follow Carl @CarlMungazi and carlmungazi.com
EcmaScript Spec
HTML 5.2
Snarky Puppy

Special Guest: Carl Mungazi.

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JSJ 407: Reactive JavaScript and Storybook with Dean Radcliffe

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Dean is a developer from Chicago and was previously on React Round Up 083. Today he has come over to JavaScript Jabber to talk about reactive programming and Storybook. Reactive programming is the opposite of imperative programming, where it will change exactly when needed instead of change only when told to. Reactivity existed long before React, and Dean talks about his history with reactive programming. He illustrates this difference by talking about Trello and Jira. In Trello, as you move cards from swimlane to another swimlane, everyone on the board sees those changes right away. In Jira, if you have 11 tabs open, and you update data in one tab, probably 10 of your tabs are stale now and you might have to refresh. Reactive programming is the difference between Trello and Jira.

The panel discusses why reactive JavaScript is not more widely used. People now tend to look for more focused tools to solve a particular part of the problem than an all in one tool like Meteor.js. Dean talks about the problems that Storybook solves. Storybook has hot reloading environments in frontend components, so you don’t need the backend to run. Storybook also allows you to create a catalogue of UI states. JC and Dean talk about how Storybook could create opportunities for collaboration between engineers and designers. They discuss some causes of breakage that automation could help solve, such as styles not being applied properly and internationalization issues. Dean shares how to solve some network issues, such as having operators in RxJs. RxJs is useful for overlapping calls because it was built with cancelability from the beginning.

Dean talks about his tool Storybook Animate, which allows you to see what the user sees. Storybook is an actively updated product, and Dean talks about how to get started with it. The show concludes with Dean talking about some things coming down the pipe and how he is actively involved in looking for good general solutions to help people write bulletproof code.

Panelists

JC Hiatt

With special guest: Dean Radcliffe

Sponsors

Hasura, Inc.
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Adventures in Angular

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JC Hiatt:

Dean Radcliffe:

Twitter @deaniusol and Github @deanius
The Keyframers
Action for Healthy Kids

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JSJ 406: Security in Node

Tue, 05 Nov 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Today the panel is talking about security features that are being added to Node 13. AJ talks about the background and what he’s working with Let’s Encrypt. He talks about changes that Node has made to the TLS module. TLS is a handshake that happens between a client and a server. They exchange certificates, generate some random numbers to use for encryption, and TLS handles the encryption. The move to HTTP/2 is all about fixing legacy bugs and legacy features from the SSL days and reducing the number of handshakes.

AJ talks about the difference between TLS and HTTPS. While TLS reduces the handshakes between client and server, HTTPS is just HTTP and has no knowledge that TLS is going on. HTTP/2 is more baked in as both encryption and compression are part of the specification and you get it automatically. HTTP/2 is also supposed to be faster because there’s fewer handshakes, and you can build heuristic based web servers. Since browsers have varying degrees of compatibility, a smart HTTP/2 server will classify the browser and anticipate what files to send to a client based on behavior and characteristics without the client requesting them

A lot of these new features will be built into Node, in addition to some other notable features. First, there will now be set context on the TLS object. Second, if you’re connected to a server, and the server manages multiple domains, the certificate will have multiple names on it. Previously, each different server name had a different network request, but now a .gitcertificate will let you get all the metadata about the certificate, including the primary domain and all the secondary domains and reuse the connections.

These new features are a great improvement on the old Node. Previously, the TLS module in Node has been an absolute mess. These are APIs that have been long neglected, and are long overdue core editions to Node. Because of these additions, Node Crypto has finally become usable. HTTP/2 is now stable, usable, and has backwards compatable API, and a dictionary of headers to make it more efficient in compression.

The conversation turns back to certificates, and AJ explains what a certificate is and what it represents. A certificate has on it a subject, which is a field which contains things like common name, which in the case of HTTPS is the server name or host name. then it will have subject alternative names (SAN), which will have a list of other names that are valid on that certificate. Also included on the certificate is the name of the authority that issued the certificate. AJ talks about some of the different types of certificates, such as DV, OV, and EV certificates. They differentiate between encryption and hashing. Hashing is for verifying the integrity of data, while encryption can be used either as signing to verify identity or to keep data owned privately to the parties that are part of the connection. Encryption does not necessarily guarantee that the data is the original data. The show concludes with AJ talking about how he wants to make encryption available to the average person so that everyone can share securely.

Panelists

Steve Edwards
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

Sponsors

Tidelift
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Ruby Rogues

Links

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Steve Edwards:

Panasonic SD-YD250 bread machine

AJ O’Neal:

Greenlock v.3
Samsung Evo 4 TOB paired with 2012 Macbook Pro
Dave Ramsey on Christian Healthcare Ministries

Charles Max Wood:

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JSJ 405: Machine Learning with Gant Laborde

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Gant Laborde is the Chief Innovation Officer of Infinite Red who is working on a course for beginners on machine learning. There is a lot of gatekeeping with machine learning, and this attitude that only people with PhDs should touch it. In spite of this, Gant thinks that in the next 5 years everyone will be using machine learning, and that it will be pioneered by web developers. One of the strong points of the web is experimentation, and Gant contrasts this to the academic approach.

They conversation turns to Gant’s course on machine learning and how it is structured. He stresses the importance of understanding unicode, assembly, and other higher concepts. In his course he gives you the resources to go deeper and talks about libraries and frameworks available that can get you started right away. His first lesson is a splashdown into the jargon of machine learning, which he maps over into developer terms. After a little JavaScript kung fu, he takes some tools that are already out there and converts it into a website.

Chris and Gant discuss some different uses for machine learning and how it can improve development. One of the biggest applications they see is to train the computers to figure monotonous tasks out while the human beings focus on other projects, such as watching security camera footage and identifying images. Gant restates his belief that in the next 5 years, AI will be everywhere. People will grab the boring things first, then they will go for the exciting things. Gant talks about his creation NSFW.js, an open source train model to help you catch indecent content. He and Chris discuss different applications for this technology.

Next, the panel discusses where machine learning can be seen in everyday life, especially in big companies such as Google. They cite completing your sentences in an email for you as an example of machine learning. They talk about the ethics of machine learning, especially concerning security and personal data. They anticipate that the next problem is edge devices for AI, and this is where JavaScript really comes in, because security and privacy concerns require a developer mindset. They also believe that personal assistant devices, like those from Amazon and Google, will become even more personal through machine learning. They talk about some of the ways that personal assistant devices will improve through machine learning, such as recognizing your voice or understanding your accent.

Their next topic of discussion is authenticity, and how computers are actually incredibly good at finding deep fakes. They discuss the practice of placing passed away people into movies as one of the applications of machine learning, and the ethics surrounding that. Since developers tend to be worried about inclusions, ethics, and the implications of things, Gant believes that these are the people he wants to have control over what AI is going to do to help build a more conscious data set.

The show concludes with Gant talking about the resources to help you get started with machine learning. He is a panelist on upcoming DevChat show, Adventures in Machine Learning. He has worked with people with all kinds of skill sets and has found that it doesn’t matter how much you know, it matters how interested and passionate you are about learning. If you’re willing to put the pedal to the metal for at least a month, you can come out with a basic understanding. Chris and Gant talk about Tensorflow, which helps you take care of machine learning at a higher level for fast operations without calculus. Gant is working on putting together a course on Tensorflow. If you’re interested in machine learning, go to academy.infinite.red to sign up for Gant’s course. He also announces that they will be having a sale on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Panelists

Christopher Buecheler

With special guest: Gant Laborde

Sponsors

React Round Up
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Adventures in Angular

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Christopher Buecheler:

Gant Laborde:

Nicornot.com

Free 5 day mini course on academy.infinite.red

Special Guest: Gant Laborde.

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JSJ 404: Edge on Chromium with Chris Heilmann

Tue, 29 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Guests Chris heilmann and Zohair Ali are developers for Microsoft working on the Edge project. Today they are talking about Edge on Chromium and the future of developer tools. Edge will now be built in Chromium rather than being its own engine, aligning it more with what is being used on the open web right now. The Edge team wanted to seize the opportunity to bring something into the Chromium project based on the needs of real users and contribute to the open source web. Edge on Chromium won’t be limited to Windows 10 either, but will be available on Mac, Windows 7, and Windows 8. This project is still in beta with no set release date, so the Edge team is looking for people to test it out on Mac and tell them how it works.

Chris and Zohair talk about the different parts of a web browser and what distinguishes Chrome from Chromium. Chromium is not just a platform, it’s an entire browser that you can install. Google adds a bunch of Google services to Chromium, such as being able to sign into your Google account, and that’s how you get Google Chrome. Similarly, the new Edge adds its own features on top of Chromium, so you can sign into your Microsoft account. By now the browser engines are so similar to each other that the users are looking for the user experience, interface, and services around it, so it made more sense for the Edge team to contribute to Chromium than to maintain their own engine and help it improve.

Chris and Zohair talk about some of the features in Edge on Chromium. One service they’re particularly excited about is the Collections feature, where you can drag images, text, etc into Collections and export it to Excel or Word. Collections was inspired by what users need, and they talk about some of the different use cases for it. The new Edge on Chromium will also have an IE mode for products that still require IE 11. If you define what services need IE 11, Edge will open an IE 11 tab within the browser so you will not have to jump between browsers. Unfortunately, this feature is only available on Windows. Edge on Chromium will also offer an integration with VS Code, called Elements for VS Code, which takes part of the developer tools from Edge and puts it inside VS Code. Since the tools are based on Chromium, it stays in the same context all the time so you don’t have to jump back and forth, and you can see the changes live in your browser. This feature is in beta right now and they are looking for people to test it.

The Edge team talks about their process for creating tools. They are working on putting their tools into other languages so that they are accessible to more people. They talk about how they want to avoid creating Edge specific tools as much as possible because they want to make it better for everybody. One of their biggest struggles is everybody demands developer tools, but nobody wants to contribute, so they don’t have as much feedback and not as much outside contribution. That’s why they keep calling for people to try out the new Edge on Chromium and give them feedback. They want to make that change more transparent so that they build things that people want. They will have to make some of their own tools, but they make sure that they don’t have any third party dependencies. They mention that all Chrome extensions are compatible with Edge, so if it’s available in the Chrome webstore, you can add it to Edge, you just have to be sure to allow it. They talk about some of the testing tools available. The show concludes with a discussion of the fate of Chakra Node.

Panelists

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Dan Shapir
Steve Edwards

With special guests: Chris Heilmann and Zohair Ali

Sponsors

Tidelift
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
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Aimee Knight:

Cypress testing library

Steve Edwards:

CSS Tricks Screencast episode 174: Using Local Overrides in Devtools

Dan Shapir:

The Chronicles of Amber

AJ O’Neal:

Chris Heilmann:

Zohair Ali:

Saga graphic novel series

Special Guests: Christian Heilmann and Zohair Ali.

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JSJ 403: Why Developers Need Social Skills with Mani Vaya

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, Charles talks about the new direction he has for the company. He wants to drive people to the point that they have the skills that make people want to hire and work with them, to teach them how to ‘Max out’. Today the panel the skills that developers need to progress in their careers: social skills.

The panel talks about their observations from work that the people who advanced and grow in their career were the ones with social skills, not necessarily with technical skills. The company wants to get stuff done, and if your social skills are getting in the way of projects getting done because you can’t work with others, you are not that useful to the company, and you will be stuck in the lower ranks while others who may not have the same technical skills will rise in the ranks because they are pleasant to work with. Mani talks about his personal experience getting laid off for lacking these soft skills. But then he read the book 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green, realized his shortcomings, and started to apply just one lesson from the book. Within 6 months, he was promoted.

Mani delves deeper into the first lesson taught in 48 Laws of Power, Never Outshine the Master. Fundamentally, this means that you don’t try to prove in meetings how good you are, or that they’re wrong, or that you think that you are better than them. The more you the aforementioned things, the less likely you will be to get promoted or trusted. Mani talks about how he used to do these things and how it cost him multiple jobs. When he put this lesson into practice, he changed his methods and the boss started to like him, leading to his promotion 6 months later. The panel discusses this lesson and what benefits can come from it.

Mani shares another lesson that he learned through the story of a friend trying to get him to invest in his business. After Mani refused to invest multiple times, his friend stopped asking him to invest, but instead asked him for business advice. Eventually, Mani invested in the business because when he saw that his friend was influenced by his advice, it engendered trust between them. The panel agrees that if you want to influence someone, you have to be influenced by them. It is important to treat someone as a person rather than an asset or wallet, and ensure them that their investment is not their end goal. One of the most fundamental social skills that you must be able to like people, because other people can smell manipulation.

The panel transitions to talking about the paradoxical nature of social skills and that they are often the opposite of what you think will work in a situation. Unfortunately, there will always be difficult people to work with. To illustrate how to work with difficult people, Mani shares the story of how Gengis Khan was convinced not to destroy a city of artists and engineers by his advisor, Yelu Chucai. Gengis Khan agreed because Yelu Chucai was able to structure his plea in a way that would also benefit Gengis Khan.

The conversation shifts to how to conduct an interview to see if a candidate will fit into your team culture. First, you must know what you’re looking for and understand your team culture, and then ask for stories of when they accomplished something in the interview. If every story is all about how they did something and they don’t include other people, then that may indicate their self-centeredness. They discuss the Ben Franklin Effect.

For those listeners wondering where to begin with all this self improvement, Mani has read over 2,000 books on business and offers a course on his website, 2000books.com. Mani has teamed up with JavaScript Jabber to offer a special deal to the listeners of this podcast. To get lifetime access to Mani’s courses at a 40% discount, follow the links below.

Panelists

Steve Edwards
Charles Max Wood

With special guest: Mani Vaya

Sponsors

React Native Radio
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
React Round Up

Links

48 Laws of Power by Robert Green
The 360 Degree Leader by John C. Maxwell
The Ben Franklin Effect
javascriptjabber.com/social and 2000books.com
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Steve Edwards:

Rex Chapman

Charles Max Wood:

Mani Vaya:

Special Guest: Mani Vaya.

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JSJ 402: SEO for Developers with Vitali Zaidman

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Vitali Zaidman is a full stack developer who works for WellDone Software Solutions and is currently working on a SEO project. Today’s show is about SEO for developers. SEO stands for search engine optimization, which helps your website appear higher on search engines.

SEO has changed a lot in the past 10 years. It has become much more regulated, and the “dirty tricks” of the past will actually penalize you, so it is important to do it properly. Today the best way to promote yourself on Google besides making good content is for developers to optimize the content, make it small, operational, secure, accessible, and operate on mobile. Much of it goes back to using semantic HTML since Google looks at it before looking at the structure of your website, how valuable it is, and how users interact with it. Having good semantics helps Google determine how valuable it is, so semantic HTML should be a top priority. Semantic HTML can also make your site more accessible to users, which will in turn give you a larger audience.

The panel talks about some of the challenges of SEO faced by companies. While bigger companies have the privilege of dedicated SEO teams, small companies often lack these specialists. Thankfully, Google has made their guidelines for SEO very accessible and gives you a lot of tools to track your optimization. The panel talks about different methods of SEO, such as including FAQ at the bottom of the web page, optimizing page speed, and image optimization. Structured data like questions and answers enriches the data that is shown for users on the search results page. To score your website’s SEO, Google released the tool PageSpeed Insights, which will assign your website a performance score.

Google uses two main tools to track a website’s SEO. First, they use real field data. If you opt in to ‘help improve Chrome’s features and performance’ when you install Chrome, it tracks how fast websites load on your Chrome, and they collect this information to understand how webpages load. It is required that your website has a certain amount of visitors to be tracked and added to the database. Second, Google has their own devices that will check your website. Currently, they are using a Moto G4 to test for mobile access, and a slow internet connection. Because of this, it is pretty easy to get a good score on desktop, but difficult to get a good score on mobile. The technology that drives all this is called Lighthouse.

Overall, performance is the main thing users look for, so aim for good performance and fast websites. The panel discusses the correlation between performance and SEO. For example, Fox News and CNN are two of the top search results for ‘news’, but they have a dismal Google PSI score. They conclude that performance shouldn’t be ignored, but be careful about directly correlating performance and SEO. They also caution against getting obsessed over certain aspects of SEO by themselves.

Panelists

Dan Shapir
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood

With special guest: Vitali Zaidman

Sponsors

Tidelift
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Elixir Mix

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Aimee Knight:

Spotify CLI

Dan Shapir:

Charles Max Wood:

St. George Marathon

Vitali Zaidman:

Vitali’s website
Arzamas Academy
Follow Vitali on Medium and Twitter

Special Guest: Vitali Zaidman .

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JSJ 401: Hasura with Tanmai Gopal

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Tanmai is one of the founders at Hasura. Hasura gives you instant graphQL APIs on top of a Postgres database. The eventual idea is to make data access secure and easy. Tanmai explains the challenges of doing this in the cloud. He talks about some of the difficulties with the tooling around using GraphQL and its bias towards working well with a monolith. Since GraphQL is basically a shared type system that describes your API, that means all your types need to be in the same code base. This is at odds with the folks who want to do microservices and serverless functions, because since their API is split across multiple services they have different types, and forcing these types to work together defeats the purpose of using microservices. Also, storing state across requests doesn’t work well with serverless and cloud native stuff. In short, learning to live without state is one of the general challenges with going serverless.

This is where Hasura comes into play, and Tanmai explains how it works. Hasura is metadata driven, and each instance of the server can leverage multiple calls and exhibit a high amount of concurrency. It’s designed to be a little more CPU bound than memory bound, which means that configuring auto scaling on it is very easy and allows you to utilize the elasticity of cloud native applications. Tanmai clarifies his usage of the word ‘cloud native’, by which he means microservices. He explains that when you have a metadata based engine, this metadata has a language that allows you to bring to bring in types from multiple upstream microservices, and create a coherent graphQL API on top of that. Hasura is a middle man between the microservices and the consumer that converts multiple types into a single coherent graphQL API.

Next, Tanmai explains how Hasura handles data fetching and a high volume of requests. They also invented PostgresQL, RLS-like semantics within Hasura. He explains the process for merging your microservices into a single graphQL interface. Back on data fetching, Tanmai explains that when the product is an app, preventing an overabundance of queries becomes easier because during one of the staging processes that they have, they extract all of the queries that the app is actually making, and in the production version it only allows the queries that it has seen before. Hasura is focused on both the public interface and private use cases, though private is slightly better supported.

Tanmai talks about the customizations available with Hasura. Hasura supports two layers. One is an aliasing layer that lets you rename tables, columns, etc as exposed by PostgresQL. The other is a computer column, so that you can add computer columns so you can extend the type that you get from a data model, and then you can point that to something that you derive.

The panelist discusses the common conception of why it is a bad idea to expose the data models to the frontend folks directly. They discuss the trend of ‘dumbing down’ available tooling to appeal to junior developers, at the cost of making the backend more complicated. They talk about some of the issues that come from this, and the importance of tooling to solve this concern.

Finally, Tanmai talks about the reasons to use Hasura over other products. There are 2 technologies that help with integrating arbitrary data sources. First is authorization grammar, their version of RLS that can extend to any system of types and relationships, The second is the data wrapper, part of the compiler that compiles from the graphQL metadata AST to the actual SQL AST. That is a generic interface, so anyone can come in and plug in a Haskell module that has that interface and implement a backend compiler for a native query language. This allows us to plug in other sources and stitch microservices together. The show concludes with Tanmai talking about their choice to use Haskell to make Hasura.

Panelists

AJ O’Neal
Dan Shapir
Steve Edwards
Charles Max Wood

With special guest: Tanmai Gopal

Sponsors

Adventures in DevOps
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
The Dev Ed Podcast

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Dan Shapir:

Steve Edwards:

Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders

Charles Max Wood:

Tanmai Gopal:

Follow Tanmai on Twitter @tanmaigo
Broken Earth Trilogy
The Three-Body Problem
graphQL Asia

Special Guest: Tanmai Gopal.

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JSJ 400: The Influence of JavaScript Jabber

Tue, 15 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

JavaScript Jabber celebrates its 400th episode with former host Dave Smith and some other familiar voices. Each of the panelists talks about what they’ve been up to. Dave hasn’t been on the show for 3 years, but he and Jameson Dance have started a podcast called Soft Skills Engineering where they answer questions about the non-technical side of engineering. When he left the show he was the director of engineering on Hire View, and currently he works for Amazon on Alexa.

Christopher Buecheler has been on several JSJ, RRU, and MJS episodes. His time is divided between contracting for startups and his own company closebrace.com, a tutorial and resource site for JavaScript developers. Dan Shapir has also been on JSJ as a guest, and is currently works for Wix doing performance tech. He enjoys speaking at conferences, such as JS Camp in Bucharest, Romania and the YGLF conference. Steve Edwards was previously on MJS 078. He started on Drupal in the PHP world, switched to JavaScript, and then a few years ago he started looking at Vue. Now he does Vue fulltime for ImageWare Systems.

As for Charles, his primary focus is the podcasts, since DevChat.tv produces around 20 episodes per week. 5 new shows were started in July, and he talks about some of the challenges that that brought. One of his most popular shows recently was JSJ 389: What makes a 10x Engineer? This helped him realize that he wants to help teach people how to be a successful engineer, so he’s working on launching a new show about it.

The panelists share some of their favorite JSJ episodes. They discuss the tendency of JSJ to get early access to these fascinating people when the conversation was just beginning, such as the inventor of Redux Dan Abramov, before their rise to stardom. The talk about the rise in popularity of podcasting in general. They agree that even though JavaScript is evolving and changing quickly, it’s still helpful to listen to old episodes.

Charles talks about the influence JavaScript Jabber has had on other podcasts. It has spawned several spinoffs, including My JavaScript Story. He’s had several hosts start their own DevChat.tv shows based off JavaScript Jabber, including Adventures in Angular and The DevEd Podcast. JavaScript Jabber has also been the inspiration for other podcasts that aren’t part of DevChat.tv. There aren’t many podcast companies that produce as many shows as they do and they’re developing their own tools. DevChat.tv moved off of WordPress and is in the process of moving over to Podwrench. Charles talks about all the new shows that have been launched, and his view on ‘competing’ podcasts. Charles is also considering doing an audio drama that happens in a programming office, so if you would like to write and/or voice that show, he invites you to contact him.

The show concludes with the panel talking about the projects they’ve been working on that they want listeners to check out. Christopher invites listeners to check out closebrace.com. He also has plans to write a short ebook on unit testing with jest, considered doing his own podcast, and invites people to check out his fiction books on his website. Dan talks about his involvement with Wix, a drag and drop website service, that recently released a technology called Corvid which lets you write JS into the website you build with Wix. This means you can design your user interface using Wix, but then automate it, add events functionality, etc. Dan is also going to be at the Chrome Dev Summit conference. Dave invites listeners to check out the Soft Skills Engineering podcast, and Charles invites listeners to subscribe to his new site maxcoders.io.

Panelists

Dan Shapir
Christopher Buecheler
Steve Edwards
Dave Smith
Charles Max Wood

Sponsors

Tidelift
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Adventures in .NET

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Steve Edwards:

form.io

Christopher Buecheler:

Apollo GraphQL Playground
@TheTimeCowboy Jake Lawrence

Charles Max Wood:

Dan Shapir:

Dave Smith:

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JSJ 399: Debugging with Async/Await with Valeri Karpov

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Valeri Karpov is a maintainer on Mongoose, has started a few companies, and works for a company called Booster Fuels. Today’s topic debugging with Async/Await. The panel talks about some of the challenges of debugging with Async. AJ, however, has never encountered the same problems, so he shares his debugging method.

Valeri differentiates between .catch vs try...catch, and talks about why he prefers .catch. There are two ways to handle all errors in an async function without leading to an unhandled promise rejection. The first is to wrap the entire body of the async function in a try...catch, has some limitations. Calling an async function always returns a promise, so the other approach is calling .catch on the promise to handle any errors that occur in that function body. One of the key differences is if you return a promise within an async function, and that return promise is wrapped in a try...catch, the catch block won’t get called if that promise is rejected, whereas if you call .catch on the promise that the function returns, you’ll actually catch that error. There are rare instances where this can get tricky and unintuitive, such as where you have to call new promise and have resolve and reject, and you can get unexpected behavior.

The panel discusses Valeri’s current favorite JS interview question, which is, “Given a stream, implement a function called ‘stream to promise’ that, given a stream, returns a promise that resolves to the concatenation of all the data chunks emitted by the stream, or rejects if the stream emits an error event.” It’s really simple to get this qustion right, and really simple to get it wrong, and the difference can be catastrophic. AJ cautions listeners to never use the data event except in the cases Val was talking about, only use the readable event.

The conversation turns to the function of a readable event. Since data always pushes data, when you get a readable event, it’s up to you to call read inside the function handler, and then you get back a chunk of data, call read again and again until the read returns null. When you use readable, you are in control and you avoid piling functions into RAM. In addition, the right function will return true or false to let you know if the buffer is full or not. This is a way to mix imperative style into a stream.

The next discussion topics are the differences between imperative style and reactive style and how a waits and promises work in a normal four loop. A wait suspends the execution of a function until the promise is resolved. Does a wait actually stop the loop or is it just transpiling like a promise and it doesn’t stop the loop. AJ wrote a module called Batch Async to be not as greedy as promise.all but not as limited as other options.

The JavaScript panelists talk about different async iterators they’ve used, such as Babel. They discuss the merits of Babel, especially since baseline Android phones (which a significant portion of the population of the world uses) run UC Browser that doesn’t support Babel, and so a significant chunk of the population of the world. On the other hand, if you want to target a large audience, you need to use Babel.

Since frameworks in general don’t handle async very well, the panel discusses ways to mitigate this. They talk about different frameworks like Vue, React, and Express and how they support async functions. They discuss why there is no way for you to actually cancel an async option in an actual case, how complex canceling is, and what you are really trying to solve for in the cancellation process.

Canceling something is a complex problem. Valeri talks about his one case where he had a specific bug that required non-generic engineering to solve, and cancelling actually solved something. When AJ has come across cancellation issues, it’s very specific to that use case. The rest of the panelists talk about their experiences with having to cancel something.

Finally, they talk about their experience with async generator functions. A generator is a function that lets you enter into the function later. This makes sense for very large or long running data sets, but when you have a bounded items, don’t complicate your code this way. When an async generator function yields, you explicitly need to call next in order for it to pick up again. If you don’t call ‘next’, it’s essentially cancelled. Remember that object.keys and object.values are your friends.

Panelists

Christopher Buecheler
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

With special guest: Valeri Karpov

Sponsors

The DevEd Podcast
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Adventures in DevOps

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Ethan Garofolo YouTube

Christopher Buecheler:

Functional Design Patterns for Express.js

Charles Max Wood:

Microsoft Ignite
Maxcoders.io

Valeri Karpov:

Follow Valeri on Twitter @code_barbarian and Github @vkarpov15
Masteringjs.io
Jurassic Park: A Novel

Special Guest: Valeri Karpov.

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JSJ 398: Node 12 with Paige Niedringhaus

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Guest Paige Niedringhaus has been a developer full time for 3 years, and today she is here to talk about Node 12. One of the things she is most excited about is the ES6 support that is now available, so things that used to require React, Angular, or Vue can now be done in Node. The require function will not have to be used in Node 12. AJ is worried about some of these changes and expresses his concerns. Paige assures him that in the beginning you won’t have to switch things to imports. You may have to change file extensions/types so Node can pick up what it’s supposed to be using. They are also trying to make it compatible with CommonJS.

Node 12 also boasts an improved startup time. The panel discusses what specifically this means. They talk about the code cache and how Node caches the built in libraries that it comes prepackaged with. The V8 engine is also getting many performance enhancements.

Paige talks about the shift from promises to async. In Node 12, async functions will actually be faster than promises. They discuss some of the difficulties they’ve had in the past with Async08, and especially callbacks.

Another feature of Node 12 is better security. The transcripted security layer (TLS), which is how Node handles encrypted strains of communication, is upgrading to 1.3. The protocol is simpler to implement, quicker to negotiate sessions between the applications, provides increased end user privacy, and reduces request time. Overall, this means less latency for everybody. 1.3 also gets rid of the edge cases that caused TLS to be way far slower than it needed to be.

The conversation turns to properly configuring default heap limits to prevent an ‘out of memory’ error. Configuring heap limits is something necessary when constructing an incredibly large object or array of objects. Node 12 also offers formatted diagnostic summaries, which can include information on total memory, used memory, memory limits, and environment lags. It can report on uncaught exceptions and fatal errors. Overall, Node 12 is trying to help with the debugging process. They talk about the different parsers available and how issues with key pairing in Node have been solved.

Paige talks about using worker threads in Node 12. Worker threads are really beneficial for CPU intensive JavaScript operations. Worker threads are there for those things that eat up all of your memory, they can alleviate the load and keep your program running efficiently while doing their own operations on the sideline, and returning to the main thread once they’ve finished their job. None of the panelists have really used worker threads, so they discuss why that is and how they might use Worker Threads in Node 12.

In addition, Node 12 is making Native module creation and support easier, as well as all the different binaries a node developer would want to support. Paige makes it a point to mention the new compiler and minimum platform standards. They are as follows:

GCC minimum 6
GLIVC minimum 2.17 on platforms other than Mac and Windows (Linux)
Mac users need at least 8 and Mac OS 10.10
If you’ve been running node 11 builds in Windows, you’re up to speed
Linux binaries supported are Enterprise Linux 7, Debian 8, and Ubuntu 14.04
If you have different requirements, go to the Node website

Panelists

J.C. Hyatt
Steve Edwards
AJ O’Neal

With special guest: Paige Niedringhaus

Sponsors

Tidelift
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Sustain Our Software

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

J.C. Hyatt:

AWS Amplify framework
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Petersen
React and Gatsby workshops

Steve Edwards:

The Farside comic coming back?

AJ O’Neal:

Paige Niedringhaus:

Follow Paige on Twitter, Medium, and Github

Special Guest: Paige Niedringhaus.

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JSJ 397: Design Systems with Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent

Thu, 03 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent is a self taught web developer from west France. He has worked for BBC, The Guardian, and The Financial Times in the UK. He has also worked in the US for SalesForce and currently works for Shopify on their Polaris design system. Shopify has multiple design systems, and Polaris is open source. Today the panel is talking about design systems and developer tooling around design systems.

To begin, Kaelig explains what a design system is. A design system is all of the cultural practices around design and shipping a product. It includes things like the words, colors, spacing grid system, and typography, plus guidance on how to achieve that in code. The panelists discuss what has made design systems so popular. Design systems have been around for a while, but became popular due to the shift to components, which has been accelerated by the popularity of React. The term design system is also misused by a lot of people, for it is much more than having a Sketch file.

Next, they talk about whether design systems fall under the jurisdiction of a frontend developer or web designers. Kaelig has found that a successful design system involves a little bit of everyone and shouldn’t be isolated to one team. They talk about what the developer workflow looks like in a design system. It begins with thinking of a few common rules, a language, and putting it into code. As you scale, design systems can become quite large and it’s impossible for one person to know everything. You either give into the chaos, or you start a devops practice where people start to think about how we build, release, and the path from designer’s brain to production.

The panelists then talk about how to introduce a design system into a company where there are cultural conflicts. Kaelig shares his experience working with SalesForce and introducing a design system there. They discuss what aspects of a design system that would make people want to use it over what the team is currently doing. Usually teams are thankful for the design system. It’s important to build a system that’s complete, flexible, and extensible so that you can adapt it to your team. A good design system incorporates ‘subatomic’ parts like the grid system, color palette, and typography, referred to as design tokens. Design systems enable people to take just the bits of the design system that are interesting to them and build the components that are missing more easily.

The conversation turns to the installation and upgrade process of a design system. Upgrading is left up to the customer to do on their own time in most cases, unless it’s one of the big customers. They talk about the role of components in upgrading a design system. Kaelig talks about the possibility of Shopify transitioning to web components. Kaelig shares some of his favorite tools for making a design system and how to get started making one. A lot of design teams start by taking a ton of screen shots and looking at all the inconsistencies.Giving them that visibility is a good thing because it helps get everyone get on the same page. The panelists talk about the role of upper management in developing components and how to prioritize feature development. Kaelig talks about what drives the decision to take a feature out. The two main reasons a feature would be removed is because the company wants to change the way things are done and there’s a different need that has arisen. The show concludes by discussing the possibility of a design system getting bloated over time. Kaelig says that Design systems takes some of the burden off your team, help prevent things from getting bloated, allow you to ship less code.

Panelists

Chris Ferdinandi
Aimee Knight
Steve Emmerich

With special guest: Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent

Sponsors

Sustain Our Software
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Adventures in Blockchain

Links

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Picks

Steve Emmerich:

Aimee Knight:

Awesome Actions for Github

Chris Ferdinandi:

Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent:

Dependabot
Ink by Vadim Demedez
Follow Kaelig on Twitter @kaelig

Special Guest: Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent.

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JSJ 396: Publishing Your Book with Jonathan Lee Martin

Tue, 01 Oct 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Lee Martin is an instructor and developer. He got his start in teaching at Big Nerd Ranch doing 1-2 week trainings for mid to senior developers, and then transitioned to 16 week courses for career switchers. He also worked for Digital Crafts for a year, and then wanted to focus on building out his own personal teaching brand. One of his first steps toward building his own brand was to publish his book, Functional Design Patterns for Express.js.The inspiration for Jonathan’s book came from his experience teaching career switchers. He wanted to experiment in the classroom with teaching functional programming in a way that would be very approachable and applicable and dispel some of the magic around backend programming, and that became the template for the book.

Jonathan loves the minimalist nature of Express.js and talks about its many uses. He believes that it knowing design patterns can take you pretty far in programming, and this view is related to his background in Rails. When he was working in Rails taming huge middleware stacks, he discovered that applying design patterns made builds take less time. He talks about other situations where knowing design patterns has helped. Express.js leans towards object oriented style over functional programming, and so it takes to these patterns well. Express.js has its shortcomings, and that’s where Jonathan’s favorite library Koa comes into play.

The conversation switches back to Jonathan’s book, which is a good way to start learning these higher level concepts. He purposely made it appealing to mid and senior level programmers, but at the same time it does not require a lot of background knowledge. Jonathan talks about his teaching methods that give people a proper appreciation for the tool. Jonathan talks more about why he likes to use Express.js and chose to use it for his book. He cautions that his book is not a book of monads, but rather about being influenced by the idea of composition over inheritance. He talks about the role of middleware in programming.

The panel asks about Jonathan’s toolchain and approach to writing books, and he explains how his books are set up to show code. They discuss the different forms required when publishing a book such as epub, MOBI, and PDF. Jonathan found it difficult to distribute his book through Amazon, so he talks about how he built his own server. Charles notes that your method of distributing your book will depend on your goal. If you want to make the most money possible, make your own site. If you want to get it into as many hands as possible, get it on Amazon.

Many of the JavaScript Jabber panelists have had experience publishing books, and Jonathan shares that you can reach out to a publisher after you’ve self-published a book and they can get it distributed. Jonathan believes that If he had gone straight to a publisher, he would have gotten overwhelmed and given up on the book, but the step by step process of self-publishing kept things manageable. The panelists discuss difficulties encountered when publishing and editing books, especially with Markdown. Jonathan compares the perks of self-editing to traditional editing. Though he does not plan to opensource his entire editing pipeline, he may make some parts available. The show concludes with the panelists discussing the clout that comes with being a published author.

Panelists

Charles Max Wood
Christopher Buecheler
J.C. Hyatt

With special guest: Jonathan Lee Martin

Sponsors

Adventures in Blockchain
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
The Freelancers’ Show

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Christopher Buecheler:

Cluisbrace.com newsletter

J.C. Hyatt:

Corsair wireless charging mouse pad

Charles Max Wood:

Jonathan Lee Martin:

Eric Elliot JS
YellowScale
Follow Jonathan and find his book at jonathanleemartin.com

Special Guest: Jonathan Lee Martin.

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JSJ 395: The New Ember with Mike North

Thu, 26 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Mike North is the Ember guy at Frontend Masters and LinkedIn’s web developer trainer. Today the panel is talking about the upcoming Ember update, which Mike calls a total reinvention of the way you build with Ember. Finally, they are letting go of the cruft and stuff they had to hold on to in order to support IE8 and using modern interface

The panel talks about some of the issues with IE8, and agree that the reason Ember felt its age because it was built for IE8. Ember 314 is moving from the past into the present, a sleek modern way to build apps. Mike talks about how easy the new Ember is to use.

Mike talks about the excitement in the Ember community because the new build is focused on stability and seamlessness. Charles talks about his less seamless experience with the Angular community. For context, Mike North’s first frontend masters course was recorded in 2014, and he’s only had to change two lines of code. Ember is the only framework that has managed to go all the way from IE7/IE8 to today without a major gap,breaks, or rewrites.

They transition to talking about what keeps Ember going. There is an effort to make sure things are decentralized and not tied to any specific company, although Apple, Netflix, Nasa, and PlaysStation all use it. LinkedIn has also been hiring Ember core member to continue working on it, and sponsoring open source work.

Next, they talk about how Ember works with TypeScript. You can install an Ember add on with one terminal command that will enable TypeScript in an Ember app.There are some issues that could cause misalignment with JavaScript and TypeScript, but Ember has designed things around it. MIke talks about the major change in the learning curve with using Ember and how far Vanilla JS will take you. Overall, it is a lot more approachable than it used to be.

They move on to talk about the availability of third party solutions with Ember. Mike assures them that Ember has add-ons, and parts of the framework are opening up to allow experimentation with components. There are lots of ways to make Ember your own without running the risk of diverging, giving more flexibility than ever while maintaining the happy path. Testing within Ember is also a priority, and they want the code to be as readable as possible.

The last topic discussed in this show is the importance of developer education. LinkedIn looks at employment numbers and the rate at which new jobs open, and software engineering is growing like crazy and will likely continue to grow.The rate at which new people are graduating with computer science and programming degrees, as well as those from unconventional backgrounds, is not keeping up with the number of jobs. This means that there will be fewer senior people spread across bigger groups of developers with less experience. The panel agrees that it is the responsibility of people who have been around or learned something period to pass on the knowledge because the more knowledge is passed on, the more stable things will remain as seniors become more scarce. It is also important for companies to level up junior developers. They conclude by talking about tools available for people who want to learn more about Ember Octane, and Mike makes an open request to the JS community.

Panelists

Charles Max Wood
Steve Emmerich
Chris Ferdinandi
Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Christopher Buecheler

With special guest: Mike North

Sponsors

React Native Radio
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Dev Ed Podcast

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Chris Ferdinandi:

Vanilla JS Academy, get 30% off with code ‘jsjabber’
leanweb.dev

Steve Emmerich:

Aimee Knight:

AJ O’Neal:

Charles Max Wood:

Christopher Buecheler:

Tool’s Fear Inoculum on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play

Mike North:

Github Universe
Github Tracer Bench
Follow Mike @mike-north on Github, @northm on LinkedIn, and @michaellnorth on Twitter

Special Guest: Mike North.

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JSJ 394: SMS Integration with Dominik Kundel

Tue, 24 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

Dominik Kundel works as developer evangelist at Twilio. Dominik talks about the history of Twilio, which actually started with integrating phone calls into apps and then moved to SMS integration.

Today Charles and Dominik are talking about how the SMS message approach can augment your user experience. Since many people are not familiar with implementing SMS, Dominik talks about how Twilio can help. Twilio created was a supernetwork where they work with carriers and gateways around the world to ensure that they provide reliable services. They also focus heavily on making sure that the developer experience is great.

Uber and Lyft are two of the companies that use Twilio, and Dominik shares some of the interesting things that they’ve accomplished. He is particularly excited about phone number masking to support privacy. Uber and Lyft use phone number masking so that your driver doesn’t see your real number and you don’t see theirs. Instead, each of you sees a Twilio number. This use case is becoming more common.

Twilio recently introduced Flex, which Dominik explains is their contact center solution. Flex is designed to keep with their philosophy of everything should be programmable and configurable, and take it on to a software shipment. This is their first time shipping software instead of just APIs. Flex is highly customizable and flexible, allows you to build React plugins that let you change anything you want.

Charles asks Dominik about some of the gotchas in telephony. One major issues is spam calls, which Twilio is trying to work with some providers on a ‘verified by Twilio’ list. This list lets companies get verified, and they’re working on ways to let you know the reason why they’re calling without having to answer your phone. This can be difficult because each country has different regulations.

Dominik talks about what it would take for someone who wanted to build an SMS gateway themselves. They would have to work with carriers and learn SMS protocols. It’s important to note that SMS and phone calls have different protocols

Dominik talks about some of the unique use cases they’ve seen their system. Some examples are contextual communications, account verifications, and codex creation. There are other fun examples, such as a drone controlled via text message, a fake boyfriend app, and a dog that was taught to take selfies that are sent to his owner.

Charles asks about ways to get started with Twilio. If you want to explore this and don’t know where to get started, try Twilio Quest, a game to teach you how to use Twilio. There is also documentation, which is good if you know exactly what you want to achieve, or if you just want to explore possibilities then download Twilio Quest.

They delve into a more specific use case for Twilio to send text to subscibers of DevChatTV. Dominik talks about ways of dealing with sending notifications to people outside of the US. You can send with a US number to any country code, or you can personalize it, so that people in the UK receive it from a UK number and so on through automatic geocode matching. They talk about Twilio’s billing.

Finally, they talk about security within telephony in light of recent hacks. They discuss the security of two factor authentication.Two factor authentication and security, especially in light of recent hacks. Dominik talks about the API called Authy, where you can implement different ways of doing two factor authentication, such as push notifications, time based one time password, sms, and phone calls. For most people in the world two factor authentication is very safe, unless you’re a very important person, then you’re more at risk for targeted attacks. They conclude by talking about Twilio’s acquisition of Sendgrid.

Panelists

Charles Max Wood

With special guest: Dominik Kundel

Sponsors

iPhreaks Show
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Ruby Rogues

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Dominik Kundel:

Enable a setting called javascript.implicit
Follow him @dkundel

Special Guest: Dominik Kundel.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 393: Why You Should Be Using Web Workers with Surma

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

Surma is an open web advocate for Google currently working with WebAssembly team. He was invited on the show today to talk about using web workers and how to move work away from the browser’s main thread. His primary platform is bringing multithreading out of the fringes and into the web.

The panel talks about their past experience with web workers, and many of them found them isolated and difficult to use. Surma believes that web workers should pretty much always be sued because the main thread is an inherently bad place to run your code because it has to do so much. Surma details the differences between web workers, service workers, and worklets and explains what the compositer is.

The panel discusses what parts should be moved off the main thread and how to move the logic over. Surma notes that the additional cost of using a worker is basically nonexistent, changes almost nothing in your workflow, and takes up only one kilobyte of memory. Therefore, the cost/benefit ratio of using web workers gets very large. They discuss debugging in a web worker and Surma details how debugging is better in web workers.

Surma wants to see people use workers not because it will make it faster, but because it will make your app more resilient across all devices. Every piece of JavaScript you run could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. There’s so much to do on the main thread for the browser, especially when it has a weaker processor, that the more stuff you can move away, the better.

The web is tailored for the most powerful phones, but a large portion of the population does not have the most powerful phone available, and moving things over to a web worker will benefit the average phone. Surma talks about his experience using the Nokia 2, on which simple apps run very slow because they are not being frugal with the user’s resources. Moving things to another thread will help phones like this run faster.

The panel discusses the benefit of using web workers from a business standpoint. The argument is similar to that for accessibility. Though a user may not need that accessibility all the time, they could become in need of it. Making the app run better on low end devices will also increase the target audience, which is helpful is user acquisition is your principle metric for success.

Surma wants businesses to understand that while this is beneficial for people in countries like India, there is also a very wide spectrum of phone performance in America. He wants to help all of these people and wants companies acknowledge this spectrum and to look at the benefits of using web workers to improve performance.

Panelists

Charles Max Wood
Christopher Buecheler
Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal

With special guest: Surma

Sponsors

Adventures in DevOps
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Adventures in Angular

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

For Love of Mother-Not

Surma:

Follow Surma @DasSurma on Twitter and at dassur.ma
WebAssembly Spec

AJ O’Neal:

Christopher Buecheler

CinemaSins Sincast podcast

Special Guest: Surma.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 392: The Murky Past and Misty Future of JavaScript with Douglas Crockford

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

Douglas is a language architect and helped with the development of JavaScript. He started working with JavaScript in 2000. He talks about his journey with the language, including his initial confusion and struggles, which led him to write his book JavaScript: The Good Parts.

Douglas’ take on JavaScript is unique because he not only talks about what he likes, but what he doesn’t like. Charles and Douglas discuss some of the bad parts of JavaScript, many of which were mistakes because the language was designed and released in too little time. Other mistakes were copied intentionally from other languages because people are emotionally attached to the way things “have always been done”, even if there is a better way.

Doug takes a minimalist approach to programming. They talk about his opinions on pairing back the standard library and bringing in what’s needed. Douglas believes that using every feature of the language in everything you make is going to get you into trouble. Charles and Douglas talk about how to identify what parts are useful and what parts are not.

Douglas delves into some of the issues with the ‘this’ variable. He has experimented with getting rid of ‘this’ and found that it made things easier and programs smaller. More pointers on how to do functional programming can be found in his book How JavaScript Works

Charles and Douglas talk about how he decided which parts were good and bad. Douglas talks about how automatic semicolon insertion and ++ programming are terrible, and his experiments with getting rid of them. He explains the origin of JS Lint. After all, most of our time is not spent coding, it’s spent debugging and maintaining, so there’s no point in optimizing keystrokes.

Douglas talks about his experience on the ECMAScript development committee and developing JavaScript. He believes that the most important features in ES6 were modules and proper tail calls. They discuss whether or not progression or digression is occurring within JavaScript. Douglas disagrees with all the ‘clutter’ that is being added and the prevalent logical fallacy that if more complexity is added in the language then the program will be simpler.

Charles asks Douglas about his plans for the future. His current priority is the next language. He talks about the things that JavaScript got right, but does not believe that it should not be the last language. He shares how he thinks that languages should progress. There should be a focus on security, and security should be factored into the language.

Douglas is working on an implementation for a new language he calls Misty. He talks about where he sees Misty being implemented. He talks about his Frontend Masters course on functional programming and other projects he’s working on. The show concludes with Douglas talking about the importance of teaching history in programming.

Panelists

Charles Max Wood

With special guest: Douglas Crockford

Sponsors

Sustain Our Software
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Views on Vue

Links

Follow DevChatTV on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Superfans by Pat Flynn
SEO course Agency Unlocked by Neil Patel

Douglas Crockford:

The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth
Game of Thrones
Follow Douglas at crockford.com

Special Guest: Douglas Crockford.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 391: Debugging with Todd Gardner

Thu, 12 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

Todd Gardner is a software developer, podcaster on the show Script and Style, startup founder, and comedy host for Pub Conf, a ‘comedy after party for developers’. Since he was last on the show 6 years ago, he has seen his startup TrackJS become quite successful. TrackJS is a JavaScript error monitoring service which gives you visibility into your client side experience. It’s different from other tools because focused on simplicity, so you’ll never need a guy on your team dedicated solely to TrackJS because everyone can use it.

The panel begins by talking about debugging methods and tools. Some rely solely on the debugger built into their platform while others prefer to use a third party service. They discuss the necessity of using a third party debugger and if there are better solutions than just the built in debugger.

They then discuss what to do after you’ve fixed a bug, such as if it is necessary to write a test to make sure it was completely fixed They talk about things to do to make debugging more effective. Todd and Aimee believe that code needs to begin by being designed for debug-ability.

The panel discusses issues with invisible boundaries encountered while debugging, such as running out of memory. They talk about ways to mitigate issues that happen outside of your code base. Todd talks about the dangers of ad-blockers, and the panel agrees that it is important to consider how your website will be crippled by the user’s own technology. The end user in a production environment will have a different experience than you did writing it on a professional computer.

Todd talks about the difference between debugging for the web versus a mobile application. Todd has encountered particular problems with debugging on a remote device, and he talks about how he solved the issue. The show concludes with Todd giving a quick elevator pitch for TrackJS

Panelists

Chris Ferdinandi
Christopher Buecheler
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Steve Emmrich

With special guest: Todd Gardner

Sponsors

Adventures in Blockchain
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
React Round Up

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Christopher Buecheler:

React/TypeScript cheat sheet

Chris Ferdinandi:

Aimee Knight:

TechLead Youtube channel

Charles Max Wood:

Atomic Habits
Getting up at 4 am

Steve Emmrich:

Trello
Babushkas and grandmas to help you with your newborn

Todd Gardner:

PubConf
Follow Todd @toddhgardner or todd.mn

Special Guest: Todd Gardner.

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JSJ 390: Transposit with Adam Leventhal

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

Adam Leventhal is the CEO and cofounder of Transposit. Transposit was born from the desire to build a way for developers to work with lots of different APIs, take authentication and pagination off the table, and let developers focus on the problems they’re trying to solve. Transposit is a serverless platform that’s free and gives you a combination of SQL or JavaScript to start playing with your API.

Since interacting with API data securely can be difficult, the panel discusses how Transposit might replace the personally built tools and how does it compare to JAMstack. They talk about some common things that people do wrong with security.

Transposit is often used as the full backend, and Adam shares how that works. There is a list of APIs that Transposit can talk to, and you can build your own connector. You can also work with JavaScript and SQL simultaneously.

Chris Ferdinandi asks some more specific questions about how Transposit can work with email lists. Adam clarifies the difference between connectors and apps in Transposit. He delves into more detail on what makes it work under the hood.

There are some 450,000 Stack applications but the majority have one user because they built it to communicate specifically with their API. The panel discusses how Transposit can help with this. Since Transposit is still in startup mode, it is free for now, and can connect to any public facing API. Adam talks about their decision not to make it open source and gives more details on where the authentications occur. The show wraps up with the panel talking about the pros of going serverless

Panelists

Chris Ferdinandi
Christopher Buecheler

With special guest: Adam Leventhal

Sponsors

Adventures in .NET
Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan
Elixer Mix

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Christopher Buecheler:

Manchester Orchestra

Chris Ferdinandi:

Adam Leventhal:

Hamilton the biography
Antler
Follow Adam on Twitter @ahl

Special Guest: Adam Leventhal.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 389: What Makes a 10x Engineer?

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Sustain Our Software
Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Adventures in Blockchain

Panel

Charles Max Wood

Episode Summary

In today’s show, Chuck talks about the recent tweet thread about 10x engineers. He goes through each of the points in the tweet and talks about each of them in turn. There are only two points he sort of agrees with, and believes the rest to be absolute garbage. One of the issues with this tweet is that it doesn’t define what a 10x engineer is. Defining a 10x engineer is difficult because it is also impossible to measure a truly average engineer because there are many factors that play into measuring productivity. Chuck turns the discussion to what a 10x engineer is to him and how to find one. A 10x engineer is dependent on the organization that they are a part of, because they are not simply found, they are made. When a 10x engineer is added to a team, the productivity of the entire team increases. Employers have to consider firstly what you need in your team and how a person would fit in. You want to avoid changing the entire culture of your organization. Consider also that a 10x engineer may be hired as a 2x engineer, but it is the employer that turns them into a 10x engineer. Overall, Chuck believes these tweets are asinine because it’s impossible to measure what makes a 10x engineer in the first place, and hiring a person that fits the attributes in the list would be toxic to your company.

Links

10x engineer twitter thread

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 388: Functional Programming with Brian Lonsdorf

Tue, 03 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Adventures in Blockchain
Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
My Ruby Story

Panel

Aimee Knight
Chris Buecheler
AJ O’Neal

With Special Guest: Brian Lonsdorf

Episode Summary

Brian Lonsdorf works for Salesforce, specializes in functional programming, and wrote a book called Professor Frisby’s Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming. Brian talks about when he got into functional programming and when in their career others should be exposed to it. He talks about the fundamental tenets of functional programming (static mathematical functions), how it differs from object oriented programming, and how to manipulate data in a functional environment. The panel wonders if it is possible to use functional and object oriented programming together and discuss the functional core imperative shell. Brian talks about what is ‘super functional’ and why JavaScript isn’t, but includes methods for making it work. He shares some of the trade-offs he’s found while doing functional programming. Brian defines a monad and goes over some of the common questions he gets about functional programming, such as how to model an app using functional programming. The show concludes with Brian talking about some of the work he’s been doing in AI and machine learning.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Aimee Knight:

After The Burial (band)

Chris Buecheler:

Minecraft in JavaScript

AJ O’Neal:

Brian Lonsdorf:

Follow Brian @drboolean
Chris Penner Comonads

Special Guest: Brian Lonsdorf.

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JSJ 387: How to Stay Current in the Tech Field

Thu, 29 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

GitLab | Get 30% off tickets with the promo code: DEVCHATCOMMIT
Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Views on Vue

Panel

Charles Max Wood
Joe Eames

Episode Summary

Today Joe and Charles are discussing how to stay current in the tech field. Since looking at all the new technology can be overwhelming, they advise listeners on what to focus on, which will differ depending on your career. Joe brings up that one of the top reasons people choose a job is because it has a technology they want to learn. Joe and Charles discuss trends in the tech world, such as the rise and fall of Rails. They discuss what to do if you’re happy with what you’re doing now but want your career to stay viable. While it is important to continue moving along with technology, they agree that the stuff that’s really important is the stuff that doesn’t change. Charles believes that if you have a solid knowledge on a subject that isn’t necessary current, that is still very valuable.

Joe and Charles discuss the importance of having a learning plan and the importance of having soft skills in addition to technological know-how. Another important part of staying current is figuring out where you want to end up and making a plan. If you want to work for a specific company, you need to learn the technology they’re using. Joe talks about some of his experiences trying to get a job with a big company and how he was reminded of the importance of the fundamentals.

They discuss the merits of being a generalist or a specialist in your studies and the best approach once you’ve chosen a technology to learn. Once you’ve learned a technology, it’s important to start building with it. Charles and Joe talk about different ways of learning, such as books, videos, code reading, or tutorials, and the importance of finding a medium that you can understand. They discuss the isolating nature of tutorials and how it is important to have real-world experience with the code. They discuss how to know if you’ve learned a technology well enough to move onto the next thing, and whether the technologies you studies should be career focused or passion based. Charles advises listeners to divide their time as follows: 50% of your learning should be focused on what you’re currently doing at your job, 25% looking towards the future and studying upcoming technology, and 25% on your passion.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Joe Eames:

Gatsby

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JSJ 386: Gatsby.js with Chris Biscardi

Tue, 27 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

GitLab | Get 30% off tickets with the promo code: DEVCHATCOMMIT
Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit

Panel

Chris Beucheler
AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight

With Special Guest: Chris Biscardi

Episode Summary

Chris is an independent consultant working with open source startups. He taught himself to program and started in open source. He talks about how he got into programming and how he learned to code. One of Chris’ current clients is Gatsby, a static site generator. Chris talks about his work with Gatsby themes, how he got started working with Gatsby, and how you can get started with Gatsby. Chris talks about how Gatsby differs from other static site generators and how difficult it is to use. The panel discusses possible use cases for Gatsby, and agree that if your site is going to get more complex and larger over time, something like Gatsby is what you want to use. Chris talks about what it’s like to migrate to Gatsby from another service. The panel discusses the pros and cons of server-side rendering. Chris talks about building more app-oriented sites with Gatsby and things that you can plug into a Gatsby theme besides a blog. The show concludes with Chris and the panelists agreeing that if you can write it in JavaScript, you can ship it in a Gatsby theme.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight:

Some things that might help you make better software

Chris Beucheler:

Venture Cafe Providence

Chris Biscardi:

Special Guest: Chris Biscardi.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 385: What Can You Build with JavaScript?

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

RxJS Live

Panel

Charles Max Wood
Christopher Beucheler

Episode Summary

Today Charles and Christopher discuss what can you do with JavaScript. They talk about the kinds of things they have used JavaScript to build. They discuss non-traditional ways that people might get into JavaScript and what first drew them to the language. They talk about the some of the non-traditional JavaScript options that are worth looking into. Christopher and Charles talk about some of the fascinating things that have been done with JavaScript, such as Amazon Alexa capabilities, virtual reality, and games. They spend some time talking about JavaScript usage in game creation and building AI. They talk about how they’ve seen JavaScript change and progress during their time as developers. They talk about areas besides web that they would be interested in learning more about and what kinds of things they would like to build in that area. They finish by discussing areas that they are excited to see improve and gain new capabilites.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Instagram
JavaScript Jabber Reccomendations
New shows: Adventures in Block Chain, Adventures in .Net

Christopher Beucheler:

Pair programming
VS Code Live Share

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 384: FaunaDB: Support for GraphQL and Serverless Development with Evan Weaver

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit

Panel

Charles Max Wood
AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames
Aimee Knight

With Special Guest: Evan Weaver

Episode Summary

Evan Weaver is the CEO and cofounder of FaunaDB, a serverless database and a great way to get started with GraphQL. Evan talks about what went into building the FaunaDB and his background with Twitter. FaunaDB arose from trying to fix Twitter’s scalability issues, and the panel discusses scalability issues encountered in both large and small companies. They talk about the difference between transient and persistent data. They discuss how to develop locally when using a serverless database and the importance of knowing why you’re using something. Evan talks about how developing locally works with FaunaDB. He addresses concerns that people might have about using FaunaDB since it is not backed by a tech giant. Evan talks about some of the services FaunaDB offers and talks about the flexibility of its tools. He talks about how to get started with FaunaDB and what the authentication is like. Finally, Evan talks about some well known companies that are using FaunaDB and what they are doing with it.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Aimee Knight:

Falling in Reverse

Joe Eames:

Battlestations

Evan Weaver

Forza Motorsport
Follow Evan on Twitter and Github @evan

Special Guest: Evan Weaver.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 383: What is JavaScript?

Thu, 15 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

RxJS Live

Panel

Charles Max Wood
Christopher Beucheler
Aimee Knight

Episode Summary

Today’s episode is an exploration of the question “What is JavaScript?”. Each of the panelists describes what they think JavaScript is, giving a definition for both technical and non-technical people. They talk about how the different layers of JavaScript tie into their definitions. They agree that it’s incorrect to call JavaScript one of the ‘easy’ programming languages and some of the challenges unique to JavaScript, such as the necessity of backwards compatibility and that it is used in tandem with CSS and HTML, which require a different thinking method. They discuss the disdain that some developers from other languages hold for JavaScript and where it stems from. They discuss methods to level up from beginner to mid level JavaScript programmer, which can be tricky because it is a rapidly evolving language. They revisit the original question, “What is Java Script?”, and talk about how their definition of JavaScript has changed after this discussion. They finish by talking about the story they want to tell with JavaScript, why they chose JavaScript, and what is it they are trying to do, create, become through using the language. They invite listeners to share their answers in the comments.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

The Dungeoncast

Aimee Knight:

This Patch of Sky

Christopher Beucheler:

Silversun Pickups album Widow’s Weeds
Andrew Huang YouTube channel

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 382: Mental Health with Anatoliy Zaslavskiy

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit

Panel

Charles Max Wood

With Special Guest: Anatoliy Zaslavskiy

Episode Summary

Anatoliy Zaslavsky works for Hover, made framework called Pickle.js, and has been on JavaScript Jabber before. Today Chuck and Anatloliy are talking about the importance of mental health. Anatoliy has Bipolar Disorder, and he talks about what it is and his experience with it and how his manic and depressive episodes have affected him. Thankfully, his employers at Hover have been extremely supportive. Chuck and Anatoliy talk about what people should do when they are suffering from a mental illness so that they can do the things they love again. Some of the best ways of coping with mental health issues are to keep a lifeline out to friends and family, go to a professional therapist, stay on a consistent exercise and sleep pattern, and stay away from substances. They talk about how to support someone that is suffering from a mental illness.

Anatoliy talks about some of the symptoms and behavioral changes he has during both manic and depressive episodes and how it has affected him in the workplace. Mental health issues are almost always accompanied by changes in behavior, and Chuck and Anatoliy talk about ways to approach a person about their behavior. Anatoliy gives advice on how to work with your employer while you are suffering from a mental illness. For mental illnesses that aren’t as dramatic as Bipolar Disorder, Anatoliy talks about coping mechanisms such as staying away from triggers, knowing what motivates you and communicating it to your employer, and other practices that have helped him. He talks about some of his triggers and how it has affected his work, both for the better and worse.

Finding out what helps you cope and what triggers you is often trial and error, but it can help to talk to other people in your field who struggle with the same mental health issues. Anatoliy talks about the pros and cons of working from home or in an office when you have a mental illness. They finish by talking about a few other points on mental health and resources for those suffering from a mental illness to get the help they need.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

ExpressVPN

Anatoliy Zaslavskiy:

Contact Anatoliy at toli@toliycodes.com
Visit his website tolicodes.com
Misu app (in beta)

Special Guest: Anatoliy Zaslavskiy.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 381: Building a Personal Brand with John Sonmez

Thu, 08 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
RxJS Live

Panel

Charles Max Wood
Christopher Beucheler
AJ O’Neal

With Special Guest: John Somnez

Episode Summary

John is the founder of Bulldog Mindset andSimple Programmer, which teaches software developers soft skills, and the author of a couple books. He specializes in creating a personal brand and marketing. He addresses the rumors of him leaving software development and gives an introduction to marketing yourself as a software developer and its importance. The panel discusses their experience with consulting and how marketing themselves has paid off. John talks about the importance of having soft skills. In his opinion, the most important soft skills for programmers are communication, persuasion and influence, people skills and charisma. He talks about highlight those soft skills. The truth is, more and more people are hiring for people skills rather than technical skills. The panel discusses more about the importance of people skills.

John talks about ways to build your personal brand. One of the easiest ways is blogging but he talks about other methods like podcasts YouTube, writing books, and others. A key to building a personal brand is choosing something that you can become the best at, no matter how small it is. The panel shares their experiences of what things have gotten them attention and notoriety and talk about how other influential programmers got famous. They talk about interacting with central platforms like Medium and Github. Building a personal brand for software developers is the same as any other personal brand, such as having a consistent message, consistent logos and color schemes, and repeated exposure). Most people in the software world aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to build a personal brand, so it makes you stand out when you do it. John talks about the importance of controlling your image so that companies want to hire you. John gives a brief overview of his course How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer.

Click here to cast your vote NOW for JavaScript Jabber - Best Dev Podcast Award

Links

John Somnez’s books
Data Grid Girl
Follow JavaScript Jabber on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

John Somnez:

Follow John at bulldogmindset.com and simpleprogrammer.com
The Little Book of Stoicism
Training Peaks

Christopher Beucheler:

Strasborg, France

AJ O’Neal

Special Guest: John Sonmez.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 380: Expo for Web with Charlie Cheever

Tue, 06 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Datadog
Sentry– use the code “devchat” for $100 credit

Panel

Charles Max Wood

With Special Guest: Charlie Cheever

Episode Summary

Guest Charlie Cheever joins the discussion on JavaScript Jabber today. He was previously on React Round Up episode 47. Charlie works on Expo, which is a way to make React apps on every platform. Right now, Expo supports IOS, Android, and Web, provides a standard library of features, and takes care of services like builds and updates over the air. There are also code generators and templates available in Expo. Expo is focused on use cases where you just need to use a little bit of React Native in your app. Charlie talks about the origins of Expo, which was born from increased access of websites from people’s phones and the desire for a cross-platform tool that was as easy as building on the web. One of the biggest benefits is that Expo gives you the peace of mind knowing your app will work across all phones and all platforms.

They discuss how to approach building your API’s for Expo so that it’s easy for people to use and have it consistent across all these different systems. Expo also has a voting board canny.expo.io where people can submit suggestions for new features. Expo is compatible with map view and React Native maps. Currently, Expo is missing bluetooth and things where the underlying platform wants to have a direct relationship with the developer, such as in-app purchases. Charlie talks about other components available in Expo, all of which can be modified. They discuss the influence of React on augmented reality and VR. Charlie talks about the updating feature of Expo. Charlie talks about the evolution of Expo and their goal to be a “developer first” company. He talks about the company, libraries, The Client, and services. He gives advice on how to get started with React Native development and using Expo. There is also Expo Web, which can be used to create a website, and if you create an app with Expo you get a website too. Expo hopes to be a stable, easy, coherent way of using all these tools across your entire experience of building your application so that you can relax a little bit.

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Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Charlie Cheever:

Draft bit (still in beta)
AWS Amplify
Follow Charlie @ccheever

Special Guest: Charlie Cheever.

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JSJ 379: FindCollabs and Podcasting with Jeff Meyerson

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

With Special Guest: Jeff Meyerson

Episode Summary

Jeff Meyerson is the host of the Software Engineering daily podcast and has also started a company called FindCollabs, an online platform for finding collaborators and building projects. Jeff started FindCollabs because he believes there are all these amazing tools but people are not combining and collaborating as much as they could, when so much good could be accomplished together. FindCollabs is especially useful for working on side projects. The panelists discuss the problems encountered when you try to collaborate with people over the internet, such as finding people who are facing similar and gauging interest, skill, and availability. Thankfully, FindCollabs has a feature of leaving reviews and rating your partners so that users can accurately gauge other’s skill level. Users can also leave comments about their experience collaborating with others. The only way you can show competence with an interest is to contribute to another project. FindCollabs is also a good place to look for mentors, as well as for Bootcamp graduates or people going through an online coding course. If you are part of an organization, you can create private projects. The company plans to expand this feature to all users in the future.The panelists talk about their past experiences with collaborating with other people.

Jeff talks about his podcast Software Engineering Daily and how it got started and the focus of the podcast. As someone working in technology, it is important to stay current on up and coming technology, and listening to podcasts is an excellent way to do that. Jeff talks about where he thinks podcasting is going, especially for programmers. The panel discusses some of the benefits of listening to programming podcasts. Jeff talks about how he is prepping Software Engineering Daily for the future. He shares the audience size for Software Engineering Daily and some of the statistics for his different channels. Jeff has also released an app for Software Engineering Daily, and he shares some information on how it was written. Finally, Jeff gives advice for people who want to use FindCollabs and some of the next steps after creating a profile.

Click here to cast your vote NOW for JavaScript Jabber - Best Dev Podcast Award

Links

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Picks

Aimee Knight:

Burnout and the Brain

AJ O’Neal:

Charles Max Wood:

Jeff Meyerson:

Special Guest: Jeff Meyerson.

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JSJ 378: Stencil and Design Systems with Josh Thomas and Mike Hartington

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
Joe Eames
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

With Special Guests: Josh Thomas and Mike Hartington

Episode Summary

Today’s guests Josh Thomas and Mike Hartington are developers for Ionic, with Josh working on the open source part of the framework on Ionic. They talk about their new compiler for web components called Stencil. Stencil was originally created out of work they did for Ionic 4 (now available for Vue, React, and Angular) and making Ionic 4 able to compliment all the different frameworks. They talk about their decision to build their own compiler and why they decided to open source it. Now, a lot of companies are looking into using Stencil to build design systems

The panel discusses when design systems should be implemented. Since Ionic is a component library that people can pull from and use themselves, Jeff and Mike talk about how they are using Stencil since they’re not creating a design system.

The panel discusses some of the drawbacks of web components. They discuss whether or not Cordova changes the game at all. One of the big advantages of using Stencil is the code that is delivered to a browser is generated in such a way that a lot of things are handled for you, unlike in other systems.The panelists talk about their thoughts on web components and the benefits of using a component versus creating a widget the old fashioned way. One such benefit of web components is that you can change the internals of how it works without affecting the API. Josh and Mike talk about some of the abilities of Stencil and compare it to other things like Tachyons. There is a short discussion of the line between frameworks and components and the dangers of pre optimization. If you would like to learn more about Stencil, go to stenciljs.com and follow Josh and Mike @Jtoms1 and @mhartington.

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Links

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Picks

Aimee Knight:

What Does Debugging a Program Look Like?

AJ O’Neal:

Chris Ferdinandi:

Charles Max Wood:

Ladders with feet
Lighthouse
Acorns

Joe Eames:

Josh Thomas:

Toy Story 4

Mike Hartington:

Special Guests: Josh Thomas and Mike Hartington.

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JSJ BONUS EPISODE: Observables and RxJS Live with Aaron Frost

Mon, 29 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ BONUS EPISODE: Observables and RxJS Live with Aaron Frost

Mon Jul 29 2019 13:00:56 GMT+0300 (+03)

Episode Number: bonus

Duration: 29:35

https://media.devchat.tv/js-jabber/JSJ_Bonus_Aaron_Frost.mp3

Host: Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guest: Aaron Frost

Episode Summary

Aaron Frost joins Charles to talk about what Observables are and why developers should learn about them and use them in their code. He explains the difference between Observables, Promises and Callbacks with an example. Aaron then invites all listeners to attend the upcoming RxJS Live Conference and introduces the impressive speaker line-up. The conference will take place on September 5-6 in Las Vegas and tickets are still available. Aaron also offers a $100 discount to all listeners with the code "chuckforlife". For any questions you can DM Aaron at his Twitter account.

Links

Special Guest: Aaron Frost.

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JSJ 377: Bringing Maps and Location Into Your Apps with the ArcGIS API for JavaScript with Rene Rubalcava

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

With Special Guest: Rene Rubalcava

Episode Summary

Rene is a software developer for ESRI and works in spatial and mapping software. ESRI has been around since 1969 and has seen their work explode since they shifted to providing address and location services. Rene talks about how he thinks about location and mapping when building software around it and things that he has to approach in unique ways. The panel discusses some of their past experiences with location software. Some of the most difficult aspects of this software is changing time zones for data and actually mapping the Earth, since it is not flat nor a perfect sphere. Rene talks about the different models used for mapping the Earth.

Most mapping systems use the same algorithm as Google maps, so Rene talks about some of the specific features of ArcGIS, including the ability to finding a point within a polygon. Rene talks about what routing is, its importance, and how it is being optimized with ArcGIS, such as being able to add private streets into a regular street network.

The panel discusses how the prevalence of smartphones has changed mapping and GPS and some of their concerns with privacy and location mapping. One thing ESRI is very careful about is not storing private information. Rene talks about the kinds of things he has seen people doing with the mapping and location data provided by ArcGIS, including a Smart Mapping feature for developers, mapping planets, indoor routing, and 3D models.

Links

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Picks

Rene Rubalcava:

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight:

Advice to Less Experienced Developers

Charles Max Wood:

Special Guest: Rene Rubalcava .

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JSJ 376: Trix: A Rich Text Editor for Everyday Writing with Javan Makhmali

Tue, 23 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
Christopher Beucheler
AJ O’Neal

With Special Guest: Javan Makhmali

Episode Summary

Today’s guest is Javan Makhmali, who works for Basecamp and helped develop Trix. Trix is a rich text editor for the web, made purposefully simple for everyday use instead of a full layout tool. Trix is not the same as Tiny MCE, and Javan discusses some of the differences. He talks about the benefits of using Trix over other native browser features for text editing. He talks about how Trix has simplified the work at Basecamp, especially when it came to crossing platforms. Javan talks more about how Trix differs from other text editors like Google Docs and contenteditable, how to tell if Trix is functioning correctly, and how it works with Markdown.

The panel discusses more specific aspects of Trix, such as Exec command. One of the features of Trix is it is able to output consistently in all browsers and uses semantic, clean HTML instead of classnames. Javan talks about how Trix handles getting rid of the extraneous cruft of formatting when things are copy and pasted, the different layers of code, and the undo feature. He talks about whether or not there will be more features added to Trix. The panel discusses who could benefit from using Trix. The show finishes with Javan talking about Basecamp’s decision to make Trix open source and why they code in CoffeeScript.

Links

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Picks

Javan Makhmali:

API for form submissions

Chris Ferdinandi:

AJ O’Neal:

Christopher Beucheler:

Medium to Own blog

Aimee Knight:

Absolute Truth Unlearned as Junior Developer

Special Guest: Javan Makhmali.

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JSJ 375: Are You Hurting the Web?

Thu, 18 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
AJ O’Neal
Christopher Beucheler

Episode Summary

Today the panel discusses the effect of current development practices, such as the heavy reliance JavaScript, on the web. Chris explains why he believes that current development practices are ruining the web. The panelists discuss different situations where they see complications on the web. They discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using an enterprise scale platform like React. The panel discusses Twitter’s move away from their legacy code base to CSS and JavaScript.

The panelists agree that the way things are built, since it’s so JavaScript heavy, is alienating to people who work with other languages, and in turn other areas like UI are undervalued. They talk about possible reasons things ended up this way and some of the historical perception of a frontend as not a place for ‘real’ development. Because the web is now a serious platform, things associated with the backend has been thrown at the frontend where it doesn’t belong. They talk about changes in the ways programming is viewed now versus the past.

There is a discussion about how market demands that have influenced the web and if the market value CSS as highly as other languages. They mention some of the Innovations in CSS. Chris shares his solutions for the problems they’ve been discussing, namely using less JavaScript, leaning more heavily on what the browser gives you out of the box, and avoiding dependency where possible. They talk about ways to get involved if you want to take a leaner approach to the web. Ultimately, it is important to embrace things about the past that worked, but sprinkle in new technology when it makes sense

Links

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Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Aimee Knight:

Complete Guide to Deep Work

Chris Ferdinandi:

Developer Bait and Switch
Vanillajslist.com
Chris will be speaking at Artifact Conference

AJ O’Neal:

Christopher Beucheler:

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JSJ 374: CosmosDB with Steve Faulkner LIVE at Microsoft BUILD

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guest: Steve Faulkner

Episode Summary

Coming to you live from the podcast booth at Microsoft BUILD is Charles Max Wood with Steve Faulkner. Steve is a Senior Software Developer for Azure Cosmos DB at Microsoft. Cosmos DB is a global distributed, multi-model noSQL database. Steve explains the Cosmos DB service and scenarios it can be used in. They discuss how Cosmos DB interacts with Azure functions and how partition keys work in Cosmos DB.

Listen to the show for more Cosmos DB updates and to find out how Steve he got his twitter handle @southpolesteve.

Links

Picks

Steve Faulkner:

Special Guest: Steve Faulkner.

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JSJ 373: What Do You Need to Do to Get a Website Up?

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames

Episode Summary

Today the panel discusses what is necessary to get a website up and how complicated or simple it needs to be. They mention different tools they like for static sites and ways to manage their builds and websites. They talk about why some people choose to host their websites and at what point the heavier tools become a concern. They discuss whan it is necessary to use those heavy tools.

They caution listeners to beware of premature optimization, because sometimes businesses will take advantage of newer developers and make them think they need all these shiny bells and whistles, when there is a cheaper way to do it. It is important to keep the tools you work with simple and to learn them so that if you encounter a problem, you have some context and scope. The option of serverless website hosting is also discussed, as well as important things to know about servers.

The panel discusses what drives up the price of a website and if it is worth it to switch to a cheaper alternative. They discuss the pros and cons of learning the platform yourself versus hiring a developer. The importance of recording the things that you do on your website is mentioned. Several of the panelists choose to do this by blogging so that if you search for a problem you can find ones you’ve solved in the past.

Links

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Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Microsoft build

Aimee Knight:

Systems Thinking is as Important as Ever for New Coders

Chris Ferdinandi:

AJ O’Neal:

Joe Eames:

Miniature painting

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JSJ 372: Kubernetes Docker and Devops with Jessica Deen LIVE from Microsoft BUILD

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guest: Jessica Deen

Episode Summary

Coming to you live from the podcast booth at Microsoft BUILD is Charles Max Wood with The Deen of DevOps aka Jessica Deen. Jessica is a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. As an advocate she acts a liaison between developer communities and Microsoft to help understand developer pain points and road blocks especially in areas such as Linux, open-source technologies, infrastructure, Kubernetes, containers and DevOps. Jessica explains how to go about setting up a containerized application, Kubernetes and how to use Dockerfiles. Charles and Jessica then talk about how to get started with a Kubernetes cluster and the resources available for developers that don't have any infrastructure. Jessica advises that developers start with Azure DevOps Services and then go to Microsoft Learn Resource.

Charles also encourages listeners to also check out the Views on Vue podcast Azure DevOps with Donovan Brown for further references. Jessica also recommends following people on Twitter and GitHub to find out about solutions and resources.

Links

Follow Adventures in Angular on tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

Jessica Deen:

Charles Max Wood:

Special Guest: Jessica Deen.

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JSJ 371: The Benefits and Challenges of Server-Side Rendering (SSR) with Dan Shappir

Tue, 02 Jul 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Charles Max Wood
Joe Eames
Christopher Buecheler
Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal

Joined by special guest: Dan Shappir

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, special guest Dan Shappir, Performance Tech Lead at Wix, kicks off the discussion by defining server-side rendering (SSR) along with giving its historical background, and touches on the differences between server rendering and server-side rendering. He helps listeners understand in detail how SSR is beneficial for the web and takes questions from the panel about how it affects web performance in cases where first-time users and returning users are involved, and how does SSR fare against technologies such as pre-rendering. He then elaborates on the pitfalls and challenges of SSR including managing and declaring variables, memory leaks, performance issues, handling SEO, and more, along with ways to mitigate them. In the end, Dan sheds some light on when should developers use SSR and how should they start working with it.

Links

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Devchat.tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

Christopher Buecheler:

Tip - Take some time off once in a while

Aimee Knight:

Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects

AJ O’Neal:

Fatherhood!

Joe Eames:

Charles Max Wood:

Dan Shappir:

Special Guest: Dan Shappir.

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JSJ 370: Azure Functions Part II with Jeff Hollan LIVE at Microsoft BUILD

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guest: Jeff Hollan

Episode Summary

Coming to you live from the podcast booth at Microsoft BUILD is Charles Max Wood with Jeff Hollan. Jeff is a Sr. Program Manager for the Azure Functions cloud service. Continuing from where Colby Tresness left off in Adventures in Angular 241: Azure Functions with Colby Tresness LIVE at Microsoft BUILD, Jeff defines what “serverless” really means in developer world. Jeff also talks about various scenarios where Azure functions are extremely useful and explains what Durable Functions are.

Jeff and Charles discuss creating and running an Azure function inside a container and the upcoming capabilities of Azure functions they are currently working on.

Links

JavaScript Jabber 369: Azure Functions with Colby Tresness LIVE at Microsoft BUILD
Durable Functions
Jeff’s GitHub
Jeff’s Twitter
Jeff’s LinkedIn
Jeff’s Website
Jeff’s Medium
Microsoft Build 2019
Follow JavaScript Jabber on Devchat.tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

Jeff Hollan:

Charles Max Wood:

Family Tree App

Special Guest: Jeff Hollan.

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JSJ 369: Azure Functions with Colby Tresness LIVE at MIcrosoft BUILD

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

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Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Linode offers $20 credit
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Panel

Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guest: Colby Tresness

Episode Summary

Coming to you live from the podcast booth at Microsoft BUILD is Charles Max Wood with Colby Tresness. Colby is a Program Manager on Azure Functions at Microsoft. Azure functions are the serverless functions on Azure. Colby explains what the Azure functions premium plan entails, then talks about KEDA – Kubernetes-based event-driven autoscaling, a Microsoft and Red Hat partnered open source component to provide event-driven capabilities for any Kubernetes workload. One of the other cool features of serverless functions they talk about is the Azure serverless community library.

Colby and Charles discuss the best way to get started with Azure functions, as well as the non-JavaScript languages it supports.

Links

Colby’s GitHub
Colby’s Twitter
Colby’s LinkedIn
Colby’s Blog
Microsoft Build 2019
KEDA
Red Hat
Azure Serverless Community Library
Follow Adventures in Angular on tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

Colby Tresness:

Barry (TV Series 2018– ) – IMDb

Charles Max Wood:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The MFCEO Project Podcast – Andy Frisella
Downtown Seattle

Special Guest: Colby Tresness.

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JSJ 368: TypeScript - Good or Bad

Tue, 11 Jun 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Linode offers $20 credit
CacheFly

Panel

Joe Eames
AJ O’Neal

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, Joe Eames and AJ O’Neal talk about what TypeScript is, and their background and experiences with it. They discuss the different kinds of typed languages such as dynamic vs static, strong vs weak, implicit vs explicit casting and the reasons for selecting one type over the other. AJ shares his opinion on not preferring TypeScript in general, while Joe offers a counter perspective on liking it, and both give a number of reasons to support each argument. They talk about some final good and bad points about TypeScript and move on to picks.

Links

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Devchat.tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

Joe Eames:

AJ O’Neal:

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JSJ 367: Pair Programming

Tue, 04 Jun 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Chris Ferdinandi

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, the panelists discuss each one’s definition of the term ‘pairing’ in programming, including factors like being remote or local, having different seniority levels and the various approaches of going about it in general. They talk about how valuable pairing is, in terms of benefiting the individual as well as how productive it is for the company or the overall business.

The panel also discuss prototyping, pseudo-coding and the advantages and trade-offs involved in pair programming. They talk about their own experiences in which pairing had proven to be extremely beneficial and the ones where it went completely wrong, thereby helping listeners understand the dos and don’ts of the technique. In the end, they elaborate on what actually happens in pairing interviews and the overall hiring process while sharing anecdotes from their own lives.

Links

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Devchat.tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

Chris Ferdinandi:

AJ O’Neal:

Aimee Knight:

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 366: npm with Mikeal Rogers

Tue, 28 May 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Linode offers $20 credit
CacheFly

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Chris Ferdinandi
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood

Joined by special guest: Mikeal Rogers

Episode Summary

This episode of JavaScript Jabber starts with Mikeal Rogers introducing himself and his work in brief. Charles clarifies that he wants to focus this show on some beginner content such as node.js basics, so Mikeal gives some historical background on the concept, elaborates on its modern usage and features and explains what “streams” are, for listeners who are starting to get into JavaScript. The panelists then discuss how languages like Go and Python compare to node.js in terms of growth and individual learning curves. Mikeal answers questions about alternate CLIs, package management, Pika, import maps and their effect on node.js, and on learning JavaScript in general. Chris, Charles and AJ also chip in with their experiences in teaching modern JS to new learners and its difficulty level in comparison to other frameworks. They wrap up the episode with picks.

Links

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Devchat.tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

Chris Ferdinandi:

Aimee Knight:

Mikeal Rogers:

Charles Max Wood:

Podwrench

Special Guest: Mikeal Rogers.

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JSJ 365: Do You Need a Front-End Framework?

Tue, 21 May 2019 10:00:00 +0000

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Panel

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames

Episode Summary

Today the panel discusses the necessity of a front end framework. Overall, there is a consensus that frameworks are not necessary in all situations. They discuss the downsides of using frameworks, such as being restricted by the framework when doing edge development and the time required for learning a framework. They talk about the value of frameworks for learning patterns in programming.

The panel delves into the pros and cons of different frameworks available. Joe shares a story about teaching someone first without a framework and then introducing them to frameworks, and the way it helped with their learning. One of the pros of frameworks is that they are better documented than manual coding. They all agree that it is not enough to just know a framework, you must continue to learn JavaScript as well.

They talk about the necessity for new programmers to learn a framework to get a job, and the consensus is that a knowledge of vanilla JavaScript and a general knowledge of the framework for the job is important. New programmers are advised to not be crippled by the fear of not knowing enough and to have an attitude of continual learning. In the technology industry, it is easy to get overwhelmed by all the developments and feel that one cannot possibly learn it all. Charles gives advice on how to find your place in the development world. The show concludes with the panel agreeing that frameworks are overall a good thing and are valuable tools.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Podwrench

Aimee Knight:

Chris Ferdinandi:

AJ O’Neal:

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 364: Ember Octane with Sam Selikoff

Tue, 14 May 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Linode
CacheFly

Panel

AJ O’Neal

Joined by special guest: Sam Selikoff

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, Sam Selikoff, Co-Founder at EmberMap, Inc. starts with giving a brief background about himself and his work followed by a discussion with AJ O’Neal about the Ember community. Sam mentions some of the biggest advantages in using Ember, and what it should and should not be used for. He explains the architecture of Ember apps, addresses some of the performance concerns and then dives into Octane in detail. He talks about a bunch of Ember components, compiler compatibility, relative weight of Ember apps compared to other frameworks, the underlying build system, and security considerations. Sam then helps listeners understand the usage of ES6 classes and decorators in Ember at length. At the end, they discuss component rendering and element modifiers and move onto picks.

Links

Follow JavaScript Jabber on Devchat.tv, Facebook and Twitter.

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Good Mythical Morning - YouTube

Sam Selikoff:

Special Guest: Sam Selikoff.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 363: Practical JAMstack and Serverless with Gareth McCumskey

Tue, 07 May 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Linode
CacheFly

Panel

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Aaron Frost
Joe Eames

Joined by Special Guest: Gareth McCumskey

Summary

Gareth McCumskey introduces JAMstack and serverless. He goes into great detail on how it works. Aimee Knight and Aaron Frost voice their concerns about going serverless. Aimee thinks it feels dirty. Aaron has concerns about the code, is it actually easier, what use cases would he use it for, and does it actually save money. Gareth addresses these concerns and the rest of the panel considers the positive and negatives of using JAMstack and serverless. Charles Max Wood asks for specific use cases; Gareth supplies many uses cases and the benefits that each of these cases.

Links

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

Join the mailing list
Watch out for new podcasts
Send me defunct podcasts you love chuck@devchat.tv

Aimee Knight:

AJ O’Neal:

Aaron Frost:

The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea

Gareth McCumskey:

Joe Eames:

Special Guest: Gareth McCumskey.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 362: Accessibility with Chris DeMars

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Sentry use code “devchat” for 2 months free
Triplebyte $1000 signing bonus

Panel

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames

Joined by Special Guest: Chris DeMars

Episode Summary

Special guest Chris DeMars is from Detroit, MI. Currently, he works for Tuft and Needle and is an international speaker, Google developer expert, Microsoft mvp, and web accessibility specialist. He comes from a varied work background, including truck driving and other non-tech jobs.

Today the panel discusses web accessibility for people with disabilities. According to a study done by WebAIM, 97.8% of homepages tested had detectable WCAG 2 failures. The panel discusses why web accessibility is doing so poorly. Chris talks about some of the biggest mistakes he sees and some very simple fixes to make sites more accessible. Chris talks about the importance of manual testing on screen readers and emphasizes that it is important to cover the screen to make sure that it really works with a screen reader. Chris talks about some of the resources available for those who wish to increase accessibility on their sites.

The team discusses tactics for prioritizing accessibility and if there is a moral obligation to make sites accessible to those with disabilities. Chris talks about his experience making accessibility a priority for one of the companies he worked for in the past. They discuss the futue of legal ramifications for sites that do not incorporate accessibility, and what responsibility falls on the shoulders of people who regularly use assistive devices to notify companies of issues. They finish the show with resources available to people who want to learn more.

Links

Follow DevChat on Facebook and Twitter

Picks

Charles Max Wood:

LootCrate

Aimee Knight:

Implementing Git in Python tutorial

Chris Ferdinandi:

"Fighting Uphill" by Eric Bailey
“The Web We Broke” by Ethan Marcotte
AllBirds sneakers
Newsletter

AJ O’Neal:

Golang Channel vs Mutex vs WaitGroup
Nobuo Uematsu
The Best Way to Tin Enameled Wire

Joe Eames:

Gizmos board game
Thinkster.io accessibility course (not released yet)

Chris DeMars:

Dixxon Flannel Company
Aquis.com accessibility simulator
Refactr accessibility workshop in June
Follow Chris

Special Guest: Chris DeMars.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 361: Enough with the JS Already with Nicholas Zakas

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

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Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
CacheFly

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Chris Ferdinandi

Joined by Special guest: Nicholas Zakas

Summary

Nicholas Zakas discusses the overuse of JavaScript and the underuse of HTML and CSS. The panel contemplates the talk Nicholas Zakas gave 6 years ago about this very same topic and how this is still a problem in the development community. Nicholas expounds on the negative effects overusing Javascript has on web applications and the things that using HTML and CSS do really well. The panel talks about the need for simplicity and using the right tool to build applications. Nicholas recommends the methods he uses to build greenfield applications and to improve existing applications.

Links

Picks

Chris Ferdinandi:

AJ O’Neal:

Jurassic Park
Terminator 2
E6000 adhesive

Aimee Knight:

Charles Max Wood:

Joe Eames:

https://www.mysteryscenemag.com/blog-article/5905-tom-straw-the-author-behind-castle
Richard Castle books
https://vanillajslist.com/

Nicholas Zakas:

Special Guest: Nicholas C. Zakas.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 360: Evolutionary Design with James Shore

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Triplebyte $1000 signing bonus
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
CacheFly

Panel

Aaron Frost
AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi

Joined by special guest: James Shore

Episode Summary

Special guest James Shore returns for another episode of JavaScript Jabber. Today the panel discusses the idea of evolutionary design. Evolutionary design comes from Agile development. It is based on the principles of continuous integration and delivery and test driven development. In short, evolutionary design is designing your code as you go rather than in advance.

The panelists discuss the difficulties of evolutionary design and how to keep the code manageable. James Shore introduces the three types of design that make up evolutionary design, namely simple design, incremental design, and continuous design. They talk about the differences between evolutionary design and intelligent design and the correlations between evolutionary design increasing in popularity and the usage of Cloud services. They talk about environments that are and are not conducive to evolutionary design and the financial ramifications of utilizing evolutionary design.

The panelists talk about the difficulties of planning what is needed in code and how it could benefit from evolutionary design. James enumerates the steps for implementing evolutionary design, which are upfront design, reflective design, and refactoring . The team ends by discussing the value of frameworks and how they fit with evolutionary design.

Links

Agile
Angular
API
CRC cards (class responsibility collaborators)
Ember
IntelliJ
NPM
React
Redux
Scrum
Waterfall
XJS

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse
Pre-gap tracks album list
QuickChip remover alloy

Aimee Knight:

Puns.dev
Bouldering

James Shore:

Spiderman: Into the Spider Verse
Pandemic Legacy

Aaron Frost:

Easter Candy, especially
- Nerd Jelly beans
- Cadbury Mini Eggs
Fun D&D moments

Joe Eames:

Chronicles of Crime board game

Special Guest: James Shore.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 359: Productivity with Mani Vaya

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Get Mani's 2x Productivity Course

Sponsors

Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Triplebyte
CacheFly

Panel

Aaron Frost
AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood

Joined by special guest: Mani Vaya

Episode Summary

Mani is the founder of a book summary business called www.2000books.com

At 2000 Books, Mani studies the world’s greatest business and personal development books.

Then he takes the most important ideas from each book and presents them in tight, 9- to 15-minute video summaries.

You get the 4-7 most important ideas in a condensed format that's easy to absorb, easy to review, and easy to put into action immediately.

To help people with productivity, Mani created an awesome course called “10x Productivity"

His “10x Productivity" video course contains summaries of the 50 greatest books ever written on time management, productivity, goal setting, systems, execution, strategy and leverage.

"10x Productivity" pack includes summaries of all the NY Times Best Sellers on Productivity & Time Management, such as:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Deep Work by Cal Newport
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The One Thing by Gary Keller
Essentialism by Greg McKeown

All together, this collection includes more than 250 strategies, tips, tools & techniques for:

- Becoming more productive

- Getting results rather than being busy, stressed out & frustrated

- Time Management

- Defeating procrastination

- Achieving big goals

- Hacking your brain for high performance

- Identifying the highest leverage points that lead to much faster results

- Creating powerful habits

- Installing execution systems that make goal achievement inevitable

10x Productivity Package contains:

Summaries of the 50 greatest books ever written on Productivity & Time Management
250+ greatest ideas, tips and strategies on Time Management & Productivity
10+ Hours of no-fluff solid Video Content
PDF Summaries of all 50 books

Since Mani is my friend and fellow mastermind member, I worked with him to get you guys an amazing discount (using discount code “DEVCHAT”) on the 10x Productivity Book Summary Pack which you can find here

Make sure to use the Coupon code “DEVCHAT” to get the discount.

Links

Mani’s 2x Productivity Course use the code “devchat” for a discount

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village
colophony/pine sap/rosin/flux for electronics work

Aimee Knight:

Interested In Becoming A Site Reliability Engineer? blog post

Charles Max Wood:

Entreprogrammers episode 248
Kanbonflow
Physical Pomodoro timer

Mani Vaya:

Special Guest: Mani Vaya.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 358: Pickle.js, Tooling, and Developer Happiness with Anatoliy Zaslavskiy

Tue, 02 Apr 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
CacheFly

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

Joined by Special Guest: Anatoliy Zaslavskiy

Summary

Anatoliy Zaslavskiy introduces pickle.js and answers the panels questions about using it. The panel discusses the automated testing culture and employee retention. The panel discusses job satisfaction and why there is so much turn over in development jobs. Charles Max Wood reveals some of the reasons that he left past development jobs and the panel considers how the impact of work environments and projects effect developers. Ways to choose the right job for you and how to better a work situation is discussed. Anatoliy finishes by advocating for junior developers and explaining the value they bring to a company.

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal

Charles Max Wood

Anatoliy Zaslavskiy

Acro yoga
http://www.cuddleparty.com/

Special Guest: Anatoliy Zaslavskiy.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 357: Event-Stream & Package Vulnerabilities with Richard Feldman and Hillel Wayne

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Triplebyte
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Clubhouse
CacheFly

Panel

Aaron Frost
AJ O’Neal
Chris Ferdinandi
Joe Eames
Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood

Joined by special guests: Hillel Wayne and Richard Feldman

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, Hillel Wayne kicks off the podcast by giving a short background about his work, explains the concepts of formal methods and the popular npm package - event-stream, in brief. The panelists then dive into the recent event-stream attack and discuss it at length, focusing on different package managers and their vulnerabilities, as well as the security issues associated with them. They debate on whether paying open source developers for their work, thereby leading to an increase in contribution, would eventually help in improving security or not. They finally talk about what can be done to fix certain dependencies and susceptibilities to prevent further attacks and if there are any solutions that can make things both convenient and secure for users.

Links

Picks

Joe Eames:

Stuffed Fables

Aimee Knight:

Aaron Frost:

JSConf US

Chris Ferdinandi:

Charles Max Wood:

Richard Feldman:

Hillel Wayne:

Special Guests: Hillel Wayne and Richard Feldman.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 356: Build Websites Like It's 2005 with Keith Cirkel

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Triplebyte
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Clubhouse
CacheFly

Panel

Chris Ferdinandi
Aimee Knight
Aaron Frost
AJ O’Neal

Joined by special guest: Keith Cirkel

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, Keith Cirkel, Senior Application Engineer at GitHub, briefly explains the projects he is working with and moves on to the recent changes done by GitHub to their website, including the decision to remove jQuery, and not choosing a popular framework such as React or Vue. He talks about some problems in using Internet Explorer 11, how these GitHub changes can help with certain browser compatibility issues, and a few challenges the team had to face during the redesigning process.

The panelists then discuss event delegation, performance considerations, Polyfill.io and web components. Keith gives some insight into accessibility and they talk about related user concerns.

Links

Picks

Aaron Frost:

Aimee Knight:

Smooth Sailing with Kubernetes

Joe Eames:

AJ O’Neal:

Isopropyl alcohol
Bang good electronics
Soldering Iron – Hakko, X-Tronic

Keith Cirkel:

Chris Ferdinandi:

Special Guest: Keith Cirkel.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 355: Progressive Web Apps with Aaron Gustafson LIVE at Microsoft Ignite

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Triplebyte
Clubhouse
CacheFly

Panel

Charles Max Wood

Joined by special guest: Aaron Gustafson

Episode Summary

This episode of JavaScript Jabber comes to you live from Microsoft Ignite. Charles Max Wood talks to Aaron Gustafson who has been a Web Developer for more than 20 years and is also the Editor in Chief at “A List Apart”. Aaron gives a brief background on his work in the web community, explains to listeners how web standardization has evolved over time, where Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) come from, where and how can they be installed, differences between them and regular websites and their advantages. They then delve into more technical details about service workers, factors affecting the boot up time of JavaScript apps, best practices and features that are available with PWAs.

Aaron mentions some resources people can use to learn about PWAs, talks about how every website can benefit from being a PWA, new features being introduced and the PWA vs Electron comparison. In the end, they also talk about life in general, that understanding what people have gone through and empathizing with them is important, as well as not making judgements based on people’s background, gender, race, health issues and so on.

Links

Picks

Aaron Gustafson:

Charles Max Wood:

Armada

Special Guest: Aaron Gustafson.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 354: Elm with Richard Feldman

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Kendo UI
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Clubhouse
CacheFly

Panel

Joe Eames
Aimee Knight

Joined by special guest: Richard Feldman

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, Richard Feldman, primarily known for his work in Elm, the author of “Elm in Action” and Head of Technology at NoRedInk, talks about Elm 0.19 and the new features introduced in it. He explains how the development work is distributed between the Elm creator – Evan Czaplicki and the other members of the community and discusses the challenges on the way to Elm 1.0.

Richard also shares some educational materials for listeners interested in learning Elm and gives details on Elm conferences around the world touching on the topic of having diversity among the speakers. He finally discusses some exciting things about Elm which would encourage developers to work with it.

Links

Picks

Aimee Knight:

Most lives are lived by default

Joe Eames:

Thinkster

Richard Feldman:

Special Guest: Richard Feldman.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 353: Signal R with Brady Gaster LIVE at Microsoft Ignite

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 02:00:00 +0000

Sponsors:

Netlify
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Clubhouse

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guest: Brady Gaster

In this episode, Chuck talks with Brady Gaster about SignalR that is offered through Microsoft. Brady Gaster is a computer software engineer at Microsoft and past employers include Logical Advantage, and Market America, Inc. Check out today’s episode where the two dive deep into SignalR topics.

Links:

Picks:

Brady

Team on General Session
Korg
SeaHawks
Brady’s kids
Logictech spot light
AirPods

Charles

Special Guest: Brady Gaster.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 352: Caffeinated Style Sheets: Supporting High Level CSS with JavaScript with Tommy Hodgins

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Sentry- use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Netlify
Clubhouse
CacheFly

Episode Summary

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, the panelists talk with Tommy Hodgins who specializes in responsive web design. He starts with explaining to listeners what it means by a responsive web layout and goes on to discuss the techniques in using JavaScript in CSS in depth.

He elaborates on dynamic styling of components, event-driven stylesheet templating, performance and timing characteristics of these techniques and describes different kinds of observers – interception, resize and mutation, and their support for various browsers. He also talks about how to go about enabling certain features by extending CSS, comparison to tools such as the CSS preprocessor and Media Queries, pros and cons of having this approach while citing relevant examples, exciting new features coming up in CSS, ways of testing the methods, caffeinated stylesheets, along with Qaffeine and Deqaf tools.

Links

JS in CSS – Event driven virtual stylesheet manager
Qaffiene
Deqaf
Tommy’s Twitter
Fizzbuzz

Picks

Joe

The Captain Is Dead

Aimee

Developer on Call
Tip – Try to follow a low-sugar diet

Chris

Charles

Coaching by Charles in exchange of writing Show Notes or Tags

Tommy

JS in CSS

Special Guest: Tommy Hodgins.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 351: Dinero.js with Sarah Dayan

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Netlify
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Clubhouse

Panel:

Joe Eames
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

Special Guest - Sarah Dayan

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, the panelists talk to Sarah Dayan, who is a Frontend Software Engineer working for Algolia in Paris. They about the complications in handling money in software development and ask Sarah about the journey that led to the creation of Dinero.js, it’s implementation details, importance of maintaining good documentation, dealing with issues faced along the way, various features of Dinero and working with open source projects in general. Check it out!

Show Topics:

0.40 - Advertisement : Netlify

1:44 - Sarah introduces herself and Chris talks about his interest in learning more about Dinero and compliments Sarah on its great documentation.

3.10 - Sarah gives some background saying that she created and published Dinero around a year ago. She goes on to explain that the Dinero library helps in handling monetary values. It comes with several methods to parse, manipulate and format these values. The reason behind creating it is that there is no consensus on representing money in software development currently. She shares the story from her previous job where her work was to maintain legacy accounting software, and along the way they realized, that since JavaScript did not have a way to natively represent decimal values, it led to adding large numbers of rounded up numbers continuously, eventually leading to wrong computations.

6:50 - Aimee asks about ways to handle different currencies in Dinero. Sarah answers that she has followed Martin Fowler’s money pattern where two different currencies were not allowed to be worked on directly, conversion was mandatory, just like in real life.

7:50 - Charles talks about his old freelance work where he was overwhelmed while handling and representing money in software.

8:25 - Aimee enquires if Dinero can be used for both frontend and backend. Sarah replies that it can be used anywhere and explains that there is no such thing as just a number when it comes to money, there must be a currency associated with it.

9:30 - Charles asks how to figure out the direction to go to when dealing with money and to make sure that all use-cases are covered. Sarah answers that in cases such as floating-point math where the computations don’t end up being accurate as handling is not supported, numbers can be used if treated as subunits (for e.g. 100cents = 1$). However, even then, there are issues in dividing money. She then explains the procedure of “allocation” from the Fowler pattern and she says that Dinero helps in doing the same in such scenarios.

12:54 - They discuss how they did not realize how difficult it was dealing with monetary values in development. Sarah talks about the fact that there are numerous aspects involved in it, giving the example of rounding off and stating that there are even factors such as different laws in different countries that need to be considered.

16:00 - AJ asks details about crafting the library, maintaining the centralized code and covering of edge cases and using inheritance. Sarah explains the concept of domain driven development and the importance of being an expert in the respective domains. She talks about the library structure briefly, describing that is kept very simple with a module pattern and it has allowed her to manage visibility, make it immutable, include currency converters, formatters and so on.

19:34 - AJ asks about the internal complexity of the implementation. Sarah answers that code wise it is extremely simple and easy, anyone with a limited JavaScript experience can understand it.

20:50 - AJ asks if it’s open source to which Sarah answers in affirmative and says that she would like external help with implementing some features too.

22:10 - Chris asks about Sarah’s excellent documentation approach, how has she managed to do it in a very detailed manner and how important it is in an open source project. Sarah says that she believes that documentation is extremely important, and not having good docs is a big hindrance to developers and to anyone who is trying to learn in general. She talks about her love for writing which explains the presence of annotations and examples in the source code.

27:50 - Charles discusses how autogenerated documentation gives an explanation about the methods and functions in the code but there is no guidance as such, so it is important to have guides. Sarah agrees by saying that searching for exact solutions is much simpler with it, leading to saving time as well.

29:43 - Chris speaks about Vue also being quite good at having guides and links and thanks Sarah for her work on Dinero.

30:15 - Advertisement - Sentry - Use code “devchat” to get two months free on Sentry’s small plan.

31:23 - Chris asks what the process is, for creating and running Dinero in different places. Sarah explains that she uses rollup.js which is a bundler suited for libraries, it takes in the ES module library and gives the output in any format. She states that the reason for using the ES module library is that she wanted to provide several builds for several environments with a clean and simple source and goes on to explain that these modules are native, have a terse syntax, easy to read and can be statically analyzed. She also gives the disadvantages in choosing webpack over rollup.

36:05 - Charles asks if anyone else is using Dinero. Sarah replies that around two or three people are using it, not much, but she is happy that it is out there to help people and she enjoyed working on it.

37:50 - Joe asks if there are any interesting stories about issues such as involving weird currency. Sarah answers in affirmative and gives the example of the method “hasCents”. She explains that she had to deprecate it because the unit “cents” does not have any value in non-Western currencies, and has created “hasSubUnits” method instead. She explains some problems like dealing with currencies that don’t support the ISO 4217 standard.

42:30 - Joe asks if social and political upheavals that affect the currencies have any effect on the library too. Sarah gives the example of Chinese and Japanese currencies where there are no sub-units and states that it is important to be flexible in developing stuff in an ever-changing domain like money. She also says that she does not include any third-party dependency in the library.

46:00 - AJ says that BigInts have arrived in JavaScript but there is no way to convert between typed arrays, hexadecimal or other storage formats. But later (1:10:55), he corrects that statement saying that BigInts in fact, does have support for hexadecimals. Sarah talks about wanting to keep the code simple and keep developer experience great.

49:08 - Charles asks about the features in Dinero. Sarah elaborates on wanting to work more on detecting currencies, improve the way it is built, provide better support for type libraries and get much better at documentation.

52:32 - Charles says that it is good that Sarah is thinking about adopting Dinero to fit people’s needs and requirements and asks about different forms of outreach. Sarah says that she blogs a lot, is active on Twitter and attends conferences as well. Her goal is not popularity per se but to help people and keep on improving the product.

55:47 - Chris talks about the flip side that as the product grows and becomes popular, the number of support requests increases too. Sarah agrees that open source projects tend to eat up a lot of time and that doing such projects comes with a lot of responsibility but can also help in getting jobs.

59:47 - Sarah says that she is available online on her blog - frontstuff, on Twitter as Sarah Dayan and on GitHub as sarahdayan.

1:00:06 - Advertisement - Clubhouse

1:01:01 - Picks!

1:11:42 - END - Advertisement - CacheFly!

Picks:

Sarah

DocSearch - Algolia

AJ O’Neal

Chris

Joe

Aimee

Hacker News thread on working with Legacy Codebases

Charles

Special Guest: Sarah Dayan.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 350: JavaScript Jabber Celebrates Episode 350!

Tue, 05 Feb 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

Netlify
Sentry use the code "devchat" for $100 credit
Clubhouse

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Aaron Frost
Chris Ferdinandi
Joe Eames
Tim Caswell

Notes:

This episode of JavaScript Jabber has the panelists reminiscing on the past. First, they discuss the projects they’re working on. Tim has joined MagicLeap doing JavaScript and C++. Aaron Frost is one of the founders of HeroDevs. AJ works at Big Squid, a company that takes spreadsheets and turns them into business actions, and is expecting a daughter. Aimee has been exploring developer advocacy, but wants to focus primarily on engineering. She is currently working at MPM. Joe has taken over the CEO position for thinkster.io, a company for learning web development online. Chris switched from being a general web developer specializing in JavaScript and has started blogging daily rather than once a week, and has seen an increase in sales of his vanilla JavaScript educational products. Charles discusses his long term goal for Devchat.tv. He wants to help people feel free in programming, and help people find opportunities though the Devchat.tv through empowering content.

Next, the panelists discuss their favorite episodes. Some of the most highly recommended episodes are

JSJ 124: The Origin of Javascript with Brendan Eich (1:44:07)

JSJ 161: Rust with David Herman (1:05:05)

JSJ 336: “The Origin of ESLint with Nicholas Zakas” (1:08:01)

JSJ 338: It’s Supposed To Hurt, Get Outside of Your Comfort Zone to Master Your Craft with Christopher Buecheler (43:36)

JSJ 218: Ember.js with Yehuda Katz (42:47)

Last, the panelists discuss what they do to unwind. Activities include working out, reading, playing Zelda and Mario Kart, studying other sciences like physics, painting miniatures, and Dungeons and Dragons.

Picks:

Charles Max Wood

Villainous Board Game

Joe Eames

Azul Stained Glass Board Game

AJ O’Neal

Aimee Knight

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/well/mind/work-schedule-hours-sleep-productivity-chronotype-night-owls.html

Aaron Frost

Chris Ferdinandi

https://learnvanillajs.com/

Tim Caswell

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 349: Agile Development - The Technical Side with James Shore

Wed, 30 Jan 2019 01:15:00 +0000

Sponsors

KendoUI
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Clubhouse

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Joe Eames
Charles Max Wood

Special Guest: James Shore

Episode Summary

James Shore is a developer who specializing in extreme programming, an Agile method. He also used to host a screencast called Let’s Code Test-Driven JavaScript. They begin by discussing the core of Agile development, which James believes is being responsive to customers and business partners in a way that’s sustainable and humane for the programmers involved. It prioritizes individuals and interactions over processes and tools. More can be found in The Agile Manifesto.

James delves into the historical context of the immersion of Agile and how things have changed from the 90’s. Now, the name Agile is everywhere, but the ideals of agile are not as common. There is a tendency to either take Agile buzzwords and apply them to the way it was done long ago, or it’s absolute chaos. James talks about ways to implement Agile in the workplace. He believes that the best way to learn Agile is work with someone who knows Agile, or read a book on it and then apply it. James recommends his book The Art of Agile Development: Pragmatic Guide to Agile Software Development for people who want to started with Agile development. The panelists talk about where people often get stuck with implementing Agile. The hosts talk about their own processes in their company.

They discuss how people involved in the early days of Agile are disappointed in how commercial it has become.They agree that what’s really the most important is the results. If you can respond to a request to change direction in less than two weeks and you don’t have to spend months and months preparing something, and you do that in a way where the people on the team feel like their contributing, then you’re doing Agile. James thinks that the true genius of Agile is in the way the actual work is done rather than in the way your organize the work.

Links

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Origin by Dan Brown
Searching

Aimee Knight:

Hacker News Interview Questions Thread.

Joe Eames:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs on Netflix

Charles Max Wood:

Getting up early
John Sonmez Kanbanflow video
Drip

James Shore:

Lost in Space on Netflix
Star Citizen PC game
Jame’s Agile book online

Special Guest: James Shore.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 348: EnactJS with Ryan Duffy

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

KendoUI
Sentry use the code "devchat" for $100 credit
Clubhouse
CacheFly

Panel

Aimee Knight

Aaron Frost

Chris Ferdinandi

Joe Eames

Special Guest: Ryan Duffy

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, the panelists talk with Ryan Duffy who works on the EnactJS framework at LG Electronics. Ryan explains the framework in depth and answers all the questions about its design and implementation from the panelists and discusses some challenges faced along the way. Check it out!

Show Notes:

00:28 – Advertisement - KendoUI

1:08 - Ryan introduces himself and explains a bit about the EnactJS framework. While giving some background, he says that it is the 3rd generation of web frameworks that supports apps on webOS and they started building Enact on top of React about two years ago.

2:00 - Aimee asks what exactly does webOS mean. Ryan answers that webOS was created by Palm for phones and related devices and it has several instances of chromium running on device with some service layer stuff.

2:36 - Aaron mentions that webOS was big when other operating systems were still coming up, and Ryan agrees saying that it didn’t get the adoption needed to make it successful later.

3:00 - Ryan says that he always loved building apps for webOS phones given the flexibility and ease coming from a web development background.

3:53 - Aaron asks on which other applications is webOS running other than TV. Ryan answers that TV is one of the major consumptions, and it also runs on certain robots such as the concierge ones, watches to some extent and a lot of projects internally, not yet released in the market.

4:50 - Aaron asks if the Enact framework is big internally at LG. Ryan replies that it is the primary framework used for apps running on webOS.

5:03 - Aaron enquires about the nature of adoption of Enact for third party or non-LG people, to which Ryan states that Enact remains the standard framework for people who are building apps.

5:32 - Joe joins in the conversation.

6:25 - Aaron remarks that given that webOS is used in latest robots, televisions, watches and other such apps, it sounds like they are heavily investing into it. Ryan affirms by saying that the webOS journey goes from Palm phones to HP tablets to finally coming to LG. He goes on to explain their team structure, stating that there are two major teams in play right now - the R&D team is in the US and the implementation team is in Korea.

8:00 - Aaron asks about the role their team plays in the app development. Ryan replies that his team is the stack team that forms the foundation for the apps and they take decisions on what the components should look like and similar tasks. The app teams based in Korea decide their menu based on those decisions.

8:35 - Aaron asks what exactly is meant by the Blink team. Ryan answers that the it’s the team that works with an LG customized version of chromium.

9:10 – Aaron then asks about his individual role in the team. Ryan says that he is one of the managers of the stack team and he’s been on the team for little more than 4 years.

9:30 - Aaron asks about the evolution of the framework over time. Ryan describes the historical background by saying that in the initial Enyo design the team built, was component based, and every tool needed to build single page apps had to be developed from scratch. He says that they felt the need to move on to an improved framework as they wanted to take advantage of the robust ecosystem that existed, so they ported component libraries of Enyo using the React toolset to form Enact.

11:43 - Aaron asks if Enyo then ceased to exist to which Ryan states that it is still around to some extent.

12:20 - Aaron asks if the team has something like “create Enact app” to create a new app internally, like React. Ryan mentions that Jason - a tooling and automation expert from their team has built a feature called V8 snapshot - which loads JavaScript into memory and takes a snapshot - can in turn be loaded by the TV to launch the app in order to achieve a faster load time. He says that their long-term goal is to increase compatibility with the ecosystem.

14:40 - Aaron asks if he can use the React CLI to create something for TV as a third-party developer. Ryan elaborates that CLI can be used to build, compile and bundle apps and there is another tool- SDK to bundle it for delivery to the TV. The app is tested fully in chrome, bundled and deployed to the TV.

15:25 - Aaron asks if choosing React was a natural decision for the team. Ryan explains that they researched on some component-based frameworks that were available at that time and found that React was the best choice.

17:30 - Aimee asks the reason for open sourcing the framework. Ryan mentions that Enyo always has been open source. He also remarks that the team does not get a lot of input from the community and would like to get more information about what’s working and what’s not and how they can contribute back.

19:40 - Aaron asks about the kind of apps can be built by using Enact except for TV. Ryan says that any kind can be built but the hesitation is that the UI library is specially designed for TV, so they may look different for other spaces like phones or other devices.

20:35 – Advertisement – Sentry – Use the code “devchat” to get two months free on Sentry’s small plan.

21:30 - Aaron asks what decisions around making apps are made by Enact for the developers. Ryan explains that the architectural pattern they have chosen is higher order components, and there is a lot of attention on render props that can be easily plugged into the apps.

22:48 - Aaron asks if the state part was built by the team on their own. Ryan answers in affirmative that everything in Enact is completely built by the team, no external states are used within the framework. No decisions are made in the data space yet. He mentions that they had tried to limit their Enact development effort in cases where the solution was already available unless they had a new perspective on the problem.

24:30 - Aaron remarks the idea of Enact being something like a webpack is becoming clearer for him and asks Ryan if his team is spending most of their time in building component libraries. Ryan affirms by explaining that Enact is designed in layers. He goes on to explain that focus management is a difficult problem to solve where the ability to navigate an application intuitively such as in the case of remote control is handled by a certain component. Also, as LG ships TVs all over the world, there are significant internationalization requirements. He then elucidates the TV centric moonstone library in detail and states that they took all the base capabilities from it and formed a UI layer.

27:26 - Aaron asks if moonstone is theme-able. Ryan says that it’s not and the UI layer in not styled.

28:40 - Chris asks, as someone who manages open source projects and builds tools, about the process of making decisions on the kind of components to include and challenges Ryan and his team faced in the open source space.

29:45 – Ryan says that they haven’t had the ideal open source experience yet. They do have a lot of discussions on API design and components but it’s a struggle to what to include and what to not.

31:25 - Chris shares his own experience while stating that finding a common ground is always hard especially when there is internal resistance in convincing people to use new software. Ryan says that internally their biggest struggle is that a group of people use the Qt platform and there is chunk of webOS that is built on it and not on Enact. Trying to convince people to do the migration from Enyo to Enact was difficult but they have had most success in trying to eliminate friction and it was easier in the sense that there weren’t any required parameters for things.

36:05 – Aaron states that all his questions are answered and his understanding of Enact is clear.

36:21 – Advertisement - Clubhouse

37:10 – Picks!

43:41- END – Advertisement - CacheFly!

Picks

Joe

Monsters of Feyland

Chris

Presentation by Eric Bailey on Accessibility - If its interactive, it needs a focus style
Jimu Robots
Wall-E

Aimee

Coworkers at NPM

Aaron

Ryan

Special Guest: Ryan Duffy.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 347: JAMstack with Divya Sasidharan & Phil Hawksworth

Tue, 15 Jan 2019 10:00:00 +0000

Sponsors

KendoUI
Sentry use the code “devchat” for $100 credit
Clubhouse

Panel

AJ O’Neal
Chris Ferdinandi
Charles Max Wood

Joined by special guest: Phil Hawksworth and Divya Sasidharan

Episode Summary

This episode features special guests Philip Hawksworth and Divya Sasidharan. Phil lives just outside of London and Divya lives in Chicago, and both of them work for Netlify. Divya is also a regular on the Devchat show Views on Vue. The panelists begin by discussing what JAMstack is. JAM stands for JavaScript, API, and Markup. It used to be known as the new name for static sites, but it’s much more than that. Phil talks about how dynamic ‘static’ sites really are. JAMstack sites range from very simple to very complex, Static is actually a misnomer. JAMstack makes making, deploying, and publishing as simple as possible.

The panelists discuss the differences between building your own API and JAMstack and how JavaScript fits into the JAMstack ecosystem. They talk about keys and secrets in APIs and the best way to handle credentials in a static site. There are multiple ways to handle it, but Netlify has some built in solutions. All you have to do is write your logic for what you want your function to do and what packages you want included in it, they do all the rest. Every deployment you make stays there, so you can always roll back to a previous version.

Charles asks about how to convert a website that’s built on a CMS to a static site and some of the tools available on Netlify. They finish by discussing different hangups on migrating platforms for things like Devchat (which is built on WordPress) and the benefits of switching servers.

Links

API
React
JAMstack
CMS (content management system)
CDM (Customer Data Management)
Markup
UI (User Interface)
Jekyll
Progressive Enhancement
11ty
Hugo
React Static
Gatsby
Vue
AWS
AWS Lambda
Azure
Markdown
WordPress
Zapier
Stefan Baumgartner article
RSS feed

Picks

AJ O’Neal:

Prince Ali Ababwa (Aladdin)
Node v.10.12

Chris Ferdinandi:

Charles Max Wood:

Mastadon Social
Thanksgiving turkey

Phil Hawksworth:

Dripping (solidified meat drippings spread on toast)
They Shall Not Grow Old

Divya Sasidharan:

Special Guests: Divya Sasidharan and Phil Hawksworth.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 346: Azure Pipelines with Ed Thomson LIVE at Microsoft Ignite

Tue, 08 Jan 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Sponsors:

KendoUI
Sentry use the code "devchat" for $100 credit
Clubhouse

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Ed Thomson

In this episode, the Charles speaks with Ed Thomson who is a Program Manager at Azure through Microsoft, Developer, and Open Source Maintainer. Ed and Chuck discuss in full detail about Azure DevOps! Check out today’s episode to hear its new features and other exciting news!

Show Topics:

0:59 – Live at Microsoft Ignite

1:03 – Ed: Hi! I am a Program Manager at Azure.

1:28 – Rewind 2 episodes to hear more about Azure DevOps!

1:51 – Ed: One of the moves from Pipelines to DevOps – they could still adopt Pipelines. Now that they are separate services – it’s great.

2:38 – Chuck talks about features he does and doesn’t use.

2:54 – Ed.

3:00 – Chuck: Repos and Pipelines. I am going to dive right in. Let’s talk about Repos. Microsoft just acquired GitHub.

3:18 – Ed: Technically we have not officially acquired GitHub.

3:34 – Chuck: It’s not done. It’s the end of September now.

3:55 – Ed: They will remain the same thing for a while. GitHub is the home for open source. Repos – we use it in Microsoft. Repositories are huge. There are 4,000 engineers working in these repositories. Everyone works in his or her own little area, and you have to work together. You have to do all this engineering to get there. We bit a tool and it basically if you run clone...

Ed continues to talk about this topic. He is talking about One Drive and these repositories.

6:28 – Ed: We aren’t going to be mixing and matching. I used to work through GitHub. It’s exciting to see those people work close to me.

6:54 – Chuck.

6:59 – Ed: It has come a long way.

7:07 – Chuck: Beyond the FSF are we talking about other features or?

7:21 – Ed: We have unique features. We have branch policies. You can require that people do pole request. You have to use pole request and your CI has to pass and things like that. I think there is a lot of richness in our auditing. We have enterprise focus. At its core it still is Git. We can all interoperate.

8:17 – Chuck.

8:37 – Ed: You just can’t set it up with Apache. You have to figure it out.

8:51 – Chuck: The method of pushing and pulling.

9:06 – Chuck: You can try DevOps for free up to 5 users and unlimited private repos. People are interested in this because GitHub makes you pay for that.

9:38 – Ed and Chuck continue to talk.

9:50 – Ed: Pipelines is the most interesting thing we are working on. We have revamped the entire experience. Build and release. It’s easy to get started. We have a visual designer. Super helpful – super straightforward. Releases once your code is built – get it out to production say for example Azure. It’s the important thing to get your code out there.

10:55 – Chuck: How can someone start with this?

11:00 – Ed: Depends on where your repository is. It will look at your code. “Oh, I know what that is, I know how to build that!” Maybe everyone isn’t doing everything with JavaScript. If you are using DotNet then it will know.

12:05 – Chuck: What if I am using both a backend and a frontend?

12:11 – Ed: One repository? That’s when you will have to do a little hand packing on the...

There are different opportunities there. If you have a bash script that does it for you. If not, then you can orchestrate it. Reduce the time it takes. If it’s an open source project; there’s 2 – what are you going to do with the other 8? You’d be surprised – people try to sneak that in there.

13:30 – Chuck: It seems like continuous integration isn’t a whole lot complicated.

13:39 – Ed: I am a simple guy that’s how I do it. You can do advanced stuff, though. The Cake Build system – they are doing some crazy things. We have got Windows, Lennox, and others. Are you building for Raspberries Pies, then okay, do this...

It’s not just running a script.

15:00 – Chuck: People do get pretty complicated if they want. It can get complicated. Who knows?

15:26 – Chuck: How much work do you have to do to set-up a Pipeline like that?

15:37 – Ed answers the question in detail.

16:03 – Chuck asks a question.

16:12 – Ed: Now this is where it gets contentious. If one fails...

Our default task out of the box...

16:56 – Chuck: If you want 2 steps you can (like me who is crazy).

17:05 – Ed: Yes, I want to see if it failed.

17:17 – Chuck: Dude, writing code is hard. Once you have it built and tested – continuous deployment.

17:33 – Ed: It’s very easy. It’s super straightforward, it doesn’t have to be Azure (although I hope it is!).

Ed continues this conversation.

18:43 – Chuck: And it just pulls it?

18:49 – Ed: Don’t poke holes into your firewall. We do give you a lot of flexibility

19:04 – Chuck: VPN credentials?

19:10 – Ed: Just run the...

19:25 – Chuck comments.

19:36 – Ed: ...Take that Zip...

20:02 – Ed: Once the planets are finely aligned then...it will just pull from it.

20:25 – Chuck: I host my stuff on Digital Ocean.

20:46 – Ed: It’s been awhile since I played with...

20:55 – Chuck.

20:59 – Ed and Chuck go back and forth with different situations and hypothetical situations.

21:10 – Ed: What is Phoenix?

21:20 – Chuck explains it.

21:25 – Ed: Here is what we probably don’t have is a lot of ERLANG support.

22:41 – Advertisement.

23:31 – Chuck: Let’s just say it’s a possibility. We took the strip down node and...

23:49 – Ed: I think it’s going to happen.

23:55 – Ed: Exactly.

24:02 – Chuck: Testing against Azure services. So, it’s one thing to run on my machine but it’s another thing when other things connect nicely with an Azure set-up. Does it connect natively once it’s in the Azure cloud?

24:35 – Ed: It should, but there are so many services, so I don’t want to say that everything is identical. We will say yes with an asterisk.

25:07 – Chuck: With continuous deployment...

25:41 – Ed: As an example: I have a CD Pipeline for my website. Every time I merge into master...

Ed continues this hypothetical situation with full details. Check it out!

27:03 – Chuck: You probably can do just about anything – deploy by Tweet!

27:15 – Ed: You can stop the deployment if people on Twitter start complaining.

27:40 – Chuck: That is awesome! IF it is something you care about – and if it’s worth the time – then why not? If you don’t have to think about it then great. I have mentioned this before: Am I solving interesting problems? What projects do I want to work on? What kinds of contributions do I really want to contribute to open source?

That’s the thing – if you have all these tools that are set-up then your process, how do you work on what, and remove the pain points then you can just write code so people can use! That’s the power of this – because it catches the bug before I have to catch it – then that saves me time.

30:08 – Ed: That’s the dream of computers is that the computers are supposed to make OUR lives easier. IF we can do that and catch those bugs before you catch it then you are saving time. Finding bugs as quickly as possible it avoids downtime and messy deployments.

31:03 – Chuck: Then you can use time for coding style and other things.

I can take mental shortcuts.

31:37 – Ed: The other thing you can do is avoiding security problems. If a static code analysis tool catches an integer overflow then...

32:30 – Chuck adds his comments.

Chuck: You can set your policy to block it or ignore it. Then you are running these tools to run security. There are third-party tools that do security analysis on your code. Do you integrate with those?

33:00 – Ed: Yep. My favorite is WhiteSource. It knows all of the open source and third-party tools. It can scan your code and...

34:05 – Chuck: It works with a lot of languages.

34:14 – Ed.

34:25 – Chuck: A lot of JavaScript developers are getting into mobile development, like Ionic, and others. You have all these systems out there for different stages for writing for mobile. Android, windows Phone, Blackberry...

35:04 – Ed: Let’s throw out Blackberry builds. We will ignore it.

Mac OS dies a fine job. That’s why we have all of those.

35:29 – Chuck: But I want to run my tests, too!

35:36 – Ed: I really like to use App Center. It is ultimately incredible to see all the tests you can run.

36:29 – Chuck: The deployment is different, though, right?

36:40 – Ed: I have a friend who clicks a button in...

Azure DevOps.

37:00 – Chuck: I like to remind people that this isn’t a new product.

37:15 – Ed: Yes, Azure DevOps.

37:24 – Chuck: Any new features that are coming out?

37:27 – Ed: We took a little break, but...

37:47 – Ed: We will pick back up once Ignite is over. We have a timeline on our website when we expect to launch some new features, and some are secret, so keep checking out the website.

39:07 – Chuck: What is the interplay between Azure DevOps and Visual Studio Code? Because they have plugins for freaking everything. I am sure there is something there that...

39:30 – Ed: I am a VI guy and I’m like 90% sure there is something there.

You are an eMac’s guy?

The way I think about it is through Git right out of the box.

Yes, I think there are better things out there for integration. I know we have a lot of great things in Visual Code, because I worked with it.

40:45 – Chuck: Yes, people can look for extensions and see what the capabilities are.

Chuck talks about code editor and tools.

41:28 – Ed: ... we have been pulling that out as quickly as possible.

We do have IE extensions, I am sure there is something for VS Code – but it’s not where I want to spend my time.

42:02 – Chuck: Yes, sure.

42:07 – Ed: But everyone is different – they won’t work the way that I work. So there’s that.

42:30 – Ed: That Chuck.

42:36 – Chuck: Where do people get news?

42:42 – Ed: Go to here!

42:54 – Chuck: Where do people find you?

43:00 – Ed: Twitter!

43:07 – Chuck: Let’s do Picks!

43:20 – Advertisement – Fresh Books!

Links:

Picks:

Podcast - All Things Git

Special Guest: Edward Thomson.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 345: Azure Devops with Donovan Brown LIVE at Microsoft Ignite

Tue, 25 Dec 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Woods

Special Guests: Donovan Brown

In this episode, the Charles speaks with Donovan Brown. He is a principal DevOps Manager with Microsoft with a background in application development. He also runs one of the nation’s fastest growing online registration sites for motorsports events DLBRACING.com. When he is not writing software, he races cars for fun. Listen to today’s episode where Chuck and Donovan talk about DevOps, Azure, Python, Angular, React, Vue, and much, much more!

Show Topics:

1:41 – Chuck: The philosophies around DevOps. Just to give you an idea, I have been thinking about what I want to do with the podcasts. Freedom to work on what we want or freedom to work where we want, etc. Then that goes into things we don’t want to do, like fix bugs, etc. How does Microsoft DevOps to choose what they want to do?

2:37 – Guest: We want to automate as much as we can so the developer has less work. As a developer I want to commit code, do another task, rinse and repeating.

Minutes and not even hours later then people are tweeting about the next best thing. Do what you want, where you want. Code any language you want.

4:15 – Chuck: What has changed?

4:19 – Guest: The branding changed. The name wasn’t the most favorite among the people. The word “visual” was a concerned. What we have noticed that Azure will let me run my code no matter where I am. If you want to run Python or others it can run in Azure.

People didn’t need all of it. It comes with depositories, project management, and so much more! People could feel clumsy because there is so much stuff. We can streamline that now, and you can turn off that feature so you don’t have a heart attack. Maybe you are using us for some features not all of them – cool.

7:40 – Chuck: With deployments and other things – we don’t talk about the process for development a lot.

8:00 – Guest talks about the things that can help out with that.

Guest: Our process is going to help guide you. We have that all built into the Azure tab feature. They feel and act differently. I tell all the people all the time that it’s brilliant stuff. There are 3 different templates. The templates actually change over the language. You don’t have to do mental math.

9:57 – Chuck: Just talking about the process. Which of these things we work on next when I’ve got a bug, or a ...

10:20 – Guest: The board system works like for example you have a bug. The steps to reproduce that bug, so that there is no question what go into this specific field. Let the anatomy of the feature do it itself!

11:54 – Chuck comments.

12:26 – Chuck: Back to the feature. Creating the user stories is a different process than X.

12:44 – Guest – You have a hierarchy then, right? Also what is really cool is we have case state management. I can click on this and I expect this to happen...

These are actual tasks that I can run.

13:52 – Chuck: Once you have those tests written can you pull those into your CI?

14:00 – Guest: “Manual tests x0.”

Guest dives into the question.

14:47 – I expect my team to write those test cases. The answer to your question is yes and no.

We got so good at it that we found something that didn’t even exist, yet.

16:19 – Guest: As a developer it might be mind

16:29 – Chuck: I fixed this bug 4x, I wished I had CI to help me.

16:46 – Guest: You get a bug, then you fix a code, etc., etc. You don’t know that this original bug just came back. Fix it again. Am I in Groundhog Day?

They are related to each other. You don’t have a unit test to tell you. When you get that very first bug – write a unit test. It will make you quicker at fixing it. A unit test you can write really fast over, and over, again. The test is passing. What do you do? Test it. Write the code to fix that unit test. You can see that how these relate to each other. That’s the beauty in it.

18:33 – Chuck: 90% of the unit tests I write – even 95% of the time they pass. It’s the 5% you would have no idea that it’s related. I can remember broad strokes of the code that I wrote, but 3 months down the road I can’t remember.

19:14 – Guest: If you are in a time crunch – I don’t have time for this unit test.

Guest gives us a hypothetical situation to show how unit tests really can help.

20:25 – Make it muscle memory to unit test. I am a faster developer with the unit tests.

20:45 – Chuck: In the beginning it took forever. Now it’s just how I write software now.

It guides my thought process.

21:06 – Guest: Yes! I agree.

22:00 – Guest: Don’t do the unit tests

22:10 – Chuck: Other place is when you write a new feature,...go through the process. Write unit tests for the things that you’ve touched. Expand your level of comfort.

DevOps – we are talking about processes. Sounds like your DevOps is a flexible tool. Some people are looking for A METHOD. Like a business coach. Does Azure DevOps do that?

23:13 – Guest: Azure DevOps Projects. YoTeam.

Note.js, Java and others are mentioned by the Guest.

25:00 – Code Badges’ Advertisement

25:48 – Chuck: I am curious – 2 test sweets for Angular or React or Vue. How does that work?

26:05 – Guest: So that is Jasmine or Mocha? So it really doesn’t matter. I’m a big fan of Mocha. It tests itself. I install local to my project alone – I can do it on any CI system in the world. YoTeam is not used in your pipeline. Install 2 parts – Yo and Generator – Team. Answer the questions and it’s awesome. I’ve done conferences in New Zealand.

28:37 – Chuck: Why would I go anywhere else?

28:44 – Guest: YoTeam was the idea of...

28:57 – Check out Guest

29:02 – Guest: I want Donovan in a box. If I weren’t there then the show wouldn’t exist today.

29:40 – Chuck: Asks a question.

29:46 – Guest: 5 different verticals.

Check out this timestamp to see what Donovan says the 5 different verticals are. Pipelines is 1 of the 5.

30:55 – Chuck: Yep – it works on my Mac.

31:04 – Guest: We also have Test Plant and Artifacts.

31:42 – Chuck: Can you resolve that on your developer machine?

31:46 – Guest: Yes, absolutely! There is my private repository and...

33:14 – Guest: *People not included in box.*

33:33 – Guest: It’s people driven. We guide you through the process. The value is the most important part and people is the hardest part, but once on

33:59 – Chuck: I am listening to this show and I want to try this out. I want a demo setup so I can show my boss. How do I show him that it works?

34:27 – Azure.com/devops – that is a great landing page.

How can I get a demo going? You can say here is my account – and they can put a demo into your account. I would not do a demo that this is cool. We start you for free. Create an account. Let the CI be the proof. It’s your job to do this, because it will make you more efficient. You need me to be using these tools.

36:11 – Chuck comments.

36:17 – Guest: Say you are on a team of developers and love GitHub and things that integration is stupid, but how many people would disagree about...

38:02 – The reports prove it for themselves.

38:20 – Chuck: You can get started for free – so when do you have to start paying for it?

38:31 – Guest: Get 4 of your buddies and then need more people it’s $6 a month.

39:33 – Chuck adds in comments. If this is free?

39:43 – Guest goes into the details about plans and such for this tool.

40:17 – Chuck: How easy it is to migrate away from it?

40:22 – Guest: It’s GITHub.

40:30 – Chuck: People are looing data on their CI.

40:40 – Guest: You can comb that information there over the past 4 years but I don’t know if any system would let you export that history.

41:08 – Chuck: Yeah, you are right.

41:16 – Guest adds more into this topic.

41:25 – Chuck: Yeah it’s all into the machine.

41:38 – Chuck: Good deal.

41:43 – Guest: It’s like a drug. I would never leave it. I was using TFS before Microsoft.

42:08 – Chuck: Other question: continuous deployment.

42:56 – When I say every platform, I mean every platform: mobile devices, AWS, Azure, etc.

Anything you can do from a command line you can do from our build and release system.

PowerShell you don’t have to abandon it.

45:20 – Guest: I can’t remember what that tool is called!

45:33 – Guest: Anything you can do from a command line. Before firewall. Anything you want.

45:52 – Guest: I love my job because I get to help developers.

46:03 – Chuck: What do you think the biggest mistake people are doing?

46:12 – Guest: They are trying to do it all at once. Fix that one little thing.

It’s instant value with no risks whatsoever. Go setup and it takes 15 minutes total. Now that we have this continuous build, now let’s go and deploy it. Don’t dream up what you think your pipeline should look like. Do one thing at a time. What hurts the most that it’s “buggy.” Let’s add that to the pipeline.

It’s in your pipeline today, what hurts the most, and don’t do it all at once.

49:14 – Chuck: I thought you’d say: I don’t have the time.

49:25 – Guest: Say you work on it 15 minutes a day. 3 days in – 45 minutes in you have a CSI system that works forever. Yes I agree because people think they don’t “have the time.”

50:18 – Guest continues this conversation.

How do you not have CI? Just install it – don’t ask. Just do the right thing.

50:40 – Chuck: I free-lanced and setup CI for my team. After a month, getting warned, we had a monitor up on the screen and it was either RED or GREEN. It was basically – hey this hurts and now we know. Either we are going to have pain or not have pain.

51:41 – Guest continues this conversation.

Have pain – we should only have pain once or twice a year.

Rollback.

If you only have it every 6 months, that’s not too bad.

The pain will motivate you.

52:40 – Azure.com/devops.

Azure DevOps’ Twitter

53:22 – Picks!

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JSJ 344: Inclusive Components with Heydon Pickering

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 02:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
Joe Eames

Special Guest: Heydon Pickering

In this episode, the panel talks with Heydon Pickering who is a designer and writer. The panel and the guest talk about his new book, which is centered on the topic of today’s show: inclusive components. Check out Heydon’s Twitter, Website, GitHub, and Mastodon social accounts to learn more about him. To purchase the book – go here!

Show Topics:

0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

0:38 – Chuck: Aimee, Chris, Joe, and myself – we are today’s panel. My show the DevRev is available online to check it out.

1:30 – Guest: Plain ice cream would be frozen milk and that would be terrible. So I am lemon and candy JavaScript!

2:13 – Chuck: We are talking today about...?

2:22 – Chris: He’s talking about “inclusive components” today!

2:41 – Guest: Traveling is very stressful and I wanted something to do on the plane. I’ve done this book, “Inclusive Design Patterns.”

If you don’t want to buy the book you can go to the blog. I have been talking with Smashing Magazine.

5:40 – Panel.

5:47 – Guest: I approached Smashing Magazine initially. They didn’t think there was a market for this content at the time. They were very supportive but we will do it as an eBook so our costs our down. At the time, the editor came back and said that: “it was quite good!” We skimmed it but came back to it now and now the content was more relevant in their eyes. I didn’t want to do the same book but I wanted to do it around “patterns.” Rewriting components is what I do all the time. I use Vanilla JavaScript. Backbone.js is the trendy one.

9:52 – Panel: The hard book did it get published?

10:02 – Guest: We are in the works and it’s all in the final stages right now. It has to go through a different process for the print version.

11:54 – Panel.

11:58 – (Guest continues about the editorial process.)

12:09 – Panel: They probably switched to TFS – it’s Microsoft’s.

12:23 – Guest: There was this argument on Twitter about the different processors.

13:35 – Chris: What are the ways that people are breaking accessibility with their code through JavaScript?

13:59 – Guest: The whole premise is that there aren’t a ton of different components that we use. Generally, speaking. Most things we do through JavaScript – it’s just different ways of doing this/that, and hiding things. I am discounting things with Node or other stuff. Most of what we are doing, with interactive design, is showing and hiding.

18:37 – Chris: I have some specialty friends where they tell me where I’ve screwed up my code. For example Eric Bailey and Scott O’Hara but, of course, in very kind ways. What are some things that I can make sure that my code is going to work for many different people.

19:18 – Guest: You have accessibility and inclusive design. People think of accessibility as a check-list and that’s okay but there could be problems with this.

26:00 – Panel: That’s a great guideline.

26:05 – Chris: You talked about ARIA roles and it can be confusing. One side is: I don’t know when to use these and the other side is: I don’t know when NOT to use these so I’m going to use them for EVERYTHING! I guess both can be detrimental. What’s your advice on this topic?

27:00 – Guest: Scott is great and I would trust him to the end of the Earth about what he says.

Guest mentions Léonie Watson and her talks about this topic.

29:26 – (Guest continues.)

29:36 – Advertisement – Sentry.io

30:31 – Chris.

30:40 – Guest: There is a lot of pressure, though, right? People wouldn’t blog about this if it wasn’t worthwhile. It doesn’t matter what the style is or what the syntax is.

The guest talks about not throwing ARIA onto everything.

36:34 – Aimee: Is this something that was mentioned in the book: people with disabilities and accessibility.

37:28 – Guest: Yes, of course. I think it’s important to make your interfaces flexible and robust to think and include people with disabilities.

39:00 – Guest mentions larger buttons.

40:52 – Panelists and Guest talk back-and-forth.

42:22 – Chris: It’s an accessibility and inclusivity element. I saw a dropdown menu and worked great on certain devices but not others. I could beat this horse all day long but the whole: what happens of the JavaScript file doesn’t load or just accordion options?

43:50 – Guest: It’s the progressive enhancement element.

44:05 – Guest: I think it’s worth noting. I think these things dovetail really nicely.

46:29 – Chris: Did you do a video interview, Aimee, talking about CSS? Is CSS better than JavaScript in some ways I don’t know if this is related or not?

47:03 – Aimee: When I talk about JavaScript vs. CSS...the browser optimizes those.

47:27 – Aimee: But as someone who loves JavaScript...and then some very talented people taught me that you have to find the right tool for the job.

47:29 – Guest: I am the other way around – interesting.

52:50 – Chuck: Picks!

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Aimee refers to his blog.

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JSJ 343: The Power of Progressive Enhancement with Andy Bell

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Chris Ferdinandi
AJ O’Neal

Special Guest: Andy Bell

In this episode, the panel talks with Andy Bell who is an independent designer and developer who uses React, Vue, and Node. Today, the panelists and the guest talk about the power of progressive enhancements. Check it out!

Show Topics:

0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

0:34 – Chuck: Hi! Our panel is AJ, Aimee, Chris, myself and my new show is coming out in a few weeks, which is called the DevRev! It helps you with developer’s freedom! I am super excited. Our guest is Andy Bell. Introduce yourself, please.

2:00 – Guest: I am an independent designer and developer out in the U.K.

2:17 – Chuck: You wrote things about Vanilla.js. I am foreshadowing a few things and let’s talk about the power and progressive enhancement.

2:43 – The guest gives us definitions of power and progressive enhancements. He describes how it works.

3:10 – Chuck: I’ve heard that people would turn off JavaScript b/c it was security concern and then your progressive enhancement would make it work w/o JavaScript. I am sure there’s more than that?

3:28 – The guest talks about JavaScript, dependencies, among other things.

4:40 – Chuck: Your post did make that very clear I think. I am thinking I don’t even know where to start with this. Are people using the 6th version? How far back or what are we talking about here?

5:09 – Guest: You can go really far back and make it work w/o CSS.

5:49 – Chris: I am a big advocate of progressive enhancement – the pushback I get these days is that there is a divide; between the broadband era and AOL dialup. Are there compelling reasons why progressive enhancements even matter?

6:48 – Guest.

8:05 – Panel: My family lives out in the boonies. I am aware of 50% of American don’t have fast Internet. People don’t have access to fast browsers but I don’t think they are key metric users.

8:47 – Guest: It totally depends on what you need it for. It doesn’t matter if these people are paying or not.

9:31 – Chris: Assuming I have a commute on the trail and it goes through a spotty section. In a scenario that it’s dependent on the JS...are we talking about 2 different things here?

10:14 – Panelist chimes-in.

10:36 – Chris: I can take advantage of it even if I cannot afford a new machine.

10:55 – Panel: Where would this really matter to you?

11:05 – Chris: I do have a nice new laptop.

11:12 – Chuck: I had to hike up to the hill (near the house) to make a call and the connection was really poor (in OK). It’s not the norm but it can happen.

11:37 – Chris: Or how about the All Trails app when I am on the trail.

11:52 – Guest.

12:40 – Chris: I can remember at the time that the desktop sites it was popular to have...

Chris: Most of those sites were inaccessible to me.

13:17 – Guest.

13:51 – Chuck: First-world countries will have a good connection and it’s not a big deal. If you are thinking though about your customers and where they live? Is that fair? I am thinking that my customers need to be able to access the podcast – what would you suggest? What are the things that you’d make sure is accessible to them.

14:31 – Guest: I like to pick on the minimum viable experience? I think to read the transcript is important than the audio (MP3).

15:47 – Chuck.

15:52 – Guest: It’s a lot easier with Vue b/c you don’t’ have to set aside rendering.

17:13 – AJ: I am thinking: that there is a way to start developing progressively and probably cheaper and easier to the person who is developing. If it saves us a buck and helps then we take action.

17:49 – Guest: It’s much easier if you start that way and if you enhance the feature itself.

18:38 – AJ: Let me ask: what are the situations where I wouldn’t / shouldn’t worry about progressive enhancements?

18:57 – Guest answers the question.

19:42 – AJ: I want people to feel motivated in a place WHERE to start. Something like a blog needs Java for comments.

Hamburger menu is mentioned, too.

20:20 – Guest.

21:05 – Chris: Can we talk about code?

21:16 – Aimee: This is the direction I wanted to go. What do you mean by that – building your applications progressively?

21:44 – Guest.

22:13 – Chuck: I use stock overflow!

22:20 – Guest.

22:24 – Chuck: I mean that’s what Chris uses!

22:33 – Guest (continues).

23:42 – Aimee.

23:54 – Chris.

24:09 – Chris

24:16 – Chris: Andy what do you think about that?

24:22 – Guest: Yes, that’s good.

24:35 – Chris: Where it falls apart is the resistance to progressive enhancements that it means that your approach has to be boring?

25:03 – Guest answers the question.

The guest mentions modern CSS and modern JavaScript are mentioned along with tooling.

25:50 – Chuck: My issue is that when we talk about this (progressive enhancement) lowest common denominator and some user at some level (slow network) and then they can access it. Then the next level (better access) can access it. I start at the bottom and then go up. Then when they say progressive enhancement I get lost. Should I scrap it and then start over or what?

26:57 – Guest: If it’s feasible do it and then set a timeline up.

27:42 – Chuck: You are saying yes do it a layer at a time – but my question is HOW? What parts can I pair back? Are there guidelines to say: do this first and then how to test?

28:18 – Advertisement – Sentry.io

29:20 – Guest: Think about the user flow. What does the user want to do at THIS point? Do you need to work out the actual dependencies?

30:31 – Chuck: Is there a list of those capabilities somewhere? So these users can use it this way and these users can use it that way?

30:50 – Guest answers the question.

31:03 – Guest: You can pick out the big things.

31:30 – Chuck: I am using this feature in the browser...

31:41 – Guest.

31:46 – Chris: I think this differently than you Andy – I’ve stopped caring if a browser supports something new. I am fine using CSS grid and if your browser doesn’t support it then I don’t have a problem with that. I get hung up on, though if this fails can they still get the content? If they have no access to these – what should they be able to do?

Note: “Cutting the Mustard Test” is mentioned.

33:37 – Guest.

33:44 – Chuck: Knowing your users and if it becomes a problem then I will figure it out.

34:00 – Chris: I couldn’t spare the time to make it happen right now b/c I am a one-man shop.

34:20 – Chuck and Chris go back-and-forth.

34:36 –Chris: Check out links below for my product.

34:54 – AJ: A lot of these things are in the name: progressive.

36:20 – Guest.

38:51 – Chris: Say that they haven’t looked at it all before. Do you mind talking about these things and what the heck is a web component?

39:14 – The guest gives us his definition of what a web component is.

40:02 – Chuck: Most recent episode in Angular about web components, but that was a few years ago. See links below for that episode.

40:25 – Aimee.

40:31 – Guest: Yes, it’s a lot like working in Vue and web components. The concepts are very similar.

41:22 – Chris: Can someone please give us an example? A literal slideshow example?

41:45 – Guest answers the question.

45:07 – Chris.

45:12 – Guest: It’s a framework that just happens to use web components and stuff to help.

45:54 – Chuck: Yeah they make it easier (Palmer). Yeah there is a crossover with Palmer team and other teams. I can say that b/c I have talked with people from both teams. Anything else?

46:39 – Chuck: Where do they go to learn more?

46:49 – Guest: Check out the Club! And my Twitter! (See links below.)

47:33 – Chuck: I want to shout-out about DevLifts that has $19 a month to help you with physical goals. Or you can get the premium slot! It’s terrific stuff. Sign-up with DEVCHAT code but there is a limited number of slots and there is a deadline, too. Just try it! They have a podcast, too!

49:16 – Aimee: Yeah, I’m on their podcast soon!

49:30 – Chuck: Picks!

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JSJ 342: Aurelia in Action with Sean Hunter

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames
Jesse Sanders

Special Guest: Sean Hunter

In this episode, the panel talks with Sean Hunter who is a software developer, speaker, rock climber, and author of “Aurelia in Action” published by Manning Publications! Today, the panelists and Sean talk about Aurelia and other frameworks. Check it out!

Show Topics:

0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

0:38 – Joe: Hello! Our panelists are AJ, Jesse, myself, and our special guest is Sean Hunter (from Australia)! What have you been doing with your life and what is your favorite movie?

1:45 – Guest talks about Vegemite!

2:20 – Guest: I was in the UK and started using Aurelia, which I will talk about today. I have done some talks throughout UK about Aurelia. Also, the past year moved back to Australia had a baby son and it’s been a busy year. Writing a book and being a new parent has been hard.

3:22 – Panel: Tell us the history of Aurelia, please?

3:31 – Panel: Is it like jQuery, React, Vue or what?

3:44 – Guest: Elevator pitch – Aurelia is a single-page app framework! It’s most similar to Vue out of those frameworks; also, similarities to Ember.js.

4:30 – Guest goes into detail about Aurelia.

6:15 – Panel: It sounds like convention over configuration.

6:42 – Guest: Yes that is correct.

7:21 – Panel: Sounds like there is a build-step to it.

7:39 – Guest: There is a build-step you are correct. You will use Webpack in the background.

9:57 – The guest talks about data binding among other things.

10:30 – Guest: You will have your app component and other levels, too.

10:37 – Panel: I am new to Aurelia and so I’m fresh to this. Why Aurelia over the other frameworks? Is there a CLI to help?

11:29 – Guest: Let me start with WHY Aurelia and not the other frameworks. The style that you are using when building the applications is important for your needs. In terms of bundling there is a CUI and that is a way that I prefer to start my projects. Do you want to use CSS or Webpack or...? It’s almost a wizard process! You guys have any questions about the CLI?

14:43 – Panel: Thanks! I was wondering what is actually occurring there?

15:25 – Guest: Good question. Basically it’s that Aurelia has some built-in conventions. Looking at the convention tells Aurelia to pick the Vue model by name. If I need to tell the framework more information then...

17:46 – Panel: I think that for people who are familiar with one or more framework then where on that spectrum would Aurelia fall?

18:20 – Guest: It’s not that opinionated as Ember.js.

19:09 – Panel: Talking about being opinionated – what are some good examples of the choices that you have and how that leads you down a certain path? Any more examples that you can give us?

19:38 – Guest: The main conventions are what I’ve talked about already. I can’t think of more conventions off the top of my head. There are more examples in my book.

20:02 – Panel: Your book?

20:10 – Guest: Yep.

20:13 – Panel.

20:20 – Guest.

21:58 – Panel: Why would I NOT pick Aurelia?

22:19 – Guest: If you are from a React world and you like having things contained in a single-file then Aurelia would fight you. If you want a big company backing then Aurelia isn’t for you.

The guest goes into more reasons why or why not one would or wouldn’t want to use Aurelia.

24:24 – Panel: I think the best sell point is the downplay!

24:34 – Guest: Good point. What does the roadmap look like for Aurelia’s team?

25:00 – Guest: Typically, what happens in the Aurelia framework is that data binding (or router) gets pushed by the core team. They are the ones that produce the roadmap and look forward to the framework. The core team is working on the NEXT version of the framework, which is lighter, easier to use, and additional features. It’s proposed to be out for release next year.

26:36 – Advertisement – Sentry.io

27:34 – Panel: I am going to take down the CLI down and see what it does. I am looking at it and seeing how to teach someone to use it. I am using AU, new command, and it says no Aurelia found. I am stuck.

28:06 – Guest: What you would do is specify the project name that you are trying to create and that should create it for you.

28:40 – Panel.

28:45 – Panel.

28:50 – Panel: Stand up on your desk and say: does anyone know anything about computers?!

29:05 – Panelists go back-and-forth.

29:13 – Panel: What frameworks have you used in the past?

29:17 – Guest: I was using single-paged apps back in 2010.

31:10 – Panel: Tell us about the performance of Aurelia?

31:17 – Guest: I was looking at the benchmarks all the time. Last time I looked the performance was comparable. Performances can me measured in a number of different of ways.

The guest talks about a dashboard screen that 20 charts or something like that. He didn’t notice any delays getting to the client.

33:29 – Panel: I heard you say the word “observables.”

33:39 – Guest answers the question.

35:30 – Guest: I am not a Redux expert, so I really can’t say. It has similar actions like Redux but the differences I really can’t say.

36:11 – Panel: We really want experts in everything! (Laughs.)

36:25 – Panelist talks about a colleagues’ talk at a conference. He says that he things are doing too much with SPAs. They have their place but we are trying to bundle 8-9 different applications but instead look at them as...

What are your thoughts of having multiple SPAs?

37:17 – Guest.

39:08 – Guest: I wonder what your opinions are? What about the splitting approach?

39:22 – Panel: I haven’t looked at it, yet. I am curious, though. I have been developing in GO lately.

40:20 – Guest: I think people can go too far and making it too complex. You don’t want to make the code that complex.

40:45 – Panel: Yeah when the code is “clean” but difficult to discover that’s not good.

41:15 – Guest: I agree when you start repeating yourself then it makes it more difficult.

41:35 – Panel: Chris and I are anti-framework. We prefer to start from a fresh palette and see if a framework can fit into that fresh palette. When you start with a certain framework you are starting with certain configurations set-in-place.

42:48 – Joe: I like my frameworks and I think you are crazy!

43:05 – Panel.

43:11 – Joe: I have a love affair with all frameworks.

43:19 – Panel: I think I am somewhere in the middle.

43:49 – Panel: I don’t think frameworks are all bad but I want to say that it’s smart to not make it too complex upfront. Learn and grow.

44:28 – Guest: I think a good example of that is jQuery, right?

45:10 – Panelist talks about C++, jQuery, among other things.

45:34 – Guest: Frameworks kind of push the limits.

46:08 – Panelist talks about JavaScript, frameworks, and others.

47:04 – Panel: It seems simple to setup routes – anything to help with the lazy way to setup?

47:35 – Guest answers question.

48:37 – Panel: How do we manage complexity and how does messaging work between components?

48:54 – Guest: The simple scenario is that you can follow a simple pattern, which is (came out of Ember community) and that is...Data Down & Actions Up!

50:45 – Guest mentions that Aurelia website!

51:00 – Panel: That sounds great! Sounds like the pattern can be plugged in easily into Aurelia.

51:17 – Picks!

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JSJ 341: Testing in JavaScript with Gil Tayar

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

Special Guest: Gil Tayar

In this episode, the panel talks with Gil Tayar who is currently residing in Tel Aviv and is a software engineer. He is currently the Senior Architect at Applitools in Israel. The panel and the guest talk about the different types of tests and when/how one is to use a certain test in a particular situation. They also mention Node, React, Selenium, Puppeteer, and much more!

Show Topics:

0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

0:35 – Chuck: Our panel is AJ, Aimee, myself – and our special guest is Gil Tayar. Tell us why you are famous!

1:13 – Gil talks about where he resides and his background.

2:27 – Chuck: What is the landscape like now with testing and testing tools now?

2:39 – Guest: There is a huge renaissance with the JavaScript community. Testing has moved forward in the frontend and backend. Today we have lots of testing tools. We can do frontend testing that wasn’t possible 5 years ago. The major change was React.

The guest talks about Node, React, tools, and more!

4:17 – Aimee: I advocate for tests and testing. There is a grey area though...how do you treat that? If you have to get something into production, but it’s not THE thing to get into production, does that fall into product or...what?

5:02 – Guest: We decided to test everything in the beginning. We actually cam through and did that and since then I don’t think I can use the right code without testing. There are a lot of different situations, though, to consider.

The guest gives hypothetical situations that people could face.

6:27 – Aimee.

6:32 – Guest: The horror to changing code without tests, I don’t know, I haven’t done that for a while. You write with fear in your heart. Your design is driven by fear, and not what you think is right. In the beginning don’t write those tests, but...

7:22 – Aimee: I totally agree and I could go on and on and on.

7:42 – Panel: I want to do tests when I know they will create value. I don’t want to do it b/c it’s a mundane thing. Secondly, I find that some times I am in a situation where I cannot write the test b/c I would have to know the business logic is correct. I am in this discovery mode of what is the business logic? I am not just building your app.

I guess I just need advice in this area, I guess.

8:55 – Guest gives advice to panelist’s question. He mentions how there are two schools of thought.

10:20 – Guest: Don’t mock too much.

10:54 – Panel: Are unit tests the easiest? I just reach for unit testing b/c it helps me code faster. But 90% of my code is NOT that.

11:18 – Guest: Exactly! Most of our test is glue – gluing together a bunch of different stuff! Those are best tested as a medium-sized integration suite.

12:39 – Panel: That seems like a lot of work, though! I loathe the database stuff b/c they don’t map cleanly. I hate this database stuff.

13:06 – Guest: I agree, but don’t knock the database, but knock the level above the database.

13:49 – Guest: Yes, it takes time! Building the script and the testing tools, but when you have it then adding to it is zero time. Once you are in the air it’s smooth sailing.

14:17 – Panel: I guess I can see that. I like to do the dumb-way the first time. I am not clear on the transition.

14:47 – Guest: Write the code, and then write the tests.

The guest gives a hypothetical situation on how/when to test in a certain situation.

16:25 – Panel: Can you talk about that more, please?

16:50 – Guest: Don’t have the same unit – do browser and business logic stuff separated. The real business logic stuff needs to be above that level. First principle is separation of concerns.

18:04 – Panel talks about dependency interjection and asks a question.

18:27 – Guest: What I am talking about very, very light inter-dependency interjection.

19:19 – Panel: You have a main function and you are doing requires in the main function. You are passing the pieces of that into the components that need it.

19:44 – Guest: I only do it when it’s necessary; it’s not a religion for me. I do it only for those layers that I know will need to be mocked; like database layers, etc.

20:09 – Panel.

20:19 – Guest: It’s taken me 80 years to figure out, but I have made plenty of mistakes a long the way. A test should run for 2-5 minutes max for package.

20:53 – Panel: What if you have a really messy legacy system? How do you recommend going into that? Do you write tests for things that you think needs to get tested?

21:39 – Guest answers the question and mentions Selenium!

24:27 – Panel: I like that approach.

24:35 – Chuck: When you say integration test what do you mean?

24:44 – Guest: Integration tests aren’t usually talked about. For most people it’s tests that test the database level against the database. For me, the integration tests are taking a set of classes as they are in the application and testing them together w/o the...so they can run in millisecond time.

26:54 – Advertisement – Sentry.io

27:52 – Chuck: How much do the tools matter?

28:01 – Guest: The revolutions matter. Whether you use Jasmine or Mocha or whatever I don’t think it matters. The tests matter not the tools.

28:39 – Aimee: Yes and no. I think some tools are outdated.

28:50 – Guest: I got a lot of flack about my blog where I talk about Cypress versus Selenium. I will never use Jasmine. In the end it’s the

29:29 – Aimee: I am curious would you be willing to expand on what the Selenium folks were saying about Puppeteer and others may not provide?

29:54 – Guest: Cypress was built for frontend developers. They don’t care about cross browser, and they tested in Chrome. Most browsers are typically the same. Selenium was built with the QA mindset – end to end tests that we need to do cross browser.

The guest continues with this topic.

30:54 – Aimee mentions Cypress.

31:08 – Guest: My guessing is that their priority is not there. I kind of agree with them.

31:21 – Aimee: I think they are focusing on mobile more.

31:24 – Guest: I think cross browser testing is less of an issue now. There is one area that is important it’s the visual area! It’s important to test visually across these different browsers.

32:32 – Guest: Selenium is a Swiss knife – it can do everything.

33:32 – Chuck: I am thinking about different topics to talk about. I haven’t used Puppeteer. What’s that about?

33:49 – Guest: Puppeteer is much more like Selenium. The reason why it’s great is b/c Puppeteer will always be Google Chrome.

35:42 – Chuck: When should you be running your tests? I like to use some unit tests when I am doing my development but how do you break that down?

36:06 – Guest.

38:30 – Chuck: You run tests against production?

38:45 – Guest: Don’t run tests against production...let me clarify!

39:14 – Chuck.

39:21 – Guest: When I am talking about integration testing in the backend...

40:37 – Chuck asks a question.

40:47 – Guest: I am constantly running between frontend and backend.

I didn’t know how to run tests for frontend. I had to invent a new thing and I “invented” the package JS DONG. It’s an implementation of Dong in Node. I found out that I wasn’t the only one and that there were others out there, too.

43:14 – Chuck: Nice! You talked in the prep docs that you urged a new frontend developer to not run the app in the browser for 2 months?

43:25 – Guest: Yeah, I found out that she was running the application...she said she knew how to write tests. I wanted her to see it my way and it probably was a radical train-of-thought, and that was this...

44:40 – Guest: Frontend is so visual.

45:12 – Chuck: What are you working on now?

45:16 – Guest: I am working with Applitools and I was impressed with what they were doing.

The guest goes into further detail.

46:08 – Guest: Those screenshots are never the same.

48:36 – Panel: It’s...comparing the output to the static site to the...

48:50 – Guest: Yes, that static site – if you have 30 pages in your app – most of those are the same. We have this trick where we don’t upload it again and again. Uploading the whole static site is usually very quick. The second thing is we don’t wait for the results. We don’t wait for the whole rendering and we continue with the tests.

50:28 – Guest: I am working mostly (right now) in backend.

50:40 – Chuck: Anything else? Picks!

50:57 – Advertisement: Get A Coder Job!

https://github.com/mattcreager

Links:

Sponsors:

Picks:

Aimee

How Showing Vulnerability Helps Build a Stronger Team

Charles

Gil

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JSJ 340: JavaScript Docker with Julian Fahrer

Tue, 20 Nov 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Joe Eames
Charles Max Wood
Chris Ferdinandi

Special Guest: Julian Fahrer

In this episode, the panel talks with Julian Fahrer who is an online educator and software engineer in San Francisco, California (USA). The panel and the guest talk about containers, tooling, Docker, Kubernetes, and more. Check out today’s episode!

Show Topics:

0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

1:00 – Chuck: We have today Julian. Julian, please tell us why you are famous?

1:10 – Julian (Guest): I am a software engineer in San Francisco.

1:35 – Chuck: We had you on Elixir Mix before – so here you are! Give us a brief introduction – tell us about the

1:56 – Julian: About 11 hours. You can get it done in about 1 week. It’s a lot to learn. It’s a new paradigm, and I think that’s why people like it.

2:22 – Aimee: How did you dive into Docker? I feel that is like backend space?

2:35 – Julian: I am a full stack engineer and I have been in backend, too.

3:10 – Aimee: I know that someone has been in-charge of our Dev Ops process until the first job I’ve had. When there is a problem in the deployment, I want to unblock myself and not wait for someone else. I think it’s a valuable topic. Why Docker over the other options?

3:58 – Julian: Let’s talk about what Docker is first?

4:12 – Chuck.

4:23 – Julian: Containers are a technology for us to run applications in isolation from each other.

Julian talks in-detail about what contains are, what they do, he gives examples, and more. Check it out here!

5:27 – Chuck: Makes sense to me. I think it’s interesting that you are talking about the dependencies. Because of the way the Docker works it’s consistent across all of your applications.

5:59 – Julian. Yes, exactly.

Julian talks about containers some more!

6:56 – Chuck asks a question about the container, Docker, and others.

7:03 – Guest: You don’t have to worry about your company’s running operating system, and what you want to use – basically everything runs in the container...

7:30 – Chuck: This short-circuits a lot of it.

7:46 – Guest.

8:00 – Chuck: People will use Docker if your employer mandates it. Is there a learning curve and how do you adapt it within the person’s company?

8:25 – Guest.

8:52 – Aimee: We are using it, too.

8:57 – Guest: Awesome!

9:03 – Aimee: The only downfall is that if you have people who are NOT familiar with it – then it’s a black box for us. We can’t troubleshoot it ourselves. I want to be able to unblock from our end w/o having to go to someone else. That’s my only issue I’ve been having.

10:03 – Guest: I want to see that tooling to be honest.

10:12 – Aimee: Can you talk about how Civil and Docker work together?

10:19 – Guest: Yes!

Julian answers the question.

10:56 – Chuck: How much work it is to get a Docker file to get up and running? How much work would it take?

11:18 – Guest: For the development side in about an hour or two – this is if you understand it already. Putting it into production that’s a different story b/c there is a million different ways to do it. It’s hard to put a time on that.

12:24 – Chuck: Let’s assume they have the basic knowledge (they get how server setup takes place) is this something you could figure out in a day or so?

12:47 – Guest: If you have touched Docker then you can do it in a day; if never then not really.

13:02 – Guest: There might be some stones you will fall over.

13:39 – Panel: The part of the learning curve would be...

13:52 – Guest: The idea behind the container is that the container should be disposable. You could throw it away and then start a new one and it’s fresh and clean.

Guest continues with his answer.

15:20 – Chuck: I have seen people do this with their database engine. If you need to upgrade your database then they grab their container...

15:55 – Guest: You don’t have to worry about setting it up - its provided in the container and...

16:09 – Chuck asks a question.

16:17 – Guest: For production, I would go with a hosted database like RJS, Azure, or other options.

Guest continues.

17:13 – Chuck.

17:20 – Guest: If it dies then you need to...

17:30 – Chuck: We talked about an idea of these containers being something you can hand around in your development team.

Chuck asks a question.

17:50 – Guest answers the question. He talks about tooling, containers, web frontend, and more.

18:48 – Guest asks Aimee a question: Are you using Compost?

18:50 – Aimee: I don’t know b/c that is a black box for us. I don’t know much about our Docker setup.

19:00 – Guest to Aimee: Can I ask you some questions?

19:14 – Guest is giving Aimee some hypothetical situations and asks what their process is like.

19:32 – Aimee answers the question.

20:11 – Guest: You have customizing tooling to be able to do x, y, and z.

20:25 – Aimee: They have hit a wall, but it’s frustrating. Our frontend and our backend are different. We are getting 500’s and it’s a black box for us. It’s the way that ops have it setup. I hate having to go to them for them to unblock us.

21:07 – Chuck: I have been hearing about Kubernetes. When will you start to see that it pays off to use it?

21:20 – Guest answers the question.

22:17 – If I have a simple app on a few different machines and front end and job servers I may not need Kubernetes. But if I have a lot of things that it depends on then I will need it?

22:35 – Guest: Yes.

22:40 – Chuck: What are the steps to using it?

22:45 – Guest: Step #1 you install it.

The guest goes through the different steps to use Docker.

25:23 – Aimee: It makes sense that your UI and your database don’t live in the same container, but what about your API and your database should that be separate?

25:40 – Guest: Yes they should be separate.

26:09 – Chuck: What has your experience been with Docker – AJ or Chris?

26:17 – Panel: I have used a little bit at work and so far it’s been a black box for me. I like the IDEA of it, but I probably need to take Julian’s course to learn more about it! (Aimee agrees!)

One thing I would love (from your perspective, Julian) – if I wanted to get started with this (and say I have not worked with containers before) where would I start?

28:22 – Advertisement – Sentry.io

29:20 – Guest: Good question. You don’t have to be an expert (to use Docker), but you have to be comfortable with the command line, though.

30:17 – Panel: Is there a dummy practice within your course?

30:27 – Julian: We run our own web server and...

30:44 – Panel: I need to check out your course!

31:04 – Guest: It is some time investment, but it’s saved me so much time already so it makes it really worth it.

31:38 – Panel: You are a version behind on Ruby.

31:46 – Guest: ...I just want to make code and not worry about that.

32:04 – Chuck: Updating your server – you would update Ruby and reinstall your gems and hope that they were all up-to-date. Now you don’t have to do it that way anymore.

32:37 – Guest: You know it will behave the same way.

32:48 – Guest: I have some experience with Docker. I understand its value. I guess I will share my frustrations. Not in Docker itself, but the fact that there is a need for Docker...

35:06 – Chuck.

35:12 – Panel: We need someone to come up with...

35:40 – Panel: It’s not standard JavaScript.

35:51 – Chuck: One question: How do you setup multiple stages of Docker?

36:12 – Guest: The recommended way is to have the same Docker file used in the development sate and through to production. So that way it’s the same image.

37:00 – Panel: ...you must do your entire configuration via the environmental variables.

37:29 – Chuck asks a question.

37:36 – Panel: If you are using Heroku or Circle CI...there is a page...

38:11 – Guest and Chuck go back-and-forth.

39:17 – Chuck: Gottcha.

39:18 – Guest.

39:52 – Chuck: I have seen systems that have hyberized things like using Chef Solo and...

You do your basic setup then use Chef Solo – that doesn’t’ make sense to me. Have you seen people use this setup before?

40:20 – Guest: I guess I wouldn’t do it.

40:30 – Chuck.

40:36 – Guest: Only reason I would do that is that it works across many different platforms. If it makes your setup easier then go for it.

41:14 – Chuck: Docker Hub – I want to mention that. How robust is that? Can you put private images up there?

41:38 – Guest: You can go TOTALLY nuts with it. You could have private and public images. Also, your own version. Under the hood it’s called container registry. Yeah, you can change images, too.

42:22 – Chuck: Should I use container registry or a CI system to build the Docker system and use it somewhere else?

42:35 – Guest.

43:24 – Chuck: Where can people find your Docker course?

43:30 – Guest: LEARN DOCKER ONLINE! We are restructuring the prices. Make sure to check it out.

44:05 – Chuck: Picks! Where can people find you online?

44:14 – Guest: Twitter! eBook – Rails and Docker! Code Tails IO!

Links:

Sponsors:

Picks:

Zermatt Resort
Heber Area

Aimee

Surge.sh

Chris

Joe

Docker Videos by Dan Wahlin
Rock Climbing/Indoor Rock Climbing

Charles

Extreme Ownership - Book
Playing DND

Julian

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JSJ 339: Node.js In Motion Live Video Course from Manning with PJ Evans

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Charles Max Wood

Special Guest: PJ Evans

In this episode, the panel talks with PJ Evans who is a course developer and an instructor through Manning’s course titled, “Node.js in Motion.” This course is great to learn the fundamentals of Node, which you can check out here! The panel and PJ talk about this course, his background, and current projects that PJ is working on. Check out today’s episode to hear more!

Show Topics:

0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

0:36 – Chuck: Welcome and our panel consists of Aimee, AJ, myself, and our special guest is PJ Evans. Tell us about yourself and your video course! NODE JS in Motion is the title of the course. Can you tell us more?

1:29 – PJ: It’s a fantastic course.

2:25 – Chuck: You built this course and there is a lot to talk about.

2:36 – Aimee: Let’s talk about Node and the current state.

2:50 – Chuck: Here’s the latest features, but let’s talk about where do you start with this course? How do you get going with Node? What do people need to know with Node?

3:20 – Aimee.

3:24 – PJ talks about Node and his course!

4:02 – PJ: The biggest headache with Node is the...

4:13 – Chuck.

4:19 – PJ: I am sure a lot of the listeners are familiar with callback hell.

4:50 – Aimee: Let’s talk about the complexities of module support in Node!

5:10 – PJ: It’s a horrible mess.

5:17 – Aimee: Maybe not the tech details but let’s talk about WHAT the problem is?

5:31 – PJ: You are talking about Proper Native ES6 right?

They are arguing about how to implement it.

6:11 – PJ: My advice is (if you are a professional) is to stick with the LT6 program. No matter how tensing those new features are!

6:46 – Aimee: It could be outdated but they had to come back and say that there were tons of complexities and we have to figure out how to get there.

7:06 – PJ: They haven’t found an elegant way to do it.

7:15 – Panel: If it’s a standard why talk about it?

Seriously – if this is a standard why not implement THE standard?

7:38 – PJ.

8:11 – Panel.

8:17 – Aimee: I would love to talk about this, though!

8:24 – Chuck: I want to talk about the course, please.

8:30 – PJ.

8:54 – Chuck: We will keep an eye on it.

9:05 – PJ.

9:16 – PJ: How is it on the browser-side?

9:33 – Aimee: I don’t want to misspeak.

9:41 – Chuck: I don’t know how complete the forms are.

9:49 – Aimee: I don’t want to misspeak.

9:56 – PJ: I just found the page that I wanted and they are calling it the .MJS or aka the Michael Jackson Script. You can do an import from...

Some people think it’s FINE and others think that it’s a TERRIBLE idea.

10:42 – Chuck: “It sounds like it’s a real THRILLER!”

10:52 – Panel.

11:25 – Panel: When you start calling things the Michael Jackson Solution you know things aren’t well.

11:44 – Aimee: Just to clarify for users...

11:57 – Chuck: I want to point us towards the course: NODE.JS.

Chuck asks two questions.

12:34 – PJ: The concepts aren’t changing, but the information is changing incredibly fast. The fundamentals are fairly settled.

13:22 – Chuck: What are those things?

13:28 – PJ talks about how he structured the course and he talks about the specifics.

15:33 – Chuck: Most of my backend stuff is done in Ruby. Aimee and AJ do more Java then I do.

15:55 – Panel: I think there is something to understanding how different Node is. I think that Node is a very fast moving train. Node has a safe place and that it’s good for people to know about this space.

16:34 – Aimee: Not everyone learns this way, but for me I like to understand WHY I would want to use Node and not another tool. For me, this talk in the show notes really helped me a lot. That’s the core and the nature of NODE.

17:21 – PJ: Yes, absolutely. Understanding the event loop and that’s aimed more towards people from other back ends. Right from the beginning we go over that detail: Here is how it works, we give them examples, and more.

18:08 – Aimee: You can do more than just create APIs.

Aimee mentions Vanilla Node.

18:50 – PJ: To get into frameworks we do a 3-line server. We cover express, and also Sequelize ORM.

19:45 – Advertisement – Sentry.io

20:43 – Chuck: I never used Pug.

20:45 – PJ: PUG used to be called JADE.

20:56 – Aimee.

21:14 – PJ: Express does that for you and I agree with you. I advocate a non-scripted approach, I like when frameworks have a light touch.

22:05 – Aimee: That’s what I liked about it. No offense, Chuck, but for me I didn’t like NOT knowing a lot of what was not happening under the hood. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, but I wanted to build at a lower level.

22:40 – PJ: I had the same experience. I wanted to figure out why something wasn’t working.

23:24 – Panel: I had a friend who used Rails...he was cautious to make a switch. This past year he was blown away with how much simpler it was and how fast things were.

24:05 – Aimee: I feel like if you want to learn JavaScript then Node might be easier on the frontend.

24:21 – Chuck: No pun intended.

No, but I agree. I like about Rails is that you had well-understood patterns. But the flipside is that you have abstractions...

To a certain degree: what did I do wrong? And you didn’t follow the pattern properly.

25:57 – Panel: With Node you get a little bit of both. To me it’s a more simple approach, but the downside is that you have 100’s of 1,000’s of modules that almost identical things. When you start reaching out to NPM that...

26:29 – PJ: Yes the module system of NPM is the best/worst thing about NODE. I don’t have an answer, honestly.

There is a great article written that made me turn white. Here is the article!

28:12 – Panel: The same thing happened with the ESLint. That was the very problem that he was describing in the article.

28:50 – PJ: Yep, I put that in the chat there – go ahead and read it! It’s not a problem that’s specific to Node, there are others. It’s the way we do things now.

29:23 – Chuck: We have the NODE Security project. A lot of stuff go into NPM everyday.

29:43 – PJ: We cover those things in the course.

29:53 – Chuck: It’s the reality. Is there a place that people get stuck?

30:00 – PJ answers the question.

30:23 – Aimee.

30:55 – PJ: I am coding very similar to my PHP days.

31:20 – Aimee.

32:02 – PJ: To finish off my point, I hope people don’t loose sight.

32:18 – Aimee.

32:20 – PJ: I am working on a project that has thousands of requests for...

32:53 – Chuck: Anything you WANTED to put into the course, but didn’t have time to?

33:05 – PJ: You can get pretty technical. It’s not an advanced course, and it won’t turn you into a rock star. This is all about confidence building. It’s to understand the fundamentals.

It’s a runtime of 6 hours and 40 minutes – you aren’t just watching a video. You have a transcript, too, running off on the side. You can sit there and type it out w/o leaving – so it’s a very interactive course.

34:26 – Chuck: You get people over the hump. What do you think people need to know to be successful with Node?

34:38 – PJ answers the question.

PJ: I think it’s a lot of practice and the student to go off and be curious on their own terms.

35:13 – Chuck: You talked about callbacks – I am thinking that one is there to manage the other?

35:31 – PJ answers the question.

PJ: You do what works for you – pick your style – do it as long as people can follow you. Take the analogy of building a bridge.

36:53 – Chuck: What are you working on now?

37:00 – PJ: Educational tool called SCHOOL PLANNER launched in Ireland, so teachers can do their lesson planning for the year and being built with Express.

Google Classroom and Google Calendar.

39:01 – PJ talks about Pi and 4wd. See links below.

40:09 – Node can be used all over the place!

40:16 - Chuck: Yes, the same can be said for other languages. Yes, Node is in the same space.

40:31 – PJ: Yep!

40:33 – Chuck: If people want to find you online where can they find you?

40:45 – PJ: Twitter! Blog!

41:04 – Picks!

41:05 – Advertisement – eBook: Get a coder job!

Links:

Sponsors:

Picks:

Aimee

Paul Graham - Blog

Rust

Charles

Music - Max Richter

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JSJ 338: It’s Supposed To Hurt, Get Outside of Your Comfort Zone to Master Your Craft with Christopher Buecheler

Tue, 06 Nov 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight
AJ O’Neal
Aaron Frost
Christopher Ferdinandi

Special Guests: Christopher Buecheler

In this episode, the panel talks with Christopher Buecheler who is an author, blogger, web developer, and founder of CloseBrace. The panel and Christopher talk about stepping outside of your comfort zone. With a technological world that is ever changing, it is important to always be learning within your field. Check out today’s episode to learn more!

Show Topics:

0:00 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

1:08 – Aimee: Our guest is Christopher Buecheler – tell us about yourself and what you do.

1:22 – Guest: I run a site and help mid-career developers. I put out a weekly newsletter, too.

2:01 – Aimee: It says that you are a fan of “getting comfortable being uncomfortable”?

2:15 – Guest: I am a self-taught developer, so that means I am scrambling to learn new things all the time. You are often faced with learning new things. When I learned React I was dumped into it. The pain and the difficulty are necessary in order to improve. If you aren’t having that experience then you aren’t learning as much as you could be.

3:26 – Aimee: I borrow lessons that I learned from ice-skating to programming.

3:49 – Guest: I started running a few years ago for better health. It was exhausting and miserable at the start and wondered why I was doing it. Now I run 5 times a week, and there is always a level of being uncomfortable, but now it’s apart of the run. It’s an interesting comparison to coding. It’s this idea of pushing through.

5:01 – Aimee: If you are comfortable you probably aren’t growing that much. In our industry you always have to be learning because things change so much!

5:25 – Guest: Yes, exactly. If you are not careful you can miss opportunities.

6:33 – Panel: You have some ideas about frameworks and libraries – one thing that I am always anxious about is being able to make sense of “what are some new trends that I should pay attention to?” I remember interviewing with someone saying: this mobile thing is just a fad. I remember thinking that she is going to miss this opportunity. I am worried that I am going to be THAT guy. How do you figure out what sort of things you should / shouldn’t pay attention to?

7:47 – Guest: It is a super exhausting thing to keep up with – I agree. For me, a lot of what I pay attention to is the technology that has the backing of a multi-million dollar company then that shows that technology isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. The other thing I would look at is how ACTIVE is the community around it?

9:15 – Panel: Is there a strategic way to approach this? There is so many different directions that you can grow and push yourself within your career? Do you have any kinds of thoughts/tips on how you want your career to evolve?

10:00 – Guest: I am trying to always communicate better to my newsletter audience. Also, a good approach, too, is what are people hiring for?

11:06 – Aimee: Again, I would say: focus on learning.

11:30 – Panel: And I agree with Aimee – “learn it and learn it well!”

12:01 – Panel: I want to ask Chris – what is CloseBrace?

12:17 – Guest: I founded it in November 2016, and started work on it back in 2013.

14:20 – Panel: It was filled with a bunch of buzz worthy words/title.

14:32 – Guest continues his thoughts/comments on CloseBrace.

16:54 – Panel: How is the growth going?

17:00 – Guest: It is growing very well. I put out a massive, massive tutorial course – I wouldn’t necessarily advice that people do this b/c it can be overwhelming. However, growth this year I have focused on marketing. I haven’t shared numbers or anything but it’s increased 500%, and I am happy about it.

18:05 – Panel: Are you keeping in-house?

18:13 – Guest: I think it would be cool to expand, but now it is in-house. I don’t want to borrow Egg Head’s setup. I would love to cover MORE topics, though.

19:05 – Panel: You are only one person.

19:08 – Guest: If I can get the site creating more revenue than I can hire someone to do video editing, etc.

19:35 – Panel: I think you are overthinking it.

19:45 – Guest.

19:47 – Advertisement – Sentry.io

20:47 – Guest.

21:30 – Aimee: There are SO many resources out there right now. Where do you think you fit into this landscape?

21:44 – The landscape is cluttered, but I feel that I am different b/c of my thoroughness. I don’t always explain line by line, but I do say how and why things work. I think also is my VOICE. Not my radio voice, but the tone and the approach you take with it.

23:25 – Panel: I was trying to copy folks in the beginning of my career. And at some point I realized that I needed to find my own style. It always came down to the reasons WHY I am different rather than the similarities. Like, Chris, you have these quick hits on CloseBrace, but some people might feel like they don’t have the time to get through ALL of your content, because it’s a lot. For me, that’s what I love about your content.

24:46 – Christopher: Yeah, it was intentional.

25:36 – Panel: Good for you.

25:49 – Guest: I am super device agnostic: Android, Mac, PC, etc. I have a lot of people from India that are more Microsoft-base.

26:28 – Aimee: I think Egghead is pretty good about this...do you cover testing at all with these things that you are doing? It’s good to do a “Hello World” but most of these sites don’t get into MORE complex pieces. I think that’s where you can get into trouble. It’s nice to have some boiler point testing, too.

27:18 – Guest answers Aimee’s question.

28:43 – Aimee: We work with a consultancy and I asked them to write tests for the things that we work with. That’s the value of the testing. It’s the code that comes out.

29:10 – Panel: Can you explain this to me. Why do I need to write tests? It’s always working (my code) so why do I have to write a test?

29:39 – Guest: When working with AWS I was writing...

31:01 – Aimee: My biggest thing is that I have seen enough that the people don’t value testing are in a very bad place, and the people that value testing are in a good place. It even comes back to the customers, because the code gets so hard that you end up repeatedly releasing bugs. Customers will stop paying their bills if this happens too often for them.

33:00 – Panel: Aimee / Chris do you have a preferred tool? I have done testing before, but not as much as I should be doing.

33:25 – Aimee: I like JEST and PUPPETEER.

33:58 – Guest: I like JEST, too.

34:20 – Aimee: Let’s go to PICKS!

34:35 – Advertisement – eBook: Get a coder job!

Links:

Sponsors:

Picks:

Aimee

Podflix

Chris F.

Canada Dry with Lemonade

Aaron

ABQ Ballon Festival
Joe Eames DND Recording Channel

Christopher

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JSJ 337: Microstates.js – Composable State Primitives for JavaScript with Charles Lowell & Taras Mankovski

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight
Charles Max Wood
Joe Eames
AJ O’Neil
Chris Ferdinandi

Special Guests: Charles Lowell (New Mexico) & Taras Mankovski (Toronto)

In this episode, the panel talks with two special guests Charles and Taras. Charles Lowell is a principle engineer at Frontside, and he loves to code. Taras works with Charles and joined Frontside, because of Charles’ love for coding. There are great personalities at Frontside, which are quite diverse. Check out this episode to hear about microstates, microstates with react, Redux, and much more!

Show Topics:

1:20 – Chuck: Let’s talk about microstates – what is that?

1:32 – Guest: My mind is focused on the how and not the what. I will zoom my mind out and let’s talk about the purposes of microstates. It means a few things. 1.) It’s going to work no matter what framework you are using. 2.) You shouldn’t have to be constantly reinventing the wheel. React Roundup – I talked about it there at this conference.

Finally, it really needs to feel JavaScript. We didn’t want you to feel like you weren’t using JavaScript. It uses computer properties off of those models. It doesn’t feel like there is anything special that you are doing. There are just a few simple rules. You can’t mutate the state in place. If you work with JavaScript you can use it very easily. Is that a high-level view?

7:13 – Panel: There are a lot of pieces. If I spoke on a few specific things I would say that it enables programming with state machines.

7:42 – Panel: We wanted it to fell like JavaScript – that’s what I heard.

7:49 – Aimee: I heard that, too.

7:59 – Guest.

8:15 – Aimee: Redux feels like JavaScript to me.

8:25 – Guest: It’s actually – a tool – that it feels natural so it’s not contrived. It’s all JavaScript.

8:49 – Panel.

9:28 – Guest: Idiomatic Ember for example. Idiomatic in the sense that it gives you object for you to work with, which are simple objects.

10:12 – Guest: You have your reducers and your...we could do those things but ultimately it’s powerful – and not action names – we use method names; the name of the method.

11:20 – Panel: I was digging through docs, and it feels like NORMAL JavaScript. It doesn’t seem like it’s tied to a certain framework or library platform?

11:45 – Guest: Yes, we felt a lot of time designing the interfaces the API and the implementation. We wanted it to feel natural but a tool that people reach for.

(Guest continues to talk about WHY they created microstates.)

Guest: We wanted to scale very well what you need when your needs to change.

13:39 – Chuck: I have a lot of friends who get into React and then they put in Redux then they realize they have to do a lot of work – and that makes sense to do less is more.

14:17 – Guest: To define these microstates and build them up incrementally...building smaller microstates out of larger ones.

Guest continued: Will we be able to people can distribute React components a sweet array of components ready for me to use – would I be able to do the same for a small piece of state? We call them state machines, but ultimately we have some state that is driving it. Would we be able to distribute and share?

16:15 – Panel: I understand that this is tiny – but why wouldn’t I just use the native features in specific the immutability component to it?

16:42 – Guest: I’m glad you asked that question. We wanted to answer the question...

Guest: With microstates you can have strict control and it gives you the benefit of doing sophisticated things very easily.

18:33 – Guest: You mentioned immutability that’s good that you did. It’s important to capture – and capturing the naturalness of JavaScript. It’s easy to build complex structures – and there is an appeal to that. We are building these graphs and these building up these trees. You brought up immutability – why through it away b/c it’s the essence of being a developer. If you have 3-4-5 levels of nesting you have to de-structure – get to the piece of data – change it – and in your state transition 80% of your code is navigating to the change and only 20% to actually make the change. You don’t have to make that tradeoff.

21:25 – Aimee: The one thing I like about the immutability b/c of the way you test it.

21:45 – Guest: There a few things you can test.

23:01 – Aimee: You did a good job of explaining it.

23:15 – Guest: It makes the things usually hard  easy! With immutability you can loose control, and if that happens you can get so confused. You don’t have a way to have a way to navigate to clarity. That’s what this does is make it less confusing. It gives you order and structure. It gives you a very clear path to do things you need to do. If there is a property on your object, and if there is a way to change it...

25:29 – Guest: The only constant is change no matter what framework you are working on.

24:46 – Chuck: We are talking about the benefits and philosophy. What if I have an app – and I realize I need state management – how do I put microstates into my app? It’s using Angular or React – how do I get my data into microstates?

26:35 – Guest: I can tell you what the integration looks like for any framework. You take a type and you passed that type and some value to the create function so what you get is a microstate.

(The Guest continues diving into his answer.)

28:18 – Guest: That story is very similar to Redux, basically an event emitter. The state changes on the store.

Maybe this is a good time to talk about the stability benefits and the lazy benefits because microstates is both of those things.

Stability – if I invoke a transition and the result is unchanged – same microstate – it doesn’t emit an event. It recognizes it internally. It will recognize that it’s the same item. Using that in Ember or Redux you’d have to be doing thousands of actions and doing all that computation, but stability at that level.

Also, stability in the sense of a tree. If I change one object then that changes it won’t change an element that it doesn’t need to change.

31:33 – Advertisement: Sentry.io

32:29 – Guest: I want to go back to your question, Chuck. Did we answer it?

32:40 – Chuck: Kind of.

32:50 – Guest.

32:59 – Guest: In Angular for example you can essentially turn a microstate...

33:51 – Guest: You could implement a connect, too. Because the primitive is small – there is no limit.

34:18 – Chuck summarizes their answers into his own words.

34:42 – Guest: If you were using a vanilla React component – this dot – I will bind this. You bind all of these features and then you pass them into your template. You can take it as a property...those are those handlers. They will perform the transition, update and what needs to be updated will happen.

35:55 – Chuck: Data and transitions are 2 separate things but you melded them together to feel like 1 thing. This way it keeps clean and fast.

36:16 – Guest: Every framework helps you in each way.

Microstates let’s you do a few things: the quality of your data all in one place and you can share.

38:12 – Guest: He made and integrated Microstates with Redux tools.

38:28 – Guest talks about paths, microstates to trees.

39:22 – Chuck.

39:25 – Panel: When I think about state machines I have been half listening / half going through the docs. When I think of state machines I think about discreet operations like a literal machine. Like a robot of many steps it can step through. We have been talking about frontend frameworks like React - is this applicable to the more traditional systems like mechanical control or is it geared towards Vue layered applications?

40:23 – Guest: Absolutely. We have BIG TEST and it has a Vue component.

41:15 – Guest: when you create a microstate from a type you are creating an object that you can work with.

42:11 – Guest: Joe, I know you have experience with Angular I would love to get your insight.

42:33 – Joe: I feel like I have less experience with RX.js. A lot of what we are talking about and I am a traditionalist, and I would like you to introduce you guys to this topic. From my perspective, where would someone start if they haven’t been doing Flux pattern and I hear this podcast. I think this is a great solution – where do I get started? The official documents? Or is it the right solution to that person?

43:50 – Guest: Draw out the state machine that you want to represent in your Vue. These are the states that this can be in and this is the data that is required to get from one thing to the other. It’s a rope process. The arrow corresponds to the method, and...

44:49 – Panel: It reminds me back in the day of rational rows.

44:56 – Guest: My first job we were using rational rows.

45:22 – Panelist: Think through the state transitions – interesting that you are saying that. What about that I am in the middle – do you stop and think through it or no?

46:06 – Guest: I think it’s a Trojan horse in some ways. I think what’s interesting you start to realize how you implement your state transitions.

48:00 – (Guest continues.)

48:45 – Panel: That’s interesting. Do you have that in the docs to that process of stopping and thinking through your state transitions and putting into the microstate?

49:05 – Guest: I talked about this back in 2016. I outlined that process. When this project was in the Ember community.

49:16 – Guest: The next step for us is to make this information accessible. We’ve been shedding a few topics and saying this is how to use microstates in your project. We need to write up those guides to help them benefit in their applications.

50:00 – Chuck: What’s the future look like?

50:03 – Guest: We are working on performance profiling.

Essentially you can hook up microstates to a fire hose.

The next thing is settling on a pattern for modeling side effects inside microstates. Microstates are STATE and it’s immutable.

52:12 – Guest: Getting documentation. We have good README but we need traditional docs, too.

52:20 – Chuck: Anything else?

52:28 – Guest: If you need help email us and gives us a shot-out.

53:03 – Chuck: Let’s do some picks!

53:05 – Advertisement for Charles Max Wood’s course!

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The Developer Experience Bait and Switch
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JSJ 336: “The Origin of ESLint” with Nicholas Zakas

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Special Guests: Nicholas Zakas

In this episode, the panel talks with Nicholas Zakas who writes on his site, Human Who Codes. He is the creator of ESLint, also the author of several books, and he blogs, too. He was employed through Box and today he talks about ESLint in full detail! Check it out!

Show Topics:

0:05 – Advertisement: KENDO UI

0:37 – Hello! The panel is...(Chuck introduces everyone).

1:04 – Nicholas who are you?

1:17 – Nicholas: Yeah it’s been about 5 years and then you invited me again, but I couldn’t come on to talk about ESLint back then. That’s probably what people know me most for at this point. I created ESLint and I kicked that off and now a great team of people is maintaining it.

1:58 – Chuck: What is it?

2:04 – It’s a Linter for JavaScript. It falls into the same category as JSLint. The purpose of ESLint is to help you find problems with your code. It has grown quite a bit since I’ve created it. It can help with bugs and enforcing style guides and other things.

2:53 – Where did it come from?

2:57 – Guest: The idea popped into my head when I worked at Pop. One of my teammates was working on a bug and at that time we were using...

Nothing was working and after investigating someone had written a JavaScript code that was using a native code to make an Ajax request. It wasn’t the best practice for the company at the time. For whatever reason the person was unaware of that. When using that native XML...there was a little bit of trickiness to it because it was a wrapper around the...

We used a library to work around those situations and add a line (a Linter) for all JavaScript files. It was a text file and when you tried to render code through the process it would run and run the normal expression and it would fail if any of the...matched.

I am not comfortable using normal expressions to write code for this. You could be matching in side of a string and it’s not a good way to be checking code for problems. I wanted to find a better way.

6:04 – Why did you choose to create a product vs. using other options out there?

6:15 – Guest: Both of those weren’t around. JSHint was pretty much the defector tool that everyone was using. My first thought was if JSHint could help with this problem?

I went back to look at JSHint and I saw that on their roadmap you could create your own rules, and I thought that’s what we need. Why would I build something new? I didn’t see anything on GitHub and didn’t see the status of that. I wanted to see what the plan was, and they weren’t going to get to it. I said that I really needed this tool and I thought it would be helpful to others, too.

8:04 – My history was only back when it was customizable.

8:13 – Aimee: It’s interesting to see that they are basing it on regular expressions.

8:32 – Guest: Interesting thing at Box was that there was...I am not sure but one of the engineers at Box wrote...

9:03 – Aimee: I was going to ask in your opinion what do you think ES Lint is the standard now?

9:16 – Guest: How easy it is to plug things in. That was always my goal because I wanted the tool not to be boxed in – in anyway.

The guest continues to talk about how pluggable ESLint is and the other features of this tool.

13:41 – One thing I like about ESLint is that it can be an educational tool for a team. Did you see that being an educational tool?

14:24 – Guest: How do you start introducing new things to a team that is running at full capacity? That is something that I’ve wondered throughout my career. As a result of that, I found that a new team there were some problems I the code base that were really hard to get resolved, because when one person recognizes it there isn’t a god way to share that information within a team in a non-confrontational way. It’s better to get angry at a tool rather than a person.

Guest goes into what this can teach people.

18:07 – Panelist: I am not surprised. Is there a best practice to get a team to start with ESLint?

Do you get the whole team in a room and show them the options or take the best guess and turn it on?

18:34 – Guest: The thing I recommend is that first and foremost get ESLint in your system with zero rules on. It starts that mindset into your development process. We can do something to automatically check...

Get Syntax checking and you will se improvements on the number of bugs that are getting out of production. I recommend using the default the ESLint configuration. This has all of the things that we have found that are most likely errors and runtime errors vs. syntax errors. You can go through with those and sometimes it is easier to run that check with...

Using those ESLint rules will clean up a lot of problems that you didn’t know you had with your code. There are too many problems with those rules. I recommend instead of turning them off then put the severity to warning and not error. That is something we started with in the beginning. We turned on as many rules as we could and it drove people crazy. They didn’t feel like when they were committing to a file why should I be...

The idea with the different scenario levels you don’t’ want to turn off rules so people don’t know there is a problem. There can be a rule on so people will know that there is a problem, but...

Doing that alone will give you a lot of benefit in using ESLint. How do you decide as a team on the rules that are maybe not for finding errors but for stylistic in error? Do we use four spaces, semi-colons, etc. To figure that out I am a big component on finding a pre-existing style guide and adapting it. Get everyone to agree.

There is no right or wrong when it comes to stylistic preferences. It really is just getting everyone to do the same thing. I think it was Crawford that said: Whether you drive on the right side of the left side of the road – it doesn’t matter as long as everyone is dong the same thing. I agree with that and it applies to style guides. It can get heated but for the best thing for the team is stick with a guide and work together.

24:36 – Aimee: I can go through the options to pick one of the style guides out there and then it will automatically create my configuration for me is helpful. Question: If you had to pick 2 or 3 rules that you are super helpful what would they be?

25:30 – Guest: To touch briefly on indentation. Whether you like four spaces or whether you are wild and like tabs, I think the indent rule is very helpful. Just for wiping out and eliminating that discussion through your team. Have your editor setup however they want but on the pre-hook...

But my favorite rules I tend to lean towards the ones that saved me.

The Guest goes through his favorite rules with ESLint. Check it out!

26:51 – Guest mentions his second favorite rule, here!

28:24 – Guest mentions his third favorite rule, here!

29:03 – Guest mentions the rule that makes him giggle a lot, here!

30:07 – Advertisement – Sentry!

31:22 – What is your take on running Fix? Does it make sense to run Fix?

32:00 – Guest: It depends and the idea behind Fix is the idea of doing a one time (at the start) fix everything that it can find wrong b/c I don’t want to do it by hand. It morphed into a more of a tool that people are using all the time. I too have mixed feelings about it. I think the greatest value you get out of Fix is that when you first install it or when you enable a new rule. I think in those situations you get a lot of value out of Fix. I think that when people were getting aggressive with their code styles it took us down a path where we...

As a pre-commit hook it could be to fix things and part of the built system you wouldn’t want...

People are probably wondering: Why doesn’t ESLint doesn’t fix all the time?

It can be a team decision: do you want to run Fix at the point that the developer is writing the code, do you want to use Fix as running it as a build when you are bundling? It really seems more of a personal preference. I am on the fence about it. Even though I am leaning more towards...

35:16 – Do you run Premier?

35:20 – Guest: No I don’t. I don’t have anything against Premier but I think Prettier uses a very interesting space.

37:50 – Chuck: What is next for ESLint and what is next for you?

37:55 – Guest: Well, to be honest I am not sure what is next for ESLint. I haven’t been involved with keeping it maintained for the last few years. I do help out with feedback with decisions. But in general the ESLint the direction is that let’s add tings that help people avoid language hazards and make sure that ESLint is still pluggable. Lastly, that we will be there to help people and the community. There is this virtuosic cycle and tools like Babble and then tools like ESLint introducing rules adapting new rules and features better.

For myself, and the future, I haven’t been involved with ESLint because I am focusing on my health. I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease and it meant that I needed to focus on my health. That’s why, too, I wasn’t able to join a few years ago. I am doing better but I am a few years away for working fulltime and writing books and blogging, again. The trajectory is upward. I want to stress that you need to take care of yourself.

There is interesting stuff that we are doing and I love it, but make sure you take care of yourself! If you don’t have your health then nothing will really matter. I want to encourage you all to take care of yourselves better. This industry can take a toll on your body b/c it is high-stressed. If you are stressed your immune system will shut down. For a lot of us we are working too much and there isn’t an off-switch. I would like to encourage people to examine their life and their time.

When you take time to turn off your analytic brain, and work on your creative brain then the pathways will connect better.

Please save your money!

Lyme disease is spread through tick bites.

44:30 – Aimee: Thank you for sharing that!

44:38 – Chuck: It’s encouraging to me that you are still trying to come back even after this disease. I think we take things for granted sometimes. You can’t always count on things going the way you want it to go.

45:19 – Guest: What happened to me was I left work and one Friday afternoon I had a normal weekend. My health was on the decline, and I rested all weekend. And Monday I couldn’t get out of bed. That started this whole period where I stopped leaving the house completely. That’s how quickly things can change for you. I harp on people a lot to save their money. If I didn’t have savings there would be a very different end to my story. I want to encourage people to save.

46:33 – Chuck: I think on that note let’s go to picks. Where can people find you?

46:45 – Guest: My blog is Human Who Codes.

47:10 – Chuck: Anything people can do to help you? Check out his books you won’t regret it!

47:33 – Guest: Buying books is always helpful. I would say that if you can spend some time contributing to ESLint that is always a great help. Anything you can do to help them will help me. I want to make sure that those folks are happy, healthy and productive. For me, personally, I love when people Tweet at me and say HI! I love hearing other people’s stories of how they have overcome past diseases or illnesses. If you want to send monetary gifts – donate to a wonderful organization that helps children with Lyme disease. I would encourage you to support if you feel inclined.

50:49 – Chuck: We appreciate it, and I appreciate you being so open about your personal story.

51:11 – Advertisement – eBook: Get a coder job!

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The Brain that Changes Its Self
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JSJ 335: “CanJS 4.0” with Justin Meyer

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Special Guests: Justin Meyer

In this episode, the panel talks with Justin Meyer who is a co-author of DoneJS, CanJS, jQueryPP, StealJS, and DocumentJS. Justin currently works for Bitovi and is their Director of R&D. He is also a fan of basketball and Michael Jackson. The panel and Justin talk about CanJS in-detail – check it out!

Show Topics:

0:58 – We had you on Episode 202.

1:14 – Chuck: Can you tell everyone who you are?

1:20 – Justin tells us his background.

1:50 – Chuck.

1:58 – Justin.

2:06 – Chuck: Can you give us an introduction to what CanJS 4.0?

2:11 – Justin: It is a JavaScript framework and is similar to Vue. It adds a very model layer, and uses Real Time very well.

2:44 – Panelist.

2:49 – Justin.

2:55 – Panelist: What is the current...

3:09 – Justin: Compatibility is very important to us. A lot of the same tools are still available. It has over 80 different repositories.

Justin continues to talk about the differences/similarities between the different versions.

4:55 – Panelist: Angular, React, and Vue are dominating, so I have 2 questions.

1.) Where is the core strength of JS and its user base?

2.) What is like to be the CanJS when everyone is talking about the other programs?

5:31 – Justin: We have dealt with this for the past 10 years. Emotionally it’s not great, I wished it was more popular, but our priority is keeping our user-based happy. We’ve had big companies use it.

Justin answers the second question.

8:44 – Panelist: You mentioned two things.

9:22 – Aimee: I think everything has trade-offs. I would use something because it was the right tool for the job. I wouldn’t want to make something that was “cool.” I would want to make it super accessible in a network.

10:10 – Justin: That is a great marketing angle. We are trying to remove the worst parts of the program.

10:26 – Now I am intrigued.

10:32 – Justin: You have this mutable state and you aren’t sure. At least for CanJS I don’t see that occurring too often.

10:54 – Aimee.

10:58 – Justin: Deep inheritance is definitely a problem and it can create...

11:13 – Aimee.

11:19 – Justin: We have changed strategies a lot, and I think it’s helped CanJS grow; like 60% since January. We are doing a lot of user studies now. I run Meetups, etc. That being said inheritance schemes aren’t something that people will encounter. This is something that they won’t encounter months down the road.

13:00 – Aimee.

13:05 – Panelist: I would like to dig deeper into state-management. Everyone is doing Flux, talk about that with CanJS.

13:20 – Justin: Yeah. It depends on what kind of user you are talking to. When I talk to new users off the street (people who just graduated, etc.)...

If you look at React’s statistics – more than 50% doesn’t use any state management.

16:15 – Panelist: I think it’s interesting that there are people that aren’t “oh my gosh...”

16:43 – Justin: The last coolest thing I’ve done is...

18:02 – Justin continues.

18:16 – Panelist: I kind of have this belief that we as a community turn to frameworks and tools too much. From your perspective when does it make sense to turn to a tool like this or better off working with native...

18:56 – It depends on how complex your app is and our ability to work through those problems. I think that’s a generic answer, but hopefully that helps. I don’t think you really can’t live without.

19:49 – Panelist: I think that’s fair. One thing that I found is that there are many things layered into state-management. Because you mentioned performance, which is something I care about, too. At what point does the extra tooling become too heavy for the user’s experience? Where do you draw the line?

21:11 – Justin: It depends. I don’t know what the parallel is – it’s like a richer developer problem. You have too many users where you can make those fine tuned adjustments. Do whatever is going to deliver the product first and then worry about performance later? I think our things are geared towards performance by default.

22:41 – Panelist: Playing devil’s advocate, though. But isn’t there some danger in kind of suggesting that you focus on performance WHEN it’s a business issue? Maybe there is there a lack of empathy among developers. I worry that advice is hurting us.

23:53 – Justin: No matter what you can build your homepage with Angular weird monstrosity, but then when you get to the point when people are using your product – you can just use native HTML, and native methods and build that one widget and as easy and fast as possible.

24:50 – Panelist: Dealing with complexity. Now we need to do things like bundlers, and such to deal with this issue. I feel like a crotchety old man yelling because it takes forever.

25:38 – Justin: I think it depends on where you are sitting. I think that comes down to the design. If your design has a lot of complex states, then...

26:37 – Panelist: Because you care about performance...

26:54 – Advertisement

27:53 – Justin: I don’t think that the run time of CanJS is going to be a critical performance path for anybody. Is there a responsibility? This is the oldest question. It’s like saying: where do you draw the line that you need to choose success/be elected to fight the battles if you really want to win.

You need someone using your product or it doesn’t really matter. Start-ups use our product because they need to get something up and in. I am going to flip this back onto you guys.

30:48 – Panelist: I think that’s fair.

31:00 – Aimee: I have a question. You got into consultancy when do you recommend using CanJS or something else?

31:15 – Justin: I always suggest people using CanJS.

31:53 – Aimee: What do these people do when their contract is over? I have used an older version of Can, and...

32:20 – Justin: Are you on Gitter?

Aimee: No, I am not.

32:25 – Justin: We do offer promote job posting to help them find somebody. We try our best to help people in any way we can.

33:05 – Aimee: That’s helpful. Another question.

33:28 – Justin: DoneJS is that. It uses the full kitchen sink. That’s what DoneJS is.

33:50 – Panelist: Let’s talk about CanJS in the mark-up. Do you think it’s better now or worse than 2012? Less space or more space?

34:13 – Justin: It’s probably worse. I think the methodology that we are using: focusing on our users. We get their feedback frequently. We are listening to our users, and I think we are being smarter.

35:16 – Panelist: Is the space getting more welcoming or less?

35:31 – It depends on what framework you are. It’s very hard to compete if you are the exact same thing as...

The market is so dense and there are so many ideas, so it’s getting harder and harder. What helps people break-through? Is it the technology or the framework?

36:36 – Panelist: I appreciate the richness of the field, as it exists right now. There aren’t a few things SMELT and ELM

37:10 – Justin: Elm for sure. I don’t have a lot of experience with SMELT.

37:23 – Panelist continues the talk.

37:54 – Chuck.

38:00 – Justin: I think it spreads by word-of-mouth. I used to think it was “technology” or... all that really matters is “can you deliver” and the person have a good experience.

Usability is the most important to me. We will see how this turns out. I will be either right or wrong.

39:18 – Panelist: Can we talk about the long-term future of Can JS?

39:28 – Justin: We are connecting to our user-base and making them happy. If I had it my way (which I don’t anymore) I think JSX is the best template language. We have been building integrations between JSX and...

I am putting out proposals where most people don’t like them.

Justin continues this conversation.

44:24 – Picks!

44:28 - Advertisement

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JSJ 334: “Web Performance API” with Dan Shappir

Tue, 09 Oct 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Special Guests: Dan Shappir (Tel Aviv)

In this episode, the panel talks with Dan Shappir who is a computer software developer and performance specialist at Wix.com. As Dan states, his job is to make 100 million websites (hosted on the Wix platform) load and execute faster! Past employment includes working for companies, such as: Ericom, Ericom Software, and BackWeb. He studied at Technion Institute of Management and currently lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. The panel talks about web performance API among other things. Check it out!

Show Topics:

1:29 – Charles: Let us know who you are and why you’re famous!

1:39 – “Hello!” from Dan Shappir.

2:25 – Charles: You should say that you go to EACH site EVERY day out of the millions of sites out there.

2:53 – Charles: My mom mentioned Wix to me at first. My mom teaches High School Math.

3:16 – Dan: Yes that is our mission statement. That everyone can get a website without the knowledge of how to build a website.

3:52 – Aimee makes her comments.

3:59 – Dan: On our platform we try to offer people flexibility. There are bounds and limits, but people can do their very own thing, though. To make Wix faster because as we add more features and functionality that is our goal.

4:40 – Chuck: Okay, I know how to make X perform a little bit better. You are looking at a platform that controls TONS of sites, how do you even go about that?

4:58 – Dan: It is more difficult then that. We have millions of users leveraging the platform but there are a lot of developers in Wix who are developing the platform. I don’t think anyone at Wix has a total grasp of the complexity of the platform that we built. We have hundreds of frontend people working on our platform. All of them have pieces to the kingdom. We have processes in place with code reviews and whatnot, but there is so much going on. There is a change every 2 minutes, 24/7. We need to make sure progressing instead of regressing.

6:54 – Aimee: I think it was interesting in one of the links you sent over. Because you know when something is getting worse you consider that a bug.

7:15 – Dan: It is more than a bug because if we see regression in performance then that is a problem. I can literally see any part of the organization and say, “stop” if it will

7:57 – Chuck: We are talking about performance, but what does that mean? What measures are there?

8:15: Dan: We are looking at performance can mean different things in different contents. User sites, for example, most important aspect is load time. How quickly the page loads and gets open to the viewer to that specific site. When they click something they want it instantly and no drag time. It does change in different contexts.

9:58 – Chuck: People do talk about load time. People have different definitions of it.

10:12: Dan: Excellent question. When you look at the different sites through Wix. Different people who build sites – load time can mean something else to everybody. It can mean when you see the MAIN text or the MAIN image. If it’s on an ECON site then how soon can they purchase or on a booking site, how long can the person book X product.

I heard someone at a conference say that load time is when: HERO TEXT And HERO IMAGE are displayed.

12:14 – Chuck: What is faster React or Vue?

12:21 – NEW HOST: Not sure. It all depends.

12:34 – Dan: We are big into React. We are one of the big React users outside of Facebook. I joined Wix four years ago, and even back then we were rebuilding our framework using React. One of our main modifications is because we wanted to do server-side rendered.

13:27 – Christopher asks Dan a question.

14:16 – Dan: We are in transition in this regard. Before we were totally client-site rendered, and that was the case until middle of last year. Then we deployed...

Dan: We are 100% server-side rendered now. Some things we are still using JavaScript. We have another project going on now and it’s fully CSS, and little JavaScript as possible. What you might want to do with that site is...

You might get in a few months every Wix site will be visible even if JavaScript is disabled.

16:26 – Aimee adds in her comments and observations to this topic.

16:55 – Dan: We don’t want things displayed incorrectly before it lays out. We hide the content while it’s downloading then make it visible. They lay-outing are done faster, because...

17:44 – Christopher asks Dan a question.

18:04 – Dan: I got into API...

Either you are moving forward or are you moving back. AKA – You are either progressing or regressing.

Different stages:

1.) Development stage

2.) Pre-Production (automated tools that check the performance with specific use cases)

3.) Check it out!

It’s beneficial to use these APIs.

21:11 – Christopher: What is performance APIs?

21:38 – Dan: There is a working group – Todd from Microsoft and others who are exposing the information (that is available in the browser) out into the browser. When the browser downloads a certain source (image, font, etc.) it can measure the various stages of downloading that feature. You have these different sages of downloading this resource. The browser can measure each of these stages and then expose them to you. Basically it’s for the browser to expose this information to you and in a way that is coherent and uniform. It essentially maintains this buffer that puts performance entries sequentially.

Dan continues explaining this topic in detail.

25:55 – Dan: You have this internal buffer...

28:45 – Advertisement – Sentry – They support opensource.

29:39 – Christopher: everything you are saying seems that I can use this or that tab right now...

Why would I prefer the API to something visual, hypothetically?

30:03 – Dan: Three Different Stages. (See above.)

This information is very, very helpful during the developmental stage. Say you got a link from someone...

Dan mentions: Performance.mark

34:04 – Aimee: When you were talking about resource-ends. Many people don’t know what this is. Can you spend 2-3 minutes about how you guys are using these? Are there people can add for big bang for their buck?

34:41 – Dan: This might want to be a topic for its own podcast show.

Dan gives a definition of what a resource-end means.

Go back to fonts as an example.

Pre-connect for example, too.

39:03 – Dan: Like I said, it’s a huge topic.

You have to exercise some care. Bandwidth is limited. Make sure you aren’t blocking other resources that you do need right now.

40:02 – Aimee: Sounds like a lot of great things to tap into. Another question I have is about bundling.

40:27 – Dan: One of the things that we try to do (given that we are depending on the JavaScript we are downloading) we need to download JavaScript content to the client side. It has been shown often that JS is the most impactful resources that you need to download. You really want to be as smart as possible with that. What is even more challenging is the network protocols are changing.

Dan continues to go in-depth about this topic.

Dan: What we have found is that you want to strive to bundle resources together.

44:10 – Aimee: Makes sense.

44:15 – Dan continues talking about this topic.

45:23 – Chuck asks two questions. (First question is now and second question is at 51:32.)

2 Questions:

1. You gather information from web performance AI - What system is that?

45:42 – Dan: I am not the expert in that. I will try not to give misleading information. Actually let me phrase it different. There are 3rd party tools that you can use leverage in your website. IF you are building for commercial reasons I highly recommend that you use performance-monitoring solution. I am not going to advertise one because there are tons out there. We ended up rolling out our own infrastructure because our use case is different than most.

At a conference I talked with a vendor and we talked about...

51:32 – 2nd Question from Charles to Dan: Now you’ve gathered this information now what to you do? What patterns? What do you look for? And how do you decide to optimize things?

54:23 – Chuck: Back to that question, Dan. How should they react to it and what are they looking for

54:41 – Dan: Three main ways: 1.) Generate alerts 2.) See trends over long period of time 3.) Looking at real-time graphs.

Frontend developer pro is that likely being woken up in the middle of the night is lower. We might be looking at the real time graph after we deployed...

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JSJ 333: “JavaScript 2018: Things You Need to Know, and a Few You Can Skip” with Ethan Brown

Tue, 02 Oct 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Special Guests: Ethan Brown

In this episode, the panel talks with Ethan Brown who is a technological director at a small company. They write software to facilitate large public organizations and help make projects more effective, such as: rehabilitation of large construction projects, among others. There is a lot of government work through the endeavors they encounter. Today, the panel talks about his article he wrote, and other topics such as Flex, Redux, Ruby, Vue.js, Automerge, block chain, and Elm. Enjoy!

Show Topics:

2:38 – Chuck: We are here to talk about the software side of things.

Let’s dive into what you are looking at mid-year what we need to know for 2018. You wrote this.

3:25 – Ethan: I start off saying that doing this podcast now, how quickly things change. One thing I didn’t think people needed to know was symbols, and now that’s changed. I had a hard time with bundling and other things. I didn’t think the troubles were worth it. And now a couple of moths ago (an open source project) someone submitted a PR and said: maybe we should be using symbols? I told them I’ve had problems in the past. They said: are you crazy?!

It’s funny to see how I things have changed.

4:47 – Panel: Could you talk about symbols?

4:58 – Aimee: Are they comparable to Ruby?

5:05 – Ethan talks about what symbols are and what they do!

5:52 – Chuck: That’s pretty close to how that’s used in Ruby, too.

6:04 – Aimee: I haven’t used them in JavaScript, yet. When have you used them recently?

6:15 – Ethan answers the question.

7:17 – Panelist chimes in.

7:27 – Ethan continues his answer. The topic of “symbols” continues. Ethan talks about Automerge.

11:18 – Chuck: I want to dive-into what you SHOULD know in 2018 – does this come from your experience? Or how did you drive this list?

11:40 – Ethan: I realize that this is a local business, and I try to hear what people are and are not using. I read blogs. I think I am staying on top of these topics being discussed.

12:25 – Chuck: Most of these things are what people are talking.

12:47 – Aimee: Web Assembly. Why is this on the list?

12:58 – Ethan: I put on the list, because I heard lots of people talk about this. What I was hearing the echoes of the JavaScript haters. They have gone through a renaissance. Along with Node, and React (among others) people did get on board. There are a lot of people that are poisoned by that. I think the excitement has died down. If I were to tell a story today – I would

14:23 – Would you put block chain on there? And AI?

14:34 – Panel: I think it’s something you should be aware of in regards to web assembly. I think it will be aware of. I don’t know if there is anything functional that I could use it with.

15:18 – Chuck: I haven’t really played with it...

15:27 – Panel: If you wrote this today would you put machine learning on there?

15:37 – Ethan: Machine Learning...

16:44 – Chuck: Back to Web Assembly. I don’t think you were wrong, I think you were early. Web Assembly isn’t design just to be a ... It’s designed to be highly optimized for...

17:45 – Ethan: Well-said. Most of the work I do today we are hardly taxing the devices we are using on.

18:18 – Chuck and panel chime in.

18:39 – Chuck: I did think the next two you have on here makes sense.

18:54 – Panel: Functional programming?

19:02 – Ethan: I have a lot of thoughts on functional programming and they are mixed. I was exposed to this in the late 90’s. It was around by 20-30 years. These aren’t new. I do credit JavaScript to bring these to the masses. It’s the first language I see the masses clinging to. 10 years ago you didn’t see that. I think that’s great for the programming community in general. I would liken it to a way that Ruby on Rails really changed the way we do web developing with strong tooling. It was never really my favorite language but I can appreciate what it did for web programming. With that said...(Ethan continues the conversation.)

Ethan: I love Elm.

21:49 – Panelists talks about Elm.

*The topic diverts slightly.

22:23 – Panel: Here’s a counter-argument. Want to stir the pot a little bit.

I want to take the side of someone who does NOT like functional programming.

24:08 – Ethan: I don’t disagree with you. There are some things I agree with and things I do disagree with. Let’s talk about Data Structures. I feel like I use this everyday. Maybe it’s the common ones. The computer science background definitely helps out.

If there was one data structure, it would be TREES. I think STACKS and QUEUES are important, too. Don’t use 200-300 hours, but here are the most important ones. For algorithms that maybe you should know and bust out by heart.

27:48 – Advertisement for Chuck’s E-book Course: Get A Coder Job

28:30 – Chuck: Functional programming – people talk bout why they hate it, and people go all the way down and they say: You have to do it this way....

What pay things will pay off for me, and which things won’t pay off for me? For a lot of the easy wins it has already been discussed. I can’t remember all the principles behind it. You are looking at real tradeoffs. You have to approach it in another way. I like the IDEA that you should know in 2018, get to know X, Y, or Z, this year. You are helping the person guide them through the process.

30:18 – Ethan: Having the right tools in your toolbox.

30:45 – Panel: I agree with everything you said, I was on board, until you said: Get Merge Conflicts.

I think as developers we are being dragged in...

33:55 – Panelist: Is this the RIGHT tool to use in this situation?

34:06 – Aimee: If you are ever feeling super imposed about something then make sure you give it a fair shot, first.

34:28 – That’s the only reason why I keep watching DC movies.

34:41 – Chuck: Functional programming and...

I see people react because of the hype cycle. It doesn’t fit into my current paradigm. Is it super popular for a few months or...?

35:10 – Aimee: I would love for someone to point out a way those pure functions that wouldn’t make their code more testable.

35:42 – Ethan: Give things a fair shake. This is going back a few years when React was starting to gain popularity. I had young programmers all about React. I tried it and mixing it with JavaScript and...I thought it was gross. Everyone went on board and I had to make technically decisions. A Friend told me that you have to try it 3 times and give up 3 times for you to get it. That was exactly it – don’t know if that was prophecy or something. This was one of my bigger professional mistakes because team wanted to use it and I didn’t at first. At the time we went with Vue (old dog like me). I cost us 80,000 lines of code and how many man hours because I wasn’t keeping an open-mind?

37:54 – Chuck: We can all say that with someone we’ve done.

38:04 – Panel shares a personal story.

38:32 – Panel: I sympathize because I had the same feeling as automated testing. That first time, that automated test saved me 3 hours. Oh My Gosh! What have I been missing!

39:12 – Ethan: Why should you do automated testing? Here is why...

You have to not be afraid of testing. Not afraid of breaking things and getting messy.

39:51 – Panel: Immutability?

40:00 – Ethan talks about this topic.

42:58 – Chuck: You have summed up my experience with it.

43:10 – Panel: Yep. I agree. This is stupid why would I make a copy of a huge structure, when...

44:03 – Chuck: To Joe’s point – but it wasn’t just “this was a dumb way” – it was also trivial, too. I am doing all of these operations and look my memory doesn’t go through the roof. They you see it pay off. If you don’t see how it’s saving you effort, at first, then you really understand later.

44:58 – Aimee: Going back to it being a functional concept and making things more testable and let it being clearly separate things makes working in code a better experience.

As I am working in a system that is NOT a pleasure.

45:31 – Chuck: It’s called legacy code...

45:38 – What is the code year? What constitutes a legacy application?

45:55 – Panel: 7 times – good rule.

46:10 – Aimee: I am not trolling. Serious conversation I was having with them this year.

46:27 – Just like cars.

46:34 – Chuck chimes in with his rule of thumb.

46:244 – Panel and Chuck go back-and-forth with this topic.

47:14 – Dilbert cartoons – check it out.

47:55 – GREAT QUOTE about life lessons.

48:09 – Chuck: I wish I knew then what I know now.

Data binding. Flux and Redux. Lots of this came out of stuff around both data stores and shadow domes. How do you tease this out with the stuff that came out around the same time?

48:51 – Ethan answers question.

51:17 – Panel chimes in.

52:01 – Picks!

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JSJ 332: “You Learned JavaScript, Now What?” with Chris Heilmann

Tue, 25 Sep 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Special Guests: Chris Heilmann

In this episode, the panel talks with programmer, Chris Heilmann. He has written books about JavaScript, in addition to writing a blog about it and is an educator about this program. He currently resides in Berlin, Germany. Let’s welcome our special guest and listen to today’s episode!

Show Topics:

2:19 – Chuck talks.

2:41 – Chris: He has talked about JavaScript in Berlin upon an invitation. You can get five different suggestions about how to use JavaScript. The best practices, I have found, are on the projects I am on now. JavaScript was built in ten days. My goal is to help people navigate through JavaScript and help them feel not disenfranchised.

5:47 – Aimee: The overall theme is...

5:54 – Panelist: I really like what you said about helping people not feeling disenfranchised.

6:47 – Chris: There is a lot of peer pressure at peer conferences

7:30 – Aimee chimes in with some comments.

7:50: Chris: I think we need to hunt the person down that put...

8:03 – Panelist: A good point to that is, I try to avoid comments like, “Well, like we ALL know...”

8:27 – Chris: There are things NOT to say on stage. It happens, but we don’t want to say certain things while we are teaching people. We are building products with different groups, so keep that in mind.

9:40 – Aimee: My experience in doing this is that I have found it very rewarding to share embarrassing experiences that I’ve had. My advice would to tell people to let their guard down. It’s encouraging for me.

10:26 – Chris: It helps to show that you are vulnerable and show that you are still learning, too. We are all learning together. 90% of our job is communicating with others.

11:05 – Chuck: Now, I do want to ask this...

11:35 – Chris answers.

12:24 – What makes you say that? (Question to Chris)

12:25 – Chris answers.

13:55 – Chuck: The different systems out there are either widely distributed or...

You will have to work with other people. There is no way that people can make that on their own. If you can’t work with other people, then you are a hindrance.

14:31 – Aimee chimes in.

14:53 – Chris: They have to be very self-assured. I want to do things that are at the next level. Each developer has his or her own story. I want to move up the chain, so I want to make sure these developers are self-assured.

16:07 – Chris: Back to the article...

18:26 – Chuck: Yes, I agree. Why go and fight creating a whole system when it exists.

18:54 – Chris chimes in with some comments.

19:38 – Panelist: I still use console logs.

19:48 – Chris: We all do, but we have to...

19:55 – Aimee: In the past year, I can’t tell you how much I rely on this. Do I use Angular? Do I learn Vue? All those things that you can focus on – tools.

10:21 – Chris: We are talking about the ethics of interfaces. Good code is about accessibility, privacy and maintainability, among others. Everything else is sugar on top. We are building products for other people.

22:10 – Chuck: That is the interesting message in your post, and that you are saying: having a deep, solid knowledge of React (that is sort of a status thing...). It is other things that really do matter. It’s the impact we are having. It’s those things that will make the difference. Those things people will want to work with and solves their problems.

23:00 – Chris adds his comments. He talks about Flash.

24:05 – Chris: The librarian motto: “I don’t know everything, but I can look “here” to find the answer.” We don’t know everything.

24:31 – Aimee: Learn how to learn.

24:50 – Chris: There is a big gap in the market. Scratch is a cool tool and it’s these puzzle pieces you put together. It was hard for me to use that system. No, I don’t want to do that. But if you teach the kids these tools then that’s good.

24:56 – Chuck: Here is the link, and all I had to do was write React components.

26:12 – Chris: My first laptop was 5x more heavy then this one is. Having access to the Internet is a blessing.

27:24 – Advertisement

28:21 – Chuck: Let’s bring this back around. If someone has gone through boot camp, you are recommending that they get use to know their editor, debugging, etc.

Chris: 28:47 – Chris: Yes, get involved within your community. GitHub. This is a community effort. You can help. Writing code from scratch is not that necessary anymore. Why rebuild something if it works. Why fix it if it’s not broken?

31:00 – Chuck talks about his experience.

31:13 – Chris continues his thoughts.

Chris: Start growing a community.

32:01 – Chuck: What ways can people get involved within their community?

32:13 – Chris: Meetup. There are a lot of opportunities out there. Just going online and seeing where the conferences

34:08 – Chris: It’s interesting when I coach people on public speaking. Sharing your knowledge and learning experience is great!

34:50 – Chuck: If they are learning how to code then...by interacting with people you can get closer to what you need/want.

35:30 – Chris continues this conversation.

35:49 – Chris: You can be the person that helps with x, y, z. Just by getting your name known then you can get a job offer.

36:23 – Chuck: How do you find out what is really good content – what’s worth your time vs. what’s not worth your time?

36:36 –Chris says, “That’s tricky!” Chris answers the question.

37:19: Chris: The best things out there right now is...

38:45 – Chuck: Anything else that people want to bring up?

39:00 – Chris continues to talk.

42:26 – Aimee adds in her thoughts.

Aimee: I would encourage people to...

43:00 – Chris continues the conversation.

Chris: Each project is different, when I build a web app is different then when I build a...

45:07 – Panelist: I agree. You talked about abstractions that don’t go away. You use abstractions in what you use. At some point, it’s safe to rly on this abstraction, but not this one. People may ask themselves: maybe CoffeeScript wasn’t the best thing for me.

46:11 – Chris comments and refers to jQuery.

48:58 – Chris continues the conversation.

Chris: I used to work on eight different projects and they worked on different interfaces. I learned about these different environments. This is the project we are now using, and this will like it for the end of time. This is where abstractions are the weird thing. What was the use of the abstraction if it doesn’t have longevity? I think we are building things too soon and too fast.

51:04 – Chris: When I work in browsers and come up with brand new stuff.

52:21 – Panelist: Your points are great, but there are some additional things we need to talk about. Let’s take jQuery as an example. There is a strong argument that if you misuse the browser...

53:45 – Chris: The main issue I have with jQuery is that people get an immediate satisfaction. What do we do besides this?

55:58 – Panelist asks Chris further questions.

56:25 – Chris answers.

Chris: There are highly frequent websites that aren’t being maintained and they aren’t maintainable anymore.

57:09 – Panelist: Prototypes were invented because...

57:51 – Chris: It’s a 20/20 thing.

58:04 – Panelist: Same thing can be said about the Y2K.

58:20 – Panelist: Yes, they had to solve that problem that day. The reality is...

58:44 – Chris: We learned from that whole experience.

1:00:51 – Chris: There was a lot of fluff around it.

1:01:35 – Panelist: Being able to see the future would be a very helpful thing.

1:01:43 – Chris continues the conversation.

1:02:44 – Chuck: How do people get ahold of you?

1:03:04 – Twitter is probably the best way.

1:03:32 – Let’s go to picks!

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JSJ 331: “An Overview of JavaScript Testing in 2018” with Vitali Zaidman

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Special Guests: Vitali Zaidman

In this episode, the panel talks with programmer, Vitali Zaidman, who is working with Software Solutions Company. He researches technologies and starts new projects all the time, and looks at these new technologies within the market. The panel talks about testing JavaScript in 2018 and Jest.

Show Topics:

1:32 – Chuck: Let’s talk about testing JavaScript in 2018.

1:53 – Vitali talks about solving problems in JavaScript.

2:46 – Chuck asks Vitali a question.

3:03 – Vitali’s answer.

3:30 – Why Jest? Why not Mocha or these other programs?

3:49 – Jest is the best interruption of what testing should look like and the best practice nowadays. There are different options, they can be better, but Jest has this great support from their community. There are great new features.

4:31 – Chuck to Joe: What are you using for testing nowadays?

4:43 – Joe: I use Angular, primarily.

6:01 – Like life, it’s sometimes easier to use things that make things very valuable.

7:55 – Aimee: I have heard great things about Cypress, but at work we are using another program.

8:22 – Vitali: Check out my article.

8:51 – Aimee: There are too many problems with the program that we use at work.

9:39 – Panelist to Vitali: I read your article, and I am a fan. Why do you pick Test Café over Cypress, and how familiar are you with Cypress? What about Selenium and other programs?

10:12 – Vitali: “Test Café and Cypress are competing head-to-head.”

Listen to Vitali’s suggestions and comments per the panelists’ question at this timestamp.

11:25 – Chuck: I see that you use sign-on...

12:29 – Aimee: Can you talk about Puppeteer? It seems promising.

12:45 – Vitali: Yes, Puppeteer is promising. It’s developed by Google and by Chrome. You don’t want to use all of your tests in Puppeteer, because it will be really hard to do in other browsers.

13:26: Panelist: “...5, 6, 7, years ago it was important of any kind of JavaScript testing you had no idea if it worked in one browser and it not necessarily works in another browser. That was 10 years ago. Is multiple browsers testing as important then as it is now?

14:51: Vitali answers the above question.

15:30 – Aimee: If it is more JavaScript heavy then it could possibly cause more problems.

15:56 – Panelist: I agree with this.

16:02 – Vitali continues this conversation with additional comments.

16:17 – Aimee: “I see that Safari is the new Internet Explorer.”

16:23: Chuck: “Yes, you have to know your audience. Are they using older browsers? What is the compatibility?”

17:01 – Vitali: There are issues with the security. Firefox has a feature of tracking protection; something like that.

17:33 – Question to Vitali by Panelist.

17:55 – Vitali answers the question.

18:30 – Panelist makes additional comments.

18:43 – If you use Safari, you reap what you sow.

18:49 – Chuck: I use Chrome on my iPhone. (Aimee does, too.) Sometimes I wind up in Safari by accident.

19:38 – Panelist makes comments.

19:52 – Vitali tells a funny story that relates to this topic.

20:45 – There are too many standards out there.

21:05 – Aimee makes comments.

21:08 – Brutalist Web Design. Some guy has this site – Brutalist Web Design – where he says use basic stuff and stop being so custom. Stop using the web as some crazy platform, and if your site is a website that can be scrolled through, that’s great. It needs to be just enough for people to see your content.

22:16 – Aimee makes additional comments about this topic of Brutalist Web Design.

22:35 – Panelist: I like it when people go out and say things like that.

22:45 – Here is the point, though. There is a difference between a website and a web application. Really the purpose is to read an article.

23:37 – Vitali chimes in.

24:01 – Back to the topic of content on websites.

25:17 – Panelist: Medium is very minimal. Medium doesn’t feel like an application.

26:10 – Is the website easy enough for the user to scroll through and get the content like they want to?

26:19 – Advertisement.

27:22 – See how far off the topic we got?

27:31 – These are my favorite conversations to have.

27:39 – Vitali: Let’s talk about how my article got so popular. It’s an interesting thing, I started researching “testing” for my company. We wanted to implement one of the testing tools. Instead of creating a presentation, I would write first about it in Medium to get feedback from the community as well. It was a great decision, because I got a lot of comments back. I enjoyed the experience, too. Just write about your problem in Medium to see what people say.

28:48 – Panelist: You put a ton of time and energy in this article. There are tons of links. Did you really go through all of those articles?

29:10 – Yes, what are the most permanent tools? I was just reading through a lot of comments and feedback from people. I tested the tools myself, too!

29:37 – Panelist: You broke down the article, and it’s a 22-minute read.

30:09 – Vitali: I wrote the article for my company, and they ad to read it.

30:24 – Panelist: Spending so much time – you probably felt like it was apart of your job.

30:39 – Vitali: I really like creating and writing. It was rally amazing for me and a great experience. I feel like I am talented in this area because I write well and fast. I wanted to express myself.

31:17 – Did you edit and review?

31:23 – Vitali: I wrote it by myself and some friends read it. There were serious mistakes, and that’s okay I am not afraid of mistakes. This way you get feedback.

32:10 – Chuck: “Some people see testing in JavaScript, and people look at this and say there are so much here. Is there a place where people can start, so that way they don’t’ get too overwhelmed? Is there a way to ease into this and take a bite-size at a time?”

32:52 – Vitali: “Find something that works for them. Read the article and start writing code.”

He continues this conversation from here on out.

34:03 – Chuck continues to ask questions and add other comments.

34:16 – Vitali chimes-in.

34:38 – Chuck.

34:46 – Vitali piggybacks off of Chuck’s comments.

36:14 – Panelist: Let’s go back to Jest. There is a very common occurrence where we see lots of turn and we see ideas like this has become the dominant or the standard, a lot of people talk about stuff within this community. Then we get this idea that ‘this is the only thing that is happening.’ Transition to jQuery to React to... With that context do you feel like Jest will be a dominant program? Are we going to see Jest used just as common as Mocha and other popular programs?

38:15 – Vitali comments on the panelist’s question.

38:50 – Panelist: New features. Are the features in Jest (over Jasmine, Mocha, etc.) so important that it will drive people to it by itself?

40:30 – Vitali comments on this great question.

40:58 – Panelist asks questions about features about Jest.

41:29 – Vitali talks about this topic.

42:14 – Let’s go to picks!

42:14 – Advertisement.

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Picks:

AJ O’Neal

Joe Eames

Aimee Knight

Chuck

Vitali

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JSJ 330: “AWS: Amplify” with Nader Dabit

Tue, 11 Sep 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight
Joe Eames

Special Guests: Nader Dabit

In this episode, the panel talks with programmer, Nader Dabit, who has been with Amazon’s AWS for the past six months. They discuss the new innovations that Amazon is currently working on, and the exciting new projects that Nader gets to be involved with. Check out this episode to hear all the latest!

Show Topics:

1:45 – There are two main things that Nader works with. Check out this timestamp to see what they are.

3:29 – AJ to Nader: Tell me more about manage cloud. I am not sure about Cognito.

3:56 – Yes, Cognito is used by/through Amazon.

5:06 – What are the other manage cloud services that companies want to offer through the tools you have?

5:12 – Nader answers AJ’s question.

7:30 – Can you give me more specifics on the storage solutions you are offering?

8:03 – Nader answers AJ’s question. People store websites there for example. Frontend developers are using S3 buckets, and they are using the library, which is a storage solution.

9:10 – AJ and Nader are having a dialogue between different situations, and Nader is giving the solutions to those hypothetical situations.

10:17 – AJ: “I am interested in what you are talking about AppSync. Can you tell me how that works?” AJ is picking Nader’s brain about how AppSync works.

11:05 – Nader: “It is a single API layer for a point of entry. You can have multi-data sources.” Nader continues, in detail, answering AJ’s question.

12:36 – AJ: As a frontend developer, it sounds like I will have to become familiar with the backend, too. How is it providing the most value? What is it that I do not have to touch, because I am using this?

15:37 – How would these relations work? As a frontend developer, and I do not want to learn sequel, how would that might look like; currently or in the future? How do you extract that knowledge?

16:18 – Yes, it is not an easy solution to solve. Nader goes into detail about how he would approach this situation.

18:26 – AJ: Are these resolvers written in JavaScript?

22:04 – Acronym fun!

22:45 – Node

23:51 – Summarizing these pasts 20-some-minutes: Off-Storage, AppSync, Landis, and others are what people are using Amplify for. New Question/New Topic: Simplify.

25:45 – AWS MOBILE – is not mobile specific.

26:44 – If you are using Angular, we have a plugin in Angular to help you. We also have that for React and Vue as well.

27:52 – Advertisement

28:56 – What should we be talking about?

29:04 – Let’s talk about Amazon’s Lex, Chat Bot. Nader goes into full detail of this service.

33:52 – Apple T.V.

34:00 – AJ: Sounds like this is more platform/ more agnostic than getting different things to come together, and the Microsoft one is more hybrid and the Amazon one is more open?

35:13 – Joe, let’s go back to what you had to ask.

35:28 – Nader, you talked about PUSH notifications earlier. What is Pub/Sub?

36:30 – Is this like traditional hooks? Or custom?

37:25 – What is the “stuff” that gets you up in the morning and gets you excited to go to work at AWS?

38:40 – Nader: I really had no desire to change career paths, but it happened.

41:30 – AJ: I totally agree with the idea in that finding the common patterns, so that way someone on the lower-level can participate. AJ wants a platform that is open or purchase that can offer some of these benefits. It could be open-source or you used to buy the different tools.

43:27 AJ: What about for the hobbyist?

43:40 – Nader: I agree, that would be really nice. I can’t think of any free services that would be nice.

44:03 AJ – Not free in “free,” but “free” towards the idea of “free speech.” They would all be available and you get to choose what works well for you.

45:00 – SHOUTOUT to LISTENERS: Have an idea about this? Shoot the panel an e-mail!

45:33 – Hopefully this opens the listeners’ eyes to what’s out there.

45:48 – Cloud services.

46:55 – Innovation follows niche markets. When something gets big and established, innovation comes to a plateau. The innovation will develop in a new economic area like hydraulics. AJ thinks a niche will develop.

49:03 – Is there anything, Dabit, which you would like to talk about?

49:15 – Can we talk about AI as a service?

51:10 – Nader saw a demonstration recently.

52:26 – Hearing these implications is so cool, but when it comes to ML a panelist dabbled a little bit. He watched some videos, unless you want to devote a year or two to learning it then it’s too complex to put together. Do you have to be genius-level to get through?

53:29 – ML you are passing data. Nader is not quite sure.

56:00 Nader just did a blog post  check-it-out!

56:49 – Let’s do Picks!

56:50 – Advertisement

Links:

Sponsors:

Picks:

AJ O’Neal

Joe Eames

Framework Summit - Tickets are still available!
Movie: Equalizer 2

Nader Dabit

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JSJ 329: Promises, Promise.finally(), and Async/await with Valeri Karpov

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Valeri Karpov

In this episode, the panel talks with programmer, Valerie Karpov from Miami, Florida. He is quite knowledgeable with many different programs, but today’s episode they talk specifically about Async/Await and Promise Generators. Val is constantly busy through his different endeavors and recently finished his e-book, “Mastering Async/Await.” Check-out Val’s social media profiles through LinkedIn, GitHub, Twitter, and more.

Show Topics:

1:20 – Val has been on previous episodes back in 2013 & 2016.

1:37 – Val’s background. He is very involved with multiple companies. Go checkout his new book!

2:39 – Promises generators. Understand Promises and how things sync with Promises. Val suggests that listeners have an integrated understanding of issues like error handling.

3:57 – Chuck asks a question.

6:25 – Aimee’s asks a question: “Can you speak to why someone would want to use Async/Await?”

8:53 – AJ makes comments.

10:09 – “What makes an Async/Await not functional?” – Val

10:59 – “What’s wrong with Promises or Async/Await that people don’t like it?” - AJ

11:25 – Val states that he doesn’t think there really is anything wrong with these programs it just depends on what you need it for. He thinks that having both gives the user great power.

12:21 – AJ’s background is with Node and the Python among other programs.

12:55 – Implementing Complex Business Logic.

15:50 – Val discusses his new e-book.

17:08 – Question from Aimee.

17:16 – AJ answers question. Promises should have been primitive when it was designed or somewhat event handling.

17:46 – The panel agrees that anything is better than Call Backs.

18:18 – Aimee makes comments about Async/Await.

20:08 – “What are the core principles of your new e-book?” – Chuck

20:17 – There are 4 chapters and Val discusses, in detail, what’s in each chapter.

22:40 – There could be some confusion from JavaScript for someone where this is their first language. Does Async/Await have any affect on the way you program or does anything make it less or more confusing in the background changes?

24:30 – Val answers the before-mentioned question. Async/Await does not have anyway to help with this (data changes in the background).

25:36 – “My procedural code, I know that things won’t change on me because it is procedural code. Is it hard to adjust to that?” – AJ

26:01 – Val answers the question.

26:32 – Building a webserver with Python.

27:31 – Aimee asks a question: “Do you think that there are cases in code base, where I would want to use Promises? Not from a user’s perspective, but what our preferences are, but actual performance. Is there a reason why I would want to use both or be consistent across the board?”

28:17 – Val asks for some clarification to Aimee’s question.

29:14 – Aimee: “My own personal preference is consistency. Would I want to use Promises in ‘x’ scenario and/or use Async/Await in another situation?”

32:28 – Val and AJ are discussing and problem solving different situations that these programs

33:05 – “When would you not want to use Async/Await?” – AJ

33:25 – Val goes through the different situations when he would not use Async/Await.

33:44 – Chuck is curious about other features of Async/Await and asks Val.

36:40 – Facebook’s Regenerator

37:11 – AJ: “Back in the day, people would be really concerned with JavaScript’s performance even with Chrome.” He continues his thoughts on this topic.

38:11 – Val answers the AJ’s question.

39:10 – Duck JS probably won’t include generators.

41:18 – Val: “Have anyone used Engine Script before?” The rest of the panel had never heard of this before.

42:09 – Windows Scripting Host

42:56 – Val used Rhino in the past.

43:40 – Val: “Going back to the web performance question...”

47:08 – “Where do you see using Async/Await the most?” – Chuck

47:55 – Val uses Async/Await for everything on the backend because it has made everything so easy for him.

48:23 – “So this is why you really haven’t used Web Pack?” – AJ

49:20 – Let’s go to Aimee’s Picks!

50:18 – AJ’s story, first, before we get to Promises.

54:44 – Let’s transition to Promises Finally.

54:53 – Val talks about Promises Finally.

59:20 – Picks

Links:

Sponsors:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Blog Post Article

Val

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JSJ 328: Functional Programming with Ramda with Christine Legge

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Joe Eames
Aimee Knight
AJ O'Neal
Joe Eames

Special Guests: Christine Legge

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Christine Legge about functional programming with Ramda. Christine is a front-end software engineer and just recently got a new job in New York working at Google. Ramda is a utility library in JavaScript that focuses on making it easier to write JavaScript code in a functional way. They talk about functional programming and what it is, using Ramda in Redux, and referential transparency. They also touch on why she first got into Ramda, compare Ramda to Lodash and Underscore, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Chirstine intro
Works as a front-end software engineer
What is Ramda?
JavaScript
Utility library like Lodash and Underscore
Lodash and Underscore VS Ramda
Functional programming
Ramda and Functional programming as a mindset
Ramda at ZenHub
Ramda with Redux and React
What is referential transparency?
Why would you use Ramda VS Lodash or Underscore?
Why she first got into Ramda
Didn’t always want to be a programmer
Background in Math
Learning functional programming as a new programmer
Erlang
DrRacket and Java
Ramda makes it easy to compose functions
Creating clean and reusable code
How do you start using Ramda?
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Apple Cider Vinegar
Jeremy Fairbank Talk – Practical Functional Programming

Goat’s Milk

Joe

Christine

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JSJ 327: "Greenlock and LetsEncrypt" with AJ O'Neal

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Joe Eames

Special Guests: AJ O'Neal

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to AJ O'Neal about Greenlock and LetsEncrypt. LetsEncrypt is a brand name and is the first of its kind in automated SSL and Greenlock does what Certbot does in a more simplified form. They talk about what led him to create Greenlock, compare Greenlock to Certbot, and what it’s like to use Greenlock. They also touch on Greenlock-express, how they make Greenlock better, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Greenlock and LetsEncrypt overview
LetsEncrypt is free to get your certificate
Why Charles uses LetsEncrypt
Wildcard domains
Certbot
Why he originally created Greenlock
Working towards home servers
Wanted to get HTTP on small devices
Manages a certificate directory
Greenlock VS Certbot
Greenlock can work stand alone
The best use case for Greenlock
Excited about how people are using his tool
What is it like to use Greenlock?
Working on a desktop client
Greenlock-express
Acme servers
CAA record
Making Greenlock better by knowing how people are using it
Using Greenlock-express
Let's Encrypt v2 Step by Step by AJ
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Take some time off

OverClocked Records

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JSJ 326: Conversation with Ember co-creator Tom Dale on Ember 3.0 and the future of Ember

Tue, 14 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Joe Eames
Aimee Knight
AJ ONeal

Special Guests: Tom Dale

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Tom Dale about Ember 3.0 and the future of Ember. Tom is the co-creator of Ember and is a principle staff engineer at LinkedIn where he works on a team called Presentation Infrastructure. They talk about being in the customer service role, having a collaborative culture, and all the information on Ember 3.0. They also touch on the tendency towards disposable software, the Ember model, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

How Joe met Tom
Programmers as rule breakers
The pressure to conform
Tom intro
Staff engineer at LinkedIn
Customer service role
Having a way to role improvements out to a lot of different people
JavaScript and Ember at LinkedIn
Having a collaborative culture
All about Ember 3.0
Banner feature – there is nothing new
Cracked how you develop software in the open source world that has longevity
Major competition in Backbone previously
The Ember community has never been more vibrant
Tendency towards disposable software
The idea of steady iteration towards improvement
The Ember model
Being different from different frameworks
Ember adoption rates
Python 3
Valuable from a business perspective to use Ember
Ember community being friendly to newbies
How much Ember VS how much JavaScript will a new developer have to learn?
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Joe

Aimee

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham

James Veitch

Tom

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JSJ 325: Practical functional programming in JavaScript and languages like Elm with Jeremy Fairbank

Tue, 07 Aug 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight
Joe Eames
AJ ONeal

Special Guests: Jeremy Fairbank

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Jeremy Fairbank about his talk Practical Functional Programming. Jeremy is a remote software developer and consultant for Test Double. They talk about what Test Double is and what they do there and the 6 things he touched on in his talk, such as hard to follow code, function composition, and mutable vs immutable data. They also touch on the theory of unit testing, if functional programming is the solution, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Jeremy intro
Works for Test Double
What he means by “remote”
What is Test Double?
They believe software is broken and they are there to fix it
His talk - Practical Functional Programming
The 6 things he talked about in his talk
Practical aspects that any software engineer is going to deal with
Purity and the side effects of programming in general
Hard to follow code
Imperative VS declarative code
Code breaking unexpectedly
Mutable data VS immutable data
The idea of too much code
Combining multiple functions together to make more complex functions
Function composition
Elm, Elixir, and F#
Pipe operator
Scary to refactor code
Static types
The idea of null
The theory of unit testing
Is functional programming the solution?
His approach from the talk
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Aimee

American Dollar
Force with lease

Superfight

Joe

Jeremy

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JSJ 324: with Kent Beck

Tue, 31 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Joe Eames
Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Kent Beck

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Kent Beck. Kent left Facebook 4 months ago after working for them for 7 years and is now self-unemployed so that he can decompress from the stressful environment that he was a part of for so long. He now travels, writes, creates art, thinks up crazy programming ideas, and is taking a breather. They talk about what he did at Facebook, what his coaching engagement sessions consisted of, and the importance of taking time for yourself sometimes. They also touch on what he has learned from his experience coaching, how to create a healthy environment within the workplace, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Kent intro/update
Ruby Rogues Episode 23
Worked at Facebook for 7 years
What were you doing at Facebook?
Unique culture at Facebook
His strengths as a developer didn’t match with the organization’s
Coaching developers
TDD and Patterns
Advantages as an old engineer
What did coaching engagement consist of?
Takes time to build trust
Discharging shame
Need permission to take care of what you need to
Being at your best so you can do your best work
Vacation in place
What have you learned in your time working with people?
The nice thing about coaching
Everyone is different
How do we create a healthy environment within the workplace?
Mentor in Ward Cunningham
What is it costing us?
Why did you decide to leave?
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

n-back

Joe

Test Driven Development: By Example by Kent Beck

Kent

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JSJ 323: "Building a JavaScript platform that gives you the power to build your own CDN" with Kurt Mackey

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 19:50:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
AJ ONeal

Special Guests: Kurt Mackey

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Kurt Mackey about Fly.io. At Fly.io, they are "building a JavaScript platform that gives you the power to build your own CDN." They talk about how Fly.io came to fruition, how CDN caching works, and what happens when you deploy a Fly app. They also touch on resizing images with Fly, how you actually build JavaScript platforms using Fly, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Fly.io
Building a programmable CDN
High level overview of Fly.io
How did this project come together?
CDNs didn’t work with dynamic applications
Has been working on this since 2008
Extend application logic to the “edge”
Putting burden of JavaScript “nastiest” onto the web server
Fly is the proxy layer
Getting things closer to visitors and users
CDN caching
Cache APIs
Writing logic to improve your lighthouse score
Have you built in resizing images into Fly?
Managing assets closer to the user
Can you modify your own JavaScript files?
What happens when you deploy a Fly app
Having more application logic
DOM within the proxy
Ghost
React and Gatsby
Intelligently loading client JavaScript
How do you build the JavaScript platform?
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

GitLab

Kurt

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JSJ 322: Building SharePoint Extensions with JavaScript with Vesa Juvonen LIVE at Microsoft Build

Tue, 17 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Vesa Juvonen

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Vesa Juvonen about building SharePoint extensions with JavaScript. Vesa is on the SharePoint development team and is responsible for the SharePoint Framework, which is the modern way of implementing SharePoint customizations with JavaScript. They talk about what SharePoint is, why they chose to use JavaScript with it, and how he maintains isolation. They also touch on the best way to get started with SharePoint, give some great resources to help you use it, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Vesa intro
What is SharePoint?
Has existed since 2009
People either know about it and use it or don’t know what it is
Baggage from a customization perspective
Why JavaScript developers?
Modernizing development
SharePoint Framework
Microsoft Ignite Conference
Is there a market for it?
System integrators
Angular Element and React
React for SharePoint Framework back-end
Supports Vue
React Round Up Podcast
How do you maintain isolation?
What’s the best way to get started with SharePoint extensions?
Office 365 Developer Program
SharePoint documentation
SharePoint YouTube
What kinds of extensions are you seeing people build?
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Vesa

Armada by Ernest Cline

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JSJ 321: Babel and Open Source Software with Henry Zhu

Tue, 10 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
AJ ONeal
Joe Eames

Special Guests: Henry Zhu

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panel talks to Henry Zhu about Babel and open source software. Henry is one of the maintainers on Babel, which is a JavaScript compiler, and recently left this job to work on doing open source full time as well as working on Babel. They talk about where Babel is today, what it actually is, and his focus on his open source career. They also touch on how he got started in open source, his first PR, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Henry intro
Babel update
Sebastian McKenzie was the original creator of Babel
Has learned a lot about being a maintainer
What is Babel?
JavaScript compiler
You never know who your user is
Has much changed with Babel since Sebastian left?
Working on open source
How did you get started in pen source?
The ability to learn a lot from open source
Atrocities of globalization
More decentralization from GitHub
Gitea and GitLab
Gitea installer
Open source is more closed now
His first PR
JSCS
Auto-fixing
Prettier
Learning more about linting
You don’t have to have formal training to be successful
Codefund.io
Sustainability of open source
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Joe

Henry

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JSJ 320: Error Tracking and Troubleshooting Workflows with David Cramer LIVE at Microsoft Build

Tue, 03 Jul 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Alyssa Nicholl
Ward Bell

Special Guests: David Cramer

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk to David Cramer about error tracking and troubleshooting workflows. David is the founder and CEO of Sentry, and is a software engineer by trade. He started this project about a decade ago and it was created because he had customers telling him that things were broken and it was hard to help them fix it. They talk about what Sentry is, errors, workflow management, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

David intro
Founder and CEO of Sentry
What is Sentry?
Working with PHP
De-bugger for production
Focus on workflow
Goal of Sentry
Triaging the problem
Workflow management
Sentry started off as an open-source side project
Instrumentation for JavaScript
Ember, Angular, and npm
Got their start in Python
Logs
Totally open-source
Most compatible with run-time
Can work with any language
Deep contexts
Determining the root cause
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Socks as Swag

David

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JSJ 319: Winamp2-js with Jordan Eldredge

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
AJ ONeal
Aimee Knight
Joe Eames

Special Guests: Jordan Eldredge

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss Winamp2-js with Jordan Eldredge. Jordan is the creator of Winamp2-js and was inspired to create this media player from the old Winamp media player that he used back in the day. They talk about the importance of limitations, the value of having fun side projects, and pushing the boundaries. They also touch on skin parsing, making Webamp an electron app, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is Winamp2-js?
The history and future of Winamp
WACUP
Winamp was the first big mp3 player that you could style
Webamp’s features and the technical challenges associated with them
Why JavaScript?
Creative solutions
Limitations of browser and creating something that previously existed
The importance of limitations
Hadn’t done very much JavaScript prior to this project
Originally created with jQuery
Led him into a career in JavaScript
Pushing the boundaries
Skin parsing
“Bitrot” and making Winamp skins accessible again
The value of side projects, even stupid ones
Architecture docs
What made you choose React and Redux?
Spotiamp (Soptify’s canceled Winamp client)
Making Webamp an Electron app
Winamp visualizers being ported to the web
The domain name webamp.org
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

KA Engineering Principles

Joe

Jordan

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JSJ 318: Cloud-Hosted DevOps with Ori Zohar and Gopinath Chigakkagari LIVE at Microsoft Build

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Ori Zohar and Gopinath Chigakkagari

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss Cloud-Hosted DevOps with Ori Zohar and Gopinath Chigakkagari at Microsoft Build. Ori is on the product team at VSTS focusing on DevOps specifically on Azure. Gopinath is the group program manager in VSTS primarily working on continuous integration, continuous delivery, DevOps, Azure deployment, etc. They talk about the first steps people should take when getting into DevOps, define DevOps the way Microsoft views it, the advantages to automation, and more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Ori and Gopi intro
VSTS – Visual Studio Team Services
VSTS gives developers the ability to be productive
Developer productivity
What’s the first big step people should be taking if they’re getting into DevOps?
The definition of DevOps
The people and the processes as the most important piece
DevOps as the best practices
Automating processes
What people do when things go wrong is what really counts
Letting the system take care of the problems
Have the developers work on what they are actually getting paid for
Trend of embracing DevOps
Shifting the production responsibility more onto the developer’s
Incentivizing developers
People don’t account for integration
Continuous integration
Trends on what customers are asking for
Safety
Docker containers
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Ori

Fitbit
Pacific Northwest Hiking

Gopinath

Seattle, WA

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JSJ 317: Prisma with Johannes Schickling

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
AJ O’Neal

Special Guests: Johannes Schickling

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss Prisma with Johannes Schickling. Johannes is the CEO and co-founder of GraphCool and works with Prisma. They talk about the upcoming changes within GraphCool, what Prisma is, and GraphQL back-end operations. They also touch on the biggest miscommunication about Prisma, how Prisma works, and much more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

JSJ Episode 257
MJS Episode 055
Raised a seed round
Rebranding of GraphCool
What are you wanting to do with the seed money you raised?
Focused on growing his team currently
Making GraphQL easier to do
The change in the way people build software
What is Prisma?
Two things you need to do as you want to adopt GraphQL
Apollo Client and Relay
GraphQL on the back-end
Resolvers
Resolving data in one query
Prisma supports MySQL and PostgreSQL
How do you control access to the GraphQL endpoint that Prisma gives you?
Biggest miscommunication about Prisma
Prisma makes it easier for you to make your own GraphQL server
Application schemas
How do you blend your own resolvers with Prisma?
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Audible
The 5 Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman
Facebook Backyard Homesteader Groups
CharlesMaxWood.com
Sling TV
Roku Express

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Johannes

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 316: Visual Studio Code with Rachel MacFarlane and Matt Bierner LIVE at Microsoft Build

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Rachel MacFarlane and Matt Bierner

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss Visual Studio Code with Rachel MacFarlane and Matt Bierner, who are both developers on Visual Studio Code. They talk about what the workflow at Visual Studio Code looks like, what people can look forward to coming out soon, and how people can follow along the VS Code improvements on GitHub and Twitter. They also touch on their favorite extensions, like the Docker extension and the Azure extension and their favorite VS Code features.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Rachel and Matt intro
Month to month workflow of Visual Studio Code
VS Code JavaScript, TypeScript, and Mark Down support
Working on GitHub and within the community
Check out new features incrementally with insiders
Community driven work
What is coming out in Visual Studio Code?
GitHub helps to determine what they work on
Working on Grid View
Improved settings UI
Highlighting unused variables in your code
Improvements with JS Docs
Dart
Visual Studio Extension API
How do people follow along with the VS Code improvements?
Follow along on GitHub and Twitter
Download VS Code Insiders
Have a general road map of what the plan is for the year
Technical debt week
What do you wish people knew about VS Code?
Favorite extensions
Docker extension and Azure extension
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Charles

Rachel

GitLens

Matt

The Bronx Warriors

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 315: The effects of JS on CSS with Greg Whitworth

Wed, 30 May 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Greg Whitworth

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss the effects of JavaScript on CSS with Greg Whitworth. Greg works on Microsoft EdgeHTML, specifically working on the Microsoft Layout team, is on the CSS working group, and is involved with the Houdini task force. They talk about JS engines and rendering engines, what the CSSOM is, why it is important to understand the rendering engine, and much more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Greg intro
What is the Houdini task force?
Extensible web manifesto
DOM (Document Object Model)
Layout API
Parser API
Babel
jQuery
Back to basics
JavaScript engine and rendering engine
What is the CSSOM?
Every browser has its separate JS engine
Browsers perspective
Aimee ShopTalk Podcast Episode
Why is it important to understand how the rendering engine is working?
Making wise decisions
Give control back to browser if possible
When you would want to use JavaScript or CSS
Hard to make a hard or fast rule
CSS is more performant
Overview of steps
And much, much more!

Links:

Sponsors

Picks:

Microsoft Surface
Microsoft Cursor

Aimee

Greg’s Talk
What Your Conference Proposal Is Missing by Sarah Mei

Greg

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 314: Visual Studio Code and the VS Code Azure Extension with Matt Hernandez and Amanda Silver LIVE at Microsoft Build

Tue, 22 May 2018 12:32:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Matt Hernandez and Amanda Silver

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber/Adventures In Angular, panelists discuss Visual Studio Code and the VS Code Azure Extension with Matt Hernandez and Amanda Silver at Microsoft Build. Amanda is the director of program management at Microsoft working on Visual Studio and VS Code. Matt works on a mix between the Azure and the VS Code team, where he leads the effort to build the Azure extensions in VS code, trying to bring JavaScript developers to Azure through great experiences in VS Code. They talk about what’s new in VS Code, how the Azure extension works, what log points are, and much more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Amanda intro
Matt intro
What’s new in VS Code?
VS Code core
VS Live Share
Shared Terminal
Now have Linux support
Live Share is now public to the world for free
What would you use Shared Terminal for?
Are there other things coming up in VS Code?
Constantly responding to requests from the community
Live Share works for any language
How does the Azure extension work?
Azure App Service
Storage extension
Azure Cosmos DB
What are log points?
All a part of a larger plan to create a better experience for JS developers
Visual debuggers
Is it the same plugin to support everything on Azure?
Want to target specific services that node developers will take advantage of
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Orphan Black
Shout out to VS Code team
Battle of the Books

Matt

Amanda

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 313: Light Functional JavaScript with Kyle Simpson

Tue, 15 May 2018 14:37:00 +0000

Panel:

AJ ONeal
Aimee Knight
Joe Eames

Special Guests: Kyle Simpson

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss light functional JavaScript with Kyle Simpson. Kyle is most well-known for writing the books You Don’t Know JS and is on the show today for his book Functional-Light JavaScript. They talk about what functional programming is, what side-effects are, and discuss the true heart behind functional programming. They also touch on the main focus of functional programming and much more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

You Don’t Know JS
Functional-Light JavaScript
From the same spirit as first books
JavaScript
Documents journey of learning
What does Functional Programming mean?
Functional programming is being re-awoken
Many different definitions
History of functional programming
Programming with functions
What is a function?
“A collection of operations of doing some task” is what people think functions are
What a function really is
Map inputs to outputs
What is a side-effect?
Side-effects should be intentional and explicit
The heart of functional programming
Refactoring
Can’t write a functional program from scratch
What functional programming focuses on
Making more readable and reliable code
Pulling a time-stamp
Defining a side-effect
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Aimee

IKEA

Joe

Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker
Workshops in general

Kyle

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 312: Hygen with Dotan Nahum

Wed, 09 May 2018 18:57:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
AJ ONeal

Special Guests: Dotan Nahum

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss Hygen with Dotan Nahum. Dotan has worked within open source community, where he created Hygen. They talk about what Hygen is, how it came to be, and code generators in general. He was inspired by the Rails generator to create his own generator and took his inspiration from 12 years prior to creating Hygen. They also touch on how to share generators in separate packages and much more!

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Dotan intro
What is Hygen?
Code generators
Rails in 2006
Ruby on Rails 15-minute blog video
PHP and Python
Carried Rails wow moment with him into creating Hygen
Wanted Rails generators everywhere
Can you also modify files?
Took the good things from Rails generator
The fact that front-end apps have architecture is new
Redux
The solution of generating code
A component is a ray of files and assets
JavaScript gives you great freedom
A standardized way of doing components
GraphQL
Everything lives in the “day job” project
How the Hygen template is formatted
Can have a shell action
Is there a way to share generators in a separate package?
Go
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Deep-copying in JavaScript

Dotan

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JSJ 311: Securing Express Apps with Helmet.js with Evan Hahn

Tue, 01 May 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Evan Hahn

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss securing Express apps with Helmet.js with Evan Hahn. Evan is a developer at Airtable, which is a company that builds spreadsheet applications that are powerful enough that you can make applications with. He has also worked at Braintree, which does payment processing for companies. They talk about what Helmet.js is, when you would want to use it, and why it can help secure your Express apps. They also touch on when you wouldn’t want to use Helmet and the biggest thing that it saves you from in your code.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Evan intro
JavaScript
What is Helmet.js?
Node and Express
Why would you use the approach of Middleware?
Helmet is not the only solution
Http headers
Current maintainer of Helmet.js
npm
Has added a lot to the project, but is not the original creator
Outbound HTTP response headers
Helmet doesn’t fully secure your app but it does help secure it
How does using Helmet work?
Are there instances when you wouldn’t want to use Helmet?
No cash middleware
Where do you set the configuration options?
Top level Helmet module
12 modules
What is the biggest thing that Helmet saves you from?
Content security policy code
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Evan

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 310: Thwarting Insider Threats with Greg Kushto

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Cory House
AJ O’Neal
Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Greg Kushto

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss thwarting insider threats with Greg Kushto. Greg is the vice president of sales engineering for Force 3 and has been focused on computer security for the last 25 years. They discuss what insider threats are, what the term includes, and give examples of what insider threats look like. They also touch on some overarching principles that companies can use to help prevent insider threats from occurring.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Greg intro
Insider threats are a passion of his
Most computer attacks come from the inside of the company
Insider threats have changed over time
What does the term “insider threats” include?
Using data in an irresponsible manner
Who’s fault is it?
Blame the company or blame the employee?
Need to understand that insider threats don’t always happen on purpose
How to prevent insider threats
Very broad term
Are there some general principles to implement?
Figure out what exactly you are doing and documenting it
Documentations doesn’t have to be a punishment
Know what data you have and what you need to do to protect it
How easy it is to get hacked
Practical things to keep people from clicking on curious links
The need to change the game
Fighting insider threats isn’t fun, but it is necessary
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Cory

Plop
VS code sync plugin

Aimee

Awesome Proposals GitHub

AJ O’Neal

Fluffy Pancakes
The Mind and the Brain by Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Greg

StormCast

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JSJ 309: WebAssembly and JavaScript with Ben Titzer

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Cory House
Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Ben Titzer

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists discuss WebAssembly and JavaScript with Ben Titzer. Ben is a JavaScript VM engineer and is on the V8 team at Google. He was one of the co-inventors of WebAssembly and he now works on VM engineering as well as other things for WebAssembly. They talk about how WebAssembly came to be and when it would be of most benefit to you in your own code.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Ben intro
JavaScript
Co-inventor of WebAssembly (Wasm)
Joined V8 in 2014
asm.js
Built a JIT compiler to make asm.js faster
TurboFan
What is the role of JavaScript? What is the role of WebAssembly?
SIMD.js
JavaScript is not a statically typed language
Adding SIMD to Wasm was easier
Easy to add things to Wasm
Will JavaScript benefit?
Using JavaScript with Wasm pros and cons
Pros to compiling with Wasm
Statically typed languages
The more statically typed you are, the more you will benefit from Wasm
TypeScript
Is WebAssembly headed towards being used in daily application?
Rust is investing heavily in Wasm
WebAssembly in gaming
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Ready Player One Movie
DevChat.tv YouTube
Alexa Flash Briefings: Add skill for “JavaScript Rants”

Cory

Aimee

Ben

American Politics

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 309: WebAssembly and JavaScript with Ben Titzer

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Cory House
Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Ben Titzer

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Ben intro
JavaScript
Co-inventor of WebAssembly (Wasm)
Joined V8 in 2014
asm.js
Built a JIT compiler to make asm.js faster
TurboFan
What is the role of JavaScript? What is the role of WebAssembly?
SIMD.js
JavaScript is not a statically typed language
Adding SIMD to Wasm was easier
Easy to add things to Wasm
Will JavaScript benefit?
Using JavaScript with Wasm pros and cons
Pros to compiling with Wasm
Statically typed languages
The more statically typed you are, the more you will benefit from Wasm
TypeScript
Is WebAssembly headed towards being used in daily application?
Rust is investing heavily in Wasm
WebAssembly in gaming
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Ready Player One Movie
DevChat.tv YouTube
Alexa Flash Briefings: Add skill for “JavaScript Rants”

Cory

Aimee

Ben

American Politics

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 308: D3.js with Ben Clinkinbeard

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Joe Eames
Cory House
Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Ben Clinkinbeard

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk about D3.js with Ben Clinkinbeard. D3.js is a JavaScript library that has you use declarative code to tell it what you want and then it figures out all of the browser inconsistencies and creates the notes for you. He talks about the two main concepts behind D3, scales and selections, which once you understand make D3 a lot more user friendly. He then touches on SPGs and discusses his Learn D3 in 5 Days course.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is D3.js?
Stands for Data Driven Documents
JavaScript
How much of the learning curve is attributed to learning D3?
SPG
2 main concepts behind D3: scales and selections
Is learning about SPGs a prerequisite to leaning D3?
How serious are you talking when saying idiosyncrasies?
SPG tag
Understanding positioning in SPG
Positions with CSS transforms
Are you required to use SPG?
Not required to use SPG with D3
Canvas
SPG is vector based
SPG utility function
Responseivefy
Learn D3 in 5 Days course
Is there and overlap with D3 and React?
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Cory

React cheat sheet
“Why software engineers disagree about everything” by Haseeb Qureshi

Joe Eames

“JavaScript vs. TypeScript vs. ReasonML” by Dr. Axel Rauschmayer

Aimee

Ben

ComLink

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JSJ 307: Apollo with Peggy Rayzis

Tue, 03 Apr 2018 13:47:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
AJ ONeal

Special Guests: Peggy Rayzis

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk about Apollo with Peggy Rayzis. Peggy is an open source engineer on the Apollo team where she primarily focuses on client stuff, working on Apollo Client, and also other libraries. Previously, she was a UI engineer at Major League Soccer where she worked primarily with React and React Native. She discusses what GraphQL is and how it is used, as well as how they use it in the Apollo team to make their lives as developers easier. They also touch on when it would work best to use GraphQL and when it is not ideal to use it.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

AiA 127 Episode
Peggy intro
What is GraphQL?
What is a Typed Query Language?
What is a schema?
Where do schemas get defined?
GraphQL SDL
Apollo Stack and Apollo Server
Tracing and cash control
Apollo Engine
How GraphQL Replaces Redux
GraphQL cuts down on front-end management
Apollo Link State
The best code is no code
Apollo Client allows for greater developer productivity
Does the conversation change if you’re not using Redux or in a different ecosystem?
When is the right time to use this?
Data doesn’t have to be graph shaped to get the most out of GraphQL
Analyze schema with Apollo Engine
Is there a way to specify depth?
Max Stoiber blog post
How would people start using this?
HowtoGraphQL.com
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

How GraphQL Replaces Redux
JavaScript Meetup in LA

Peggy

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JSJ 306: The Framework Summit with Joe Eames

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Cory House
Aimee Knight
Joe Eames
AJ O'Neal

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk about the Framework Summit. It was the brainchild of Merrick Christensen. This summit includes talks on multiple different frameworks all in a two-day conference, which allows you to get exposed to new frameworks while still learning more about the framework your job requires you to use. Another goal of the conference is that it will be able to open people’s eyes up to the different frameworks available to them and show that no one framework is superior to another.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is the Framework Summit?
The framework you use plays a huge role in your programming
For people who want to learn about more than one framework
Allows you to explore
The format of the conference
Park City, Utah in October 2018
Helps you answer which framework should you use?
Goal is to open people’s eyes up to other frameworks
Decrease internet arguments over which framework is better
Fluent Conference
Get to have conversation with other people who work in your framework
Making connections
React Rally Talk Evan Czaplicki
The context matters
Being able to deep dive into the different frameworks
Using frameworks in conjunction with one another
Have you seen “religionist” themes in programming frameworks?
Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
Some people will never look beyond their frameworks
If it’s working, why would you mess with it?
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Cory

Quokka

Aimee

Joe

Evan Czaplicki Talk

Dinosaurs
Cough Syrup by Young the Giant

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JSJ 305: Continuous Integration, Processes, and DangerJS with Orta Therox

Tue, 20 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Joe Eames
AJ O'Neal
Special Guests: Orta Therox

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk about the tool Danger with Orta Therox. Danger allows you to create cultural rules about your pole request workflow. They discuss what Danger is, how it works, and how it can help you to catch errors and speed up code review. Danger lets you erase discussions so that you can focus on the things that you should really be focusing on, like the code. They also compare Danger to other ways of doing test converge.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is DangerJS?
Think of it as being on the PR level
Provides an eval context
Used on larger projects
React, React Native, Apollo, and RxJS
Experimenting with moving Danger onto a server
Danger can run as a linting step
Pre-commit hooks
Prettier
How do you use Danger on your own machine?
Danger Ruby vs Danger JS
NPM install
How is using Danger better that other ways of test coverage?
What kinds of rules can you write for this system?
Can use with Ruby or JavaScript
React Storybooks
Retrospectives
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Joe

Orta

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 304: React: The Big Picture

Tue, 13 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood
Aimee Knight
Joe Eames
Cory House
AJ O'Neal

Special Guests: None

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk about React: The Big Picture, Cory’s course on Pluralsight and what React is all about. They discuss both the pros and cons when it comes to using React and when it would be the best to use this library. They also encourage programmers to use React in a more consistent way so that people can share components.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is React: The Big Picture course?
React
The frameworks work with each other
Reason and Elm
How to decide when using React is the best option?
React tradeoffs
JavaScript
React expects you to do a little more typing and work
React is very close to JavaScript
React pushes you towards a single file per component
React Round Up
Are the Code Mods as wonderful as they sound?
Angular
Create React App
What are Code Mods?
Lack of opinionated approach in React
Using React in a more consistent way
MobX and Redux
Start off using just plain React
When wouldn’t you want to use React?
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Joe

Marital Bliss Card Game

Pplwink.com

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 303: Test Coverage Tools with Ben Coe, Aaron Abramov, and Issac Schleuter

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Aimee Knight

Corey House

AJ O'Neal

Special Guests: Ben Coe, Aaron Abramov, and Issac Schleuter

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk with Ben Coe, Aaron Abramov, and Issac Schleuter about test coverage and testing tools. They talk about the different tools and libraries that they have contributed to the coding community, such as NYC, conf, and Jest. They also discuss what test coverage is actually about and when using test coverage tools is necessary.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What have you contributed to the testing tools community?
npm
NYC tool and instanbul project
conf
Jest
These libraries were developed to be easy and have “batteries included”
False positives with test coverage
Encourage testing practices that don’t practice in a superficial way
Test coverage is about making sure you test every state a public API can get into
Think through the test you’re writing first
Barriers against testing
Don’t spike the code too quickly
Provides guardrails for newer developers to contribute to open source projects
Use tests to understand the system
How to spend your time better
When you need tests
Value is very short term
TDD
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Galentine’s Day
Dnote CLI

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

Corey

We are hive project guidelines
Tip: You can install node as a dependency on your project

Ben

Aaron

Reason

Issac

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JSJ 302: Evaluating Web Frameworks with Kitson Kelly

Tue, 27 Feb 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Aimee Knight

AJ O'Neal

Special Guests: Kitson Kelly

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk with Kitson Kelly about evaluating web frameworks. Kitson is currently in Australia working for ThoughtWorks as a principle technologist. He has written many articles on frameworks and urges that people don’t get stuck on one framework in their programming. He talks about how using only frameworks that you know could hurt you in the long run. This episode is great for understanding when to use certain JavaScript frameworks and how branching out from what is comfortable might make your job easier.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Articles on web frameworks
How do you pick a JavaScript framework to use?
The framework depends on your changing needs
Recommending less popular frameworks
Angular, Ember, React
React vs Redux
Certain domains with different frameworks?
Each framework takes a different approach
How to decide which framework to use?
Only give it a couple days to see if your app works with the framework
Is it ever appropriate to not use a certain framework?
Frameworks are there to make your job easier
Don’t be afraid to try new frameworks
Choose a framework that will “be there tomorrow”
What is the future for frameworks?
Experiment and be honest with what you need
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Tylenol Cold and Flu Severe

Kitson

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 301: CSS Grids: The Future of Frontend Layout with Dave Geddes

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Aimee Knight

Cory House

AJ O'Neal

Joe Eames

Aaron Frost

Special Guests: Dave Geddes

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists talk with Dave Geddes about CSS Grids. Dave quit his job about a year ago and has been living the entrepreneur and programmer life since then. Now, he builds mastery games to help people learn CSS. Dave discusses the differences between Flexbox and CSS Grid and how the games that he creates can help people learn CSS Grid in a fun and interactive way.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

CSS Mastery games
FlexboxZombies.com
GridCritters.com
Uses spaced repetition and delayed recall to learn
CSS Grid
Flexbox
CSS Grid as the cake and Flexbox as the frosting
Edge spec
What Flexbox can do
Sub-Grids
Geddski.com
Nesting Grids
Old Grid vs New Grid layout
Why would you move from Flexbox to CSS Grid?
CSS Grid tools
GridByExample.com
Education and Gamification
Pick a UI that interests you
For a discount on Grid Critters: enter JS Jabber for 20% off
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

R Pods Earphones

Aimee

Cory

Cory Tweet

Joe

Aaron

Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

Dave

They Are Billions

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 300: Celebration

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 00:35:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Aimee Knight

Cory House

AJ O'Neal

Joe Eames

Special Guests: None

In this episode, the JavaScript Jabber panelists speak on where they are what they are up to today. Aimee is still in Nashville, Tennessee, and it is currently working at

Built Technologies and is working with JavaScript. Cory is still authoring courses for Pluralsite, has more recently been doing consulting with React, and is the principal engineer at Cox Automotive. Joe is doing a lot of Pluralsight work, puts together conferences, and is working on a new podcast with Charles. AJ recently did some side work with Dash, is interested in working on a new domain service, and recently got married. Charles is currently at ngATL conference, and has been attending a lot of conferences recently. He is also starting to head over to the video realm and is creating a new podcast called React Roundup and a View Podcast with Joe. They also talk about what they each have planned in the upcoming year for their careers and their lives.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Built Technologies
JavaScript
Front End and Full Stack
Pluralsite
React consulting
Cox Automotive
Front end apps
View and React podcast
Angular JS to Angular
Pluralsight courses
Big Picture React courses
Fork of Bitcoin called Dash
New domain service
ngATL
React Roundup Podcast
New podcasts on artificial intelligence, IOT, augmented and virtual reality game development, python
Node, JavaScript, and Rust
And much, much more!

Links:

Picks:

Charles

Aimee

Cory

JavaScript Tip Tweet

Joe

WebFlow.com

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 299: How To Learn JavaScript When You're Not a Developer with Chris Ferdinandi

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 01:10:00 +0000

Panel:

AJ O’Neal

Joe Eames

Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Chris Ferdinandi

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber panelist speak with Chris Ferdinandi. Chris teaches vanilla JavaScript to beginners and those coming from a design background. Chris mentions his background in Web design and Web Develop that led him JavaScript development. Chris and the JSJ panelist discuss the best ways to learn JavaScript, as well as resources for learning JavaScript. Also, some discussion of technologies that work in conjunction with vanilla JavaScript.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Teaching JavaScript - Beginners and Design patrons
Web Design and Web Development
CSS Tricks
Todd Motto
How to do jQuery Things without jQuery
Doing things like mentors (Todd)
When JavaScript makes sense.
CSS is easier to learn then JS?
Being good at CSS and JS at the same time?
How about Node developers?
jRuby, DOM
Documentation
And much more!

Links:

https://github.com/cferdinandi
https://gomakethings.com
@ChrisFerdinandi
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cferdinandi

Picks:

Discover Card
Mistborn

Aimee

Your Smart Phone is Making You Stupid…
Crypto Currency

Joe

Chris

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 298: Angular, Vue and TypeScript with John Papa

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 02:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Cory House

Joe Eames

Aimee Knight

Special Guests: John Papa

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber panelist speak with John Papa. John has been doing web programming for over twenty years on multiple platforms and has been contributing to the developer communities through conferences, authoring books, videos and courses on Pluralsight.

John is on the show to discuss an articles he wrote on A Look at Angular Along Side Vue, and another article on Vue.js with TypeScript. John talks about the new features with the different versions of Angular technologies, anxiety in the different features, comparisons between the technologies and use case with Angular.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

A look at Angular Along Side Vue - Article
Angular 5, Amber,Vue, React, Angular
Angular 2 - different features
CLI
Spell Webpack
Comparisons - Why the anxiety?
Opinions of Angular and sprinkling in other technologies
Vue is the easy to use with Angular
Are there breakpoints with the uses case?
Choosing technologies
Talk about working with Vue and Angular
DSL - Domain Specific Language
Vue and 3rd party libraries
Talk about Vue working with TypeScript
Vue.js with TypeScript
Vue with TypeScript looks similar to Angular
Vetur
What does 2018 have in store for Angular?
Native apps and web functionality
And much more!

Links:

Picks:

Corey

cypress.io

Charles

Aimee

Joe

John

Jumanji 2017
Emotional Intelligence

Special Guest: John Papa.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 297: Scrollytelling with Russell Goldenberg and Adam Pearce

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 23:45:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Joe Eames

Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Russell Goldenberg and Adam Pearce

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber panelist speak with Russell Goldenberg and Adam Pearce Russell creates visualizations, interactive graphics, and documentaries for the web. Currently an editor at The Pudding. Adam is a graphics editor at The New York Times and a journalist engineers/developer Russell and Adam are on the show to talk about what Scrollytelling is, as well as Scrollama. Scrollama is a modern and lightweight JavaScript library for scrollytelling using IntersectionObserver in favor of scroll events. This is a great episode to understand another technology/tool created with JavaScript.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is Scrollytelling!
Graph Scroll library
What is the intersection Observerable?
How long does it take to build an interactive graphic…?
How do you test something like this?
Test on a lot of different devices
Can you do automated testing?
Do you have to understand the use cases or can you implement quickly?
Recommendation for getting started?
Is this a skill set people have to have before that some on board?
How do design these interactions?
Scroll jacking
What JS developers should know about this technology.
Position sticky
What are other uses cases?
What can devs use it for?
Tax calculator
And much more!

Links:

https://github.com/russellgoldenberg/scrollama
https://pudding.cool/process/introducing-scrollama/
@codenberg
@adamrpearce
https://pudding.cool/
http://russellgoldenberg.github.io
https://github.com/1wheel?direction=desc&sort=created&tab=stars
https://roadtolarissa.com

Picks:

Adam

Dominion - Broad Game

Charles

Aimee

Deadlines
Quest Protein Powder

Joe

Giving!
Board Game - Azul

Russel

Crokinole
Bust Out

Special Guests: Adam Pearce and Russell Goldenberg.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 296: Changes in React and the license with Azat Mardan

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 16:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Cory House

Joe Eames

Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Azat Mardan

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber panelist speak with Azat Mardan. Azat is a return guest, previously on JSJ Episode 230. Azat is an author of 14 books on Node JS, JavaScript, and React JS. Azat works at Capital One on the technology team. Azat is the founder and creator of Node University.

Azat is on the show to talk about changes in React and licensing. Some of the topics cover Facebook, licensing with React, using the wrong version of React, patent wars, and much more in-depth information on current events in React.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Facebook - Licensing with React
Using the Wrong version of React in some companies
BSD licensing
Patent wars
Facebook developing React
Difference in Preact and Inferno
Rewriting applications
What did Capital One do about the changes?
React 16
Pure React
Was the BSD patents - Med and Sm Companies
Patents explained
React Developers at Facebook
Fiber - New Core Architecture
And much more!

Links:

http://azat.co
https://node.university
https://devchat.tv/js-jabber/230-jsj-node-at-capital-one-with-azat-mardan

Picks:

Cory

Axel Rauschmayer post
Prettier

Charles

Aimee

Joe

Azat

Special Guest: Azat Mardan.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 295: Developers as Entrepreneurs with Ryan Glover

Tue, 09 Jan 2018 05:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Cory House

Joe Eames

Aimee Knight

Special Guests: Ryan Glover

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber panelist speak with Ryan Glover. Ryan is on JavaScript Jabber to talks about Entrepreneurship as a developer. Ryan runs Clever Beagle in Chicago Illinois. Clever Beagle is a mentorship company that helps people build their first software Product. Ryan and the panel discuss the many roads of entrepreneurship, startup business ideas, servicing and teaching the community, how to’s, and psychological challenges, hiring, seeing your ideas through to the end, and privilege.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

How do you get started as an entrepreneur?
Clever Beagle
The Meteor Chef
Where are people getting stuck on the builds?
Fear, unknowns
Simple, but not easy
Drive and ability to step into the unknown
Survival of the fittest
Hire before you are already
Losing your marbles
Starting on a smaller scale
How do I know my idea is going to work?
Book - Brick by Brick
Multiple lines of business
Managing a portfolio of business
Revenue streams
Marketing
Quitter
When do I quit?
6-12 months of cash before you quit
Making mistakes in entrepreneurship?
Be a reader and study
Go out a read books!
Experiential not taught
Luck and Privilege
Video - Life of Privilege Explained in a $100 Race
Procrastinate on Purpose
And much more!

Links:

Picks:

Cory

Charles

ReactDevSummit.com
Indiegogo for Dev Chat
.NetRocks

Aimee

Life of Privilege Explained in a $100 Race

Joe

Ryan

Turning Pro - Steven Pressfield series
The Power of Beliefs in Business

Special Guest: Ryan Glover.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 294: Node Security with Adam Baldwin

Thu, 04 Jan 2018 01:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

AJ O’Neal

Joe Eames

Special Guests: Adam Baldwin

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber panelist speak with Adam Baldwin. Adam is a return guest and has many years of application security experience. Currently, Adam runs the Node Security Project/Node Security Platform, and Lift Security. Adam discusses the latest of security of Node Security with Charles and AJ. Discussion topics cover security in other platforms, dependencies, security habits, breaches, tokens, bit rot or digital atrophy, and adding security to your development.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is the Node Security Project/Node Security Platform
Dependency trees
NPM
Tokens and internal data
What does Node Security do for me?
NPX and NSP
Command Line CIL
Bit Rot or Digital Atrophy
How often should you check repos.
Advisories
If I NPM install?
Circle CI or Travis
NSP Check
What else could I add to the securities?
Incorporate security as you build things
How do you find the vulnerabilities in the NPM packages
Two Factor authentication for NPM
Weak Passwords
OL Dash?
Install Scripts
Favorite Security Story?
And much more!

Links:

Node Security
Lift Security
https://github.com/evilpacket
@nodesecurity
@liftsecurity
@adam_baldwin

Picks:

Adam

Charles

This Episode with Adam Baldwin
Free the Future of Radical Price
Made In America Sam Walton
Sonic - VGM Album

Joe

Special Guest: Adam Baldwin.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 293: Big Data with Nishant Thacker

Thu, 28 Dec 2017 04:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Nishant Thacker

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber speaks with Nishant Thacker. Nishant is the technical product manager for all things big data at Microsoft. Nishant mentions the many new technologies and announcements he is in-charge of at Microsoft.

Nishant is on the show to talk about Big Data and gives advice on how to process data and acquire deep insight of your customers. This is a great episode to understand the development of data systems that are the backbone of some marketing tools.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Processing Metrics
Processing into report and usable information
Data lake
Collecting data points
Creating and maintaining the data lake in its raw form
Scale up engines and limits
Commodity machines and leverage
Big data means to scale out
Specialized engines for audio and video files
How to have a cohesive report?
Writing and Querying across data
Storing raw data and retrieve data
Data cluster
What does the data box look like?
And much more!

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishantthacker
@nishantthacker

Picks:

Nishant

Robot I

Charles

Zoom H6
Shure SM 58
Lavalier Mics

Special Guest: Nishant Thacker.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 292: CosmosDB with Kirill Gavrylyuk

Tue, 19 Dec 2017 23:30:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests: Kirill Gavrylyuk

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber speaks with Kirill Gavrylyuk. Kirill is a dev manager at Cosmos DB, and works professionally with Azure CosmosDB. Kirill is on JavaScript Jabber to talk about what CosmosDB is in the world of development technology. Chuck and Kirill discuss the nuances of this database technology, how it is implemented, and how to manage and migrate data, among other great features.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is Cosmos DB?
Bring your data anywhere your users are
It is a website
Multimodel database
Works with Mongodb
Cassandra
Started as database DB
Throughput
Key data pairs
Switching from MongoDB to Azure
How do you decide what goes into this? It looks like an everything database.
Migration path
Uses cases, problems solved
Supporting APIs
Does it only exist in the Cloud? An emulator is available.
Subscription info.
And much more!

Links:

@kirillg-msft
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirillgavrylyuk

Picks:

Kirill

Shared Debugging with VS Code - Keynote

Charles

USB Powered Monitor on Amazon

Special Guest: Kirill Gavrylyuk.

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JSJ 291: Serverless For JavaScript with Gareth McCumskey

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Aimee Knight

AJ O’Neal

Joe Eames

Special Guests: Gareth McCumskey

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber speaks with Gareth McCumskey about Serverless For JavaScript. Gareth leads the dev team at Expat Explore in Cape Town, South Africa. Gareth and this team specialize in exploring the Serverless realm in JavaScript. The JavaScript Jabbers panel and Gareth discuss the many different types of serverless systems, and when to implement them, how serverless system work, and when to go in the direction of using Serverless.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What does it mean to be Serverless?
Since platform as a service.
Microservice on Docker
Firebase
“no backend”
Backend systems
Cloud functions and failure in systems
How do you start to think about a serverless system?
How do decide what to do?
AWS Lambda
Working in a different vendor
Node 4
Programming JS to deploy
Using libraries for NPM
How is works with AWS Lambda
Where is the database?
More point of failure?
Calls to Slack?
Authentication
Micro Services
Elastic Bean Stalk
Static Assets, S3, Managing
Testing the services
Integration testing
And much more!

Links:

Picks:

Aimee

Charles

Gareth

Joe

Special Guest: Gareth McCumskey.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 290: Open Source Software with Dirk Hohndel - VMWare Chief Open Source Officer

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 11:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Aimee Knight

Corey House

Joe Eames

Special Guests:

In this episode, JavaScript Jabber speaks with Dirk Hohndel about Open Source Software. Dirk is the Chief Open Source Officer at VMWare and has been working with open source for over 20 years. Dirk duties as the Chief Open Source Officer is to engage with the open source community and help promote the development between the community, companies, and customers.

Dirk provides historical facts about open sources to current processes. The discussion covers vision and technological advances with languages, security, and worries of using open source software, view/consumption and burnout on maintaining a project. This is a great episode to learn about more different avenues of Open Source.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What does the Chief Open Source Officer do?
What is really different and has stayed the same in open source?
Technological advances
Good engineering and looking ahead or forward
100 million lines of code running a car…
This is in everything..
Production environments
Security
Bugs in the software and the security issues
Scaling and paying attention
Where should we be worried about open source
Notation and data sets
Write maintainable software
How does VMWare think about open source?
View and Consumption of open source
The burnout of open source projects - how to resolve this abandonment
To much work to maintain open source - not a money issue
Scaling the team workload not the money
Contribution and giving back
Companies who do and don’t welcome open source
What to do to make a project open source?
Adopting an API
And much more!

Links:

@_drikhh
VMWare
Drikhh - everywhere!
https://github.com/dirkhh

Picks:

Aimee

Dirk

Track This Critical Thinking

Charles

Nicholas Zakas - Books

Corey

Fun Fun Function Show

Joe

Dice Forge
Concept of empathy

Special Guest: Dirk Hohndel.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 289: Visual Studio Code and Live Sharing with Chris Dias and PJ Meyer LIVE at Microsoft Connect 2017

Wed, 29 Nov 2017 01:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests:

Chris Dias

PJ Meyer

In this episode, Charles is at Microsoft Connect 2017 in NYC. Charles speaks with Chris Dias and PJ Meyer about Visual Studio Code and Live Sharing. Chris and PJ explain more on their demo at Microsoft Connect on Live Collaborative Editing and Debugging. Learn more about the new features with Visual Studio Code and the efficient workflows with screen sharing, and much more.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Demo of Live Collaborative Editing and Debugging explained
New Features with VS Code
Developer productive
Debugging pain points
Getting feedback
New in VS Code
Language support and Java Debugger
Live Share
Debugging from different machines and platforms
Multi-Stage Docker File
TypeScript compiler
More on debugging with Cosmos db
Debugging in the Cloud?
Docker Extensions
Data Bricks
Updated python tools
Coming up with Visual Studio Code in the next 6 months
TypeScript and Refactoring
Getting the word out about code - Word of mouth?
Number of people using VS Code?
Envision for what VS Code is becoming?
Preparing for a keynote and processes?
And much more!

Links:

https://code.visualstudio.com
https://github.com/chrisdias
GitHub.com/microsoft
@code

Picks:

Chris

Pizza

Deli

Charles

Coupon Pass for tourist in NYC

Special Guests: Chris Dias and PJ Meyer.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 288: TypeScript with Amanda Silver

Wed, 22 Nov 2017 01:00:00 +0000

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests:

Amanda Silver

In this episode, Charles is at Microsoft Connect 2017 in NYC. Charles speaks with Amanda Silver. Amanda is deemed the TypeScript and future of JavaScript guru, and this year's speakers at Microsoft Connect with Visual Studio Live Share. Amanda shares what is new with TypeScript and how that is a kind of subscript to JavaScript. Amanda explains the big picture of TypeScript’s inception and where she believes the language will be most efficient and effective for JavaScript and TypeScript developers.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is new in TypeScript?
Keep JavaScript and TypeScript aligned
TypeScript is implemented to create larger scaled applications
Integration with VS Code, etc.
Building better tools for JavaScript Developers
When would this be taken on by users
Defaults in Visual Studio
TypeScript replacing JavaScript type service
TypeScript is written in TypeScript
Chakra runtime
Diaspora
The different faces of JavaScript
Optimized JavaScript runtime
Languages should be created with tooling
A satisfying tooling experience
Foot Guns
New Tokens
Eco-systems and metadata
Multi-phase
Minimum common denominator constantly changing
Collaborating on the same code
Open Source and the impact
How to move to open source
Contributing
The next thing for TypeScript
The future of JavaScript
And much more!

Links:

@amandaksilver

Picks:

Amanda

Visual Studio Live Share
Instinct of learning technology

Charles

Special Guest: Amanda Silver.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 287: Blockchain and JS with Ari Lerner

Tue, 14 Nov 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight

AJ O’Neal

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests:

Ari Lerner

In this episode, Java Script Jabbers speak with Ari Lerner. Ari is the author of NG Book: The Complete Book on AugularJS, Full Stack React, and a few others. Ari co-runs newline.co a platform that teaches about the Block Chain, Ethereum, New Contracts, etc. Ari mentions a few upcoming books on Machine Learning, Elixir, and react Native.

Ari gives a rundown on what the Block Chain is about, and an explanation of a Hash. Ari explains the value of a Hash and 6-bit strings of a Hash. Also, Ari explains the exchange of currency in Bitcoin and the rate of exchange in the Block Chain. Next Ari covers web 3.0 and much more.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is the Block Chain?
A Hash?
The blockchain is an order of ledger.
The blockchain is a list of transactions
How is a Hash used?
Sha 256
Bitcoin and Block Chains
What If two machines get the same answer?
Describe a transaction in a blockchain?
Exchanging currency
The cost of Bitcoin
Web 3.0
Everything on the Block Chain is public!
Where else is Block Chain is used besides bitcoin type currency
Public Key.
What should JS developer be doing to prepare?
And much more!

Links:

https://www.ng-book.com/
http://www.newline.co.bw/
The History of Money
@Auser
Stack.io

Picks:

Amiee

Article - Learn Block Chain by Building One
The Source Bar

Charles

Microsoft Connect - Meet up at 7pm
Stranger Thing Season 2

Spice Labels and Spice Jars
Marriage

Ari

Moving to NYC
Learn Block Chain by Building One

Special Guest: Ari Lerner.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 286: Creating a CSS-in-JS Library from Scratch and Emotion with Kye Hohenberger

Wed, 08 Nov 2017 03:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Amiee Knight

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests:

Kye Hohenberger

In this episode, JavaScript Jabbers speak with Kye Hohenberger. Kye is a developer and co-founder of Side Way. One of Kye’s most notable works and library is Emotion, a CSS and JS library.

Kye talks about what CSS and JS library is about in the context of the Emotion library system. Kye discusses why this is practical for the writing process, in comparison to other types of tools that do similar jobs. Kye explains the how this tool reduces the number of lines of code and is compact and clearer.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

What is a CSS and JS library?
Controlling CSS with JS, what does this solve?
Style bugs
What kind of styling are you using vs. complex styles?
Media query
A more declarative style
Using Sass
Where do you see people using this?
Class names and you can apply to anything
How Emotion works!
Style tags
Object styles
What are some of the problems you are solving
React Emotion - dynamic styles
How does this compare to other style components?
Glamor Styles
How do you test something like this?
Just Glamor React with Emotion
Can people use the Babel plugin
Pure flag and function calls
And much more!

Links:

Emotion.sh
Emotion-js/emotion
emotion.now.sh
@TKH44

Picks:

Amiee

Article on Medium
Antibiotics and Steroids
RX Bars

Charles

Disney Emoji Blitz
How To Get A Job - JavaScriptJabber.com

Kye

Special Guest: Kye Hohenberger.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 285 : Finding a Job Even If You're Not a Senior Developer by Charles Max Wood

Wed, 01 Nov 2017 21:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Charles Max Wood

In this episode of JavaScript Jabber, Charles does a solo episode talking about entrepreneurship and the topic/course on “How to Get a Job.” This is an informative episode for those looking for a job as a developer and how to prepare your resume for your career search. Charles covers the core pieces of the course and specific areas of tailoring your credentials for the job you want to acquire.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

How do I get a great job? Companies are only hiring Senior Devs.
Your selling point as a Jr. Dev.
Framing your experience for the companies to better see your experience.
I don’t want a ( this kind of boss)
Feeling like you are making a difference in your job.
Who do you want to work for, with, where, and how, etc?
Working in a facility or remotely. What do you want?
Check out the meet-up places or workplaces (WeWork), Glassdoor
Check out the people who work that these companies, LinkedIn.
Check out company’s Slack rooms, forum, etc. to make connections
Visit the companies personally
Look into contacting the Meetup Organizers
Building rapport
Resume mistakes - how to properly format it so it is skim-able
Top 3 bullet points and tailor you resume for each job
Unnecessary material in your resume - again tailor to the company
Important material to include on your resume, contributions on projects
The cover letter - How to do this correctly with a personal touch
What to do when you get the interview - the offer!
And much more!

Links:

devchat.tv/get-a-coder-job-full-accessfull-access
WeWork
Expert Salary Negotiation

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 284 : Helping Developers Build Healthy Bodies

Wed, 25 Oct 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Amiee Knight

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests:

JC Hiatt

In this episode, JavaScript Jabbers speak with JC Hiatt. JC is a software consultant, and working a starting a company called DevLifts. DevLifts is a company that helps developers learn to live healthier lives. JC mentions this business was base on this health journey.

JC and the panel discuss output and mental clarity to get work done in a healthy fashion. Also, the benefits of eating a healthy diet, rather it is the Keto Diet or others types of healthy clean eating, there is a physical and mental benefit. JC and the panel talk about count macros, healthy food intake, and a basic outline of getting into ketosis. Also, the panel discusses finding the motivation to get into a healthy lifestyle to benefit work and your lifestyle.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Mental Clarity
Keto Diet
Cutting out processed foods
Counting Macros
Getting into Ketosis
Supporting brain function
Motivation for a healthy lifestyle
Gaining energy
Getting started - Walking, Eat Whole. Etc.
Pack your own lunch
Mindset change - you are responsible for anyone else’s healthy choices
Drink Water
You can find a healthy balance and practice moderation
Cheat day?
Sugar
Sitting to0 long at work
Sleep - brain wave activity, caffeine, and light
Naps
And much more!

Links:

@jchiatt

@devlifts

devlifts.io

Picks:

Amiee

https://www.womenwhotech.com/panelist-bios
https://github.com/AllThingsSmitty/css-protips

Charles

American Vandal
Confession Tapes
Qalo
https://lodash.com

Special Guest: JC Hiatt.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ BONUS: Cloud Services and Manifold with Matthew Creager and Peter Cho

Wed, 18 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Amiee Knight

Charles Max Wood

Joe Eames

Special Guests:

Matthew Creager and Peter Cho

In this episode, JavaScript Jabbers speak with Matthew Ceager and Peter Cho. Matthew and Peter are part of the team at Manifold. Manifold is a marketplace for developer services. Matthew takes care of growth and relations, and Peter oversee products at Manifold.

The panel discusses with Peter and Matthew what Manifold does and the benefits of a Cloud Service. Matthew gives perspective on how developers can get their cloud product on the market compared to open source. Further discussion goes into how this will help the developer to get their products or services turned into a business quicker and save time Also learn about when it is the ideal time to move to cloud services vs. running a server yourself.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Different kinds of definition of Cloud Services
Anything you would rely on as a third party service
What is the cloud service ecosystem - Services that connect to an application
Independent market place - because it is difficult to turn a product into a business
Where are people using cloud services or running their own server
Spinning up a version of it is easier.
Time verses doing it yourself?
Experts running the services
Focusing on your product instead of managing the server and such
Where does the data live and who has access to that?
Lock In’s?
Tourist - Credentials management
How do I get this setup? Command Line or register online
And much more!

Links:

Manifold

@manifoldco

@etcpeter

@matt_creager

blog.manifold.com

Picks:

Amiee

Ryan McDermott

Charles

Joe

What You Can’t Say

Matt

Peter

Player Unknown Battle Ground
Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Special Guests: Matthew Creager and Peter Cho.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 283: A/B Testing with Nick Disabato

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight

Charles Max Wood

Special Guests:

Nick Disabato

In this episode, Java Script Jabbers talk with Nick Disabato. Nick is a newbie to JavaScript Jabber. Nick is the founder of Draft, an interaction design agency where he does research driven A/B testing of E-commerce business.

This is a practical episode for those who are running a business and doing marketing for the products and services. Nick talks about A/B testing for a number scenarios within the company, such as for websites, funnels, and various marketing mechanisms. Nick further goes into how this helps companies strategically increase revenue by changing things such as websites design or building funnels.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Testing of changes of Copy, Websites, etc.
What does it mean of changes, Tools, Framework, Plugins, etc
Does it matter what tools you use? Framework that works within your stack
How do make we company money
Researching for the next test
Testing for conversion rate to decide which design to go implement - Variant
Responsibility for the designs
Feature and getting pay for the service
Learn more about the resources and Copy Hackers
Large organization or developers, or a QA department
Optimization teams
Usability tests and coming up with A/B tests
Expertise
Why should be care?
And much more!

Links:

Draft

Nick Disabato

@nickd

Picks:

Amiee

Nodevember

Charles

Mike Gehard
Admin LTE

Nick

HotJar.com

Special Guest: Nick Disabato.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 282: Trails.js with Scott Wyatt

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Joe Eames

Aimee Knight

Charles Max Wood

Cory House

Special Guests:

Scott Wyatt

In this episode, JavaScript Jabbers talk with Scott Wyatt. Scott is the Co-founder, CTO, UEX at Cali StyleTechnologies, and is a Node developer and graphic designer. Scott is on JavaScript Jabber to talk about Trails.js. and its simplistic build, but many useful functions.

Scott mentions that Trails.js was created by Travis Webb. Scott gives us an introduction to the Trails.js framework, as the Jabbers take apart and dive deep into the build, functions, and uses. Scott goes into what trail packs are, and the similar or related projects. Scott talks about the ease of using trails to build with, and not ending up in frustration.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Trails.js is Node Framework and lightweight or Blueprint
Similar to Redux?
Is it MVC like Rails
You don’t need to understand it, it is all under the hood.
Tuple Space
Is this sole for server-side rendering?
Closest projects - Sails
Avoid problems like React.
Not dealing with corporations
Why would you want to use trails instead of other projects like Sails, rails, etc.
How do you get started - trailjs.io
Quickest way to learn Trails is to build a Trail Pack
Don’t be afraid to kill you darlings
Testing
It Trails production ready?
It is a particular type of app where Trails shines?

Links

trailsjs.io

Travis Webb

Picks

Amy

Full Stack Developers by Brad Frost
Tracking Macros

Joe

The Behavior Gap

Charles

Profit First
Keto Diet
scott-wyatt/GitHub

Cory

Never write another high Order Component

Scott

Proxy Engine

Special Guest: Scott Wyatt.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 281: CodeSponsor - Sustaining Open-Source Software through Ethical Advertising with Eric Berry

Mon, 02 Oct 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Aimee Knight

AJ O'Neal

Charles Max Wood

Guest: Eric Berry

This week on Ruby Rogues, we interview our very own, Eric Berry, to talk about the sustainability of open-source projects through ethical advertising. The team talks about once open source projects like PhantomJS, Cancan, and many others.

The Rogues dive into the many different scenarios that lead open source projects astray. Problems like working on the project without compensation, be overworked, and no interest are many of the reasons these are not sustained in the long run.

However, are there solutions like donations or sponsorship to sustain such projects? And how do we go about finding funding or compensation for these open source projects? Eric describes that advertising tactics and strategies for open source. Eric talks about his work with Code Sponsor and how they support the open source community with funding.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Ruby Rogues talk about burnout on projects
Working on projects for free and the project falls apart
Solutions behind the more popular projects like Ruby on Rails and NPM.
Lemonade Stand - Sustaining and bounty sourced projects
Sponsorship or company supported projects.
Crowdfunding - not sustainable, but helps.
Donation buttons, do they work?
Who would pay developers for this?
Developers taking care of other developers
Advertising, and helping pay for projects to stay alive!
Help developers stay funded without a spam haven.
and much, much more!

Links:

Picks

Aimee

Positive Experience for Women in Tech
Hand Written Cards

Charles

Real Love by Greg Baer

Eric

Nate Hopkins

Open Collective

CarbonAds.Etc.

Special Guest: Eric Berry.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 280: Stackblitz with Eric Simons and Albert Pai

Tue, 26 Sep 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Panel:

Joe

Aimee

Charles

Special Guests:

Eric Simmons

Albert Pai

In this episode, JavaScript Jabbers talk to Eric Simmons and Albert Pai, the co-founder of thinkster.io, where their team teaches the bleeding edge of javascript technology’s various frameworks and backend. Also, with the recent creation of Stalkblitz, which is the center topic of today discussion.

Stackblitz it an online VS Code IDE for Angular, React, and a few more others are supported. This is designed to run web pack and vs code inside your browser at blazing fast speeds. Eric and Albert dive into the many different advantages and services available by StackBlitz and thinker.io.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

Similarities and differences to Heroku
System JS
Stacklets
Testing and creating an in-browser system file system
Creating a type of VS Code experience, Working Off Line
Updating of the Stacklets
Deployment tools or exporting
Hot Reloading
Integrated terminals
Monaco
Language Services
How do you architect this implementation
The innovation of browsers
Guy Bedford
Financing vs. Chipotle Burritos
Will this product in the future cost money

Links

Picks

Aimee

Promises Series by Andrew Del Prete
Crossfit

Joe

Charles

Eric

Albert

Special Guests: Albert Pai and Eric Simons .

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 279: ES Modules in Node Today! with John-David Dalton

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 11:00:00 +0000

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John-David Dalton is probably best known for the Lodash library. He's currently working at Microsoft on the Edge team. He makes sure that libraries and frameworks work well in Edge.

The JavaScript Jabber panel discusses the ECMAScript module system port to Node.js. John wanted to ship the ES module system to Node.js for Lodash to increase speed and decrease the disk space that it takes up. This approach allows you to gzip the library and get it down to 90 kb.

This episode dives in detail into:

ES Modules, what they are and how they work
The Node.js and NPM package delivery ecosystem
Module loaders in Node.js
Babel (and other compilers) versus ES Module Loader
and much, much more...

Links:

Picks:

Cory:

Aimee:

Aaron:

Chuck:

Angular Dev Summit
ZohoCRM
Working on Cars - Therapeutic working with your hands doing physical work

John:

Special Guest: John-David Dalton.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 278 Machine Learning with Tyler Renelle

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 12:00:00 +0000

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Tyler Renelle is a contractor and developer who has worked in various web technologies like Node, Angular, Rails, and much more. He's also build machine learning backends in Python (Flask), Tensorflow, and Neural Networks.

The JavaScript Jabber panel dives into Machine Learning with Tyler Renelle. Specifically, they go into what is emerging in machine learning and artificial intelligence and what that means for programmers and programming jobs.

This episode dives into:

Whether machine learning will replace programming jobs
Economic automation
Which platforms and languages to use to get into machine learning
and much, much more...

Links:

Picks:

Aimee

Joe

Everybody Lies

Tyler

Special Guest: Tyler Renelle.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ BONUS: Web Apps on Linux with Jeremy Likness and Michael Crump

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 11:00:00 +0000

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JSJ BONUS: Web Apps on Linux with Jeremy Likness and Michael Crump

In this episode Aimee Knight and Charles Max Wood discuss Microsoft's Web Apps on Linux offering with Jeremy Likness and Michael Crump.

[00:37] Michael Crump Introduction

Michael is on the developer experience team for Azure.

[00:52] Jeremy Likness Introduction

Jeremy is on the cloud developer advocacy team. Their mission is to remove friction and support developers and work with teams to build a positive experience.

The NodeJS team is headed up by John Papa. They have teams around the world and involved in many open source communities.

They're focused on building documentation and creating great experiences

[02:54] What is it about Azure that people should be getting excited about?

Azure is a huge platform. It can be overwhelming. They're trying to help you start with your problem and then see the solution as it exists on Azure.

Azure is growing to embrace the needs of developers as they solve these problems.

The experience is intended to be open and easy to use for any developer in any language on any platform. It allows you to work in whatever environment you want.

Standing up applications in production is tough. Azure provides services and facilities (and interfaces) that make it easy to manage infrastructure.

You don't have to be an operations expert.

Chuck mentions this messaging as he heard it at Microsoft Connect() last year.

It's not about bringing you to .NET. It's about making it easy where you're at.

Aimee adds that as a new-ish person in the community and Azure excites her because the portal and tutorials are easy to follow for many new programmers.

A lot of these features are available across command lines, tools, and much more.

The documentation is great. See our interview with Dan Fernandez on the Microsoft Docs.

[12:04] Web Apps on Linux

Web application as a service offering from Microsoft. I don't need to worry about the platform, just what's different about my application.

Web Apps has traditionally been on Windows. Web Apps on Linux is in preview.

You can choose the size of your infrastructure. You only get billed for what you use and can scale up.

Setting up multiple servers, managing synchronization and load balancing is a pain. Web Apps gives you a clean interface that makes this management easy.

You can also scale across multiple datacenters around the world.

[15:06] Why Linux? What's hard about Windows?

Node was originally created on Linux and many tools run nicely on Linux. It was later ported to Windows.

The toolchains and IDE's and build processes is in an ecosystem that is targeted more toward Linux than Windows.

This allows people to work in an environment that operates how they expect instead of trying to map to an underlying Windows kernel.

Aimee gives the example of trying to set up ImageMagick on Windows.

Web Apps on Linux also allows you to build integrations with your tools that let you build, test, and deploy your application automatically.

[19:12] Supported Runtimes

Web Apps on Linux supports Node, PHP, Ruby, and .NET Core.

You can run a docker container with Node up to 6.x. If you want Node 7.x and 8.x you can create your own Docker container.

Web Apps on Linux is build on Docker.

The containers also have SSH, so developers can log into the docker container and troubleshoot problems on the container.

If you can build a container, you can also run it on this service.

At certain levels, there's automatic scaling.

[22:06] Consistency between containers? Shared ownership of state or assets

It depends on how you build your app. The Docker containers have a shared storage where all the containers have access to the same data and state.

There's a system called kudu that makes this really simple.

You can also pull logs across all systems.

You can also use SSH in the browser

[25:23] What's painful about Linux and containers?

How is the application built and how does it manage state so that you can isolate issues.

If you have 20 containers, can you connect to the right one.

It's up to you to manage correlation between containers so you can find the information you need.

Knowing your traffic and understanding what to do to prepare for it with scaling and automation is sometimes more art than science.

[28:28] How should you manage state?

A lot of these systems lend themselves to running stateless, but you don't want to run mongodb on each container versus running one mongodb instance that everything attaches. You want a common place to store data for the entire app for shared state.

[30:34] CosmosDB (was DocumentDB)

It's an API equivalent to MongoDB. It's a database as a service and you can connect your containers to the CosmosDB in Azure using your portal to make it super easy.

You may need to open up some firewall rules, but it should be pretty straightforward.

[34:14] Third Party Logging Management Apps

Azure has a service that provides metrics (Application Insights) and a logging service. Many other companies use elasticsearch based solutions that solve some of these problems as well.

[36:06] How do people use Web Apps on Linux?

Companies building new applications many times want to run without managing any infrastructure. So, they use Azure Functions, and other services on Azure.

Lift and shift: Take a virtual machine and change it into a web app container that they can run in the cloud. They also move from SQL Server on a server to SQL Server on the cloud. Moving from hosted MongoDB to CosmosDB.

You can also use any images on DockerHub.

[40:06] Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment

Whether you're using a private registry or cloud registry. When you publish a new image, it'll use a webhook to pull the custom image and deploy it. Or to run it through Continuous Integration and then deploy it without any human interaction.

Chuck mentions the case when you haven't logged into a server for a while, there's a huge backlog of system updates. Updating your container definitions makes upkeep automatic.

[42:02] Process files and workers with PM2 format

You can set up instances to run across cores with the PM2 definitions. You can also make it run various types of workers on different containers.

Why did you use PM2? What other uses are there for this kind of setup?

You can tell it which processes to start up on boot. You can also have it restart processes when a file is changed, for example, with a config file you can have it restart the processes that run off that config file.

[45:38] How to get started

Getting started with Node

docs.microsoft.com

Trial account with a few hundred dollars in Azure credit.

Michael's Links

Jeremy's Links

Picks

Aimee

Having a little bit of mindfulness while waiting on code and tests to run.

Joe

Chuck

Travelers on Netflix

Jeremy

Ozark filming in Woodstock, GA
Autonomous Smart Desk
LED light strips

Michael

Special Guests: Jeremy Likness and Michael Crump.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 277: Dojo 2 with Dylan Schiemann and Kitson Kelly

Wed, 06 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

JSJ 277: Dojo 2 with Dylan Schiemann and Kitson Kelly

This episode of JavaScript Jabber features panelists Aimee Knight, Cory House, and Charles Max Wood. They talk with Dylan Schiemann and Kitson Kelly about Dojo 2.

[00:02:03] Introduction to Dylan Schiemann

Dylan is the CEO at Sitepen and co-founder of the Dojo Toolkit.

[00:02:22] Introduction to Kitson

Kitson is the CTO at Sitepen and project lead for Dojo 2.

[00:02:43] Elevator Pitch for Dojo

Dojo 1 has been around forever. Started back in 2004 as a way to solve the challenge of "I want to build something cool in a browser." Promises and web components were inspired by or created by Dojo. It's been a huge influence on the web development community.

Dojo 2 is a ground up re-write with ES 2015, TypeScript and modern API's. It's a modernized framework for Enterprise applications.

[00:04:29] How is Dojo different from other frameworks?

There's a spectrum: small libraries like React with an ecosystem and community of things you add to it to Angular which is closer to the MV* framework with bi-directional data binding. Vue lands somewhere in the middle. Dojo 2 is also somewhere in the middle as well. It's written in TypeScript and has embraced the TypeScript experience.

[00:06:00] Did the Angular 2 move influence the Dojo 2 development and vice-versa?

Dojo 2 had moved to TypeScript and 2 days later Angular announced that they were going to TypeScript. Angular also moved very quickly through their BETA phase, which caused some challenges for the Angular community.

With Dojo 2, they didn't start the public discussion and BETA until they knew much better what was and wasn't going to change. They've also been talking about Dojo 2 for 6 or 7 years.

The update was held up by adoption of ES6 and other technologies.

Dojo 1 was also responsible for a lot of the low-level underpinning that Angular didn't have to innovate on. Dojo 2 was built around a mature understanding of how web applications are built now.

People doing Enterprise need a little more help and assistance from their framework. Dojo provides a much more feature rich set of capabilities.

Angular could have pushed much more of TypeScript's power through to the developer experience. Dojo much more fully adopts it.

It's also easier if all of your packages have the same version number.

Call out to Angular 4 vs Angular 2.

[00:12:44] AMD Modules

Why use AMD instead of ES6 modules?

You can use both. Dojo 2 was involved in the creation of UMD. James Burke created UMD while working on Dojo.

ES6 modules and module loading systems weren't entirely baked when Dojo 2 started to reach maturity, so they went with UMD. It's only been a few months since Safari implemented the ES6 module system. Firefox and friends are still playing catchup.

The Dojo CLI build tool uses webpack, so it's mostly invisible at this point.

So, at this point, should I be using UMD modules? or ES6? Is there an advantage to using AMD?

With TypeScript you'd use ES6 modules, but UMD modules can be loaded on the fly.

[00:16:00] Are you using Grunt?

Internally, for tasks we use Grunt. But for users, we have a CLI tool that wraps around Webpack.

For package builds and CI, Grunt is used.

[00:18:30] What is the focus on Enterprise all about?

There are a lot of different challenges and complexities to building Enterprise apps. Dojo was the first framework with internationalization, large data grids, SVG charts, etc. Dojo has spend a long time getting this right. Many other systems don't handle all the edge cases.

Internationalization in Angular 2 or 4 seems unfinished.

Most Dojo users are building for enterprises like banks and using the features that handle large amounts of data and handle those use cases better.

[00:21:05] If most application frameworks have the features you listed, is there a set of problems it excels at?

The Dojo team had a hard look at whether there was a need for their framework since many frameworks allow you to build great applications. Do we want to invest into something like this?

React has internationalization libraries. But you'll spend a lot of time deciding which library to use and how well it'll integrate with everything else. A tradeoff in decision fatigue.

In the Enterprise, development isn't sexy. It's necessary and wants to use boring but reliable technology. They like to throw bodies at a problem and that requires reliable frameworks with easily understood decision points.

Producing code right is a strong case for TypeScript and they pull that through to the end user.

Many frameworks start solving a small set of problems, become popular, and then bolt on what they need to solve everything else...

Dojo tried to make sure it had the entire package in a clear, easy to use way.

You can build great apps with most of the big frameworks out there. Dojo has been doing this for long enough that they know where to optimize for maintainability and performance.

[00:29:00] Where is Dojo's sweet spot?

The Sitepen Blog series on picking a framework

The biggest reason for using Dojo over the years is the data grid component.

They also claim to have the best TypeScript web development experience.

You may also want a component based system with the composition hassles of React.

The composability of components where one team may write components that another uses is a big thing in Dojo where one person doesn't know the entire app you're working on.

Theming systems is another selling point for Dojo.

[00:34:10] Ending the framework wars

Try Dojo out and try out the grid component and then export it to your Angular or React app.

There are a lot of frameworks out there that do a great job for the people who use them. The focus is on how to build applications better, rather than beating out the competition.

Sitepen has build apps with Dojo 2, Angular, React, Dojo + Redux, etc.

[00:39:01] The Virtual DOM used by Dojo

2 years ago or so they were looking for a Virtual DOM library that was small and written in TypeScript. They settled on Maquette.

The more you deal with the DOM directly, the more complex your components and libraries become.

Makes things simpler for cases like server side rendering getting fleshed out in BETA 3.

It also allows you to move toward something like React Native and WebVR components that aren't coupled to the DOM.

They moved away from RxJS because they only wanted observables and shimmed in (or polyfilled) the ES-Next implementation instead of getting the rest of the RxJS that they're not using.

[00:46:40] What's coming next?

They're finishing Dojo 2. They're polishing the system for build UI components and architecture and structuring the app. They plan to release before the end of the year.

They're also wrapping up development on the Data Grid, which only renders what shows on the screen plus a little instead of millions of rows.

[00:49:08] Testing

They've got intern.

It pulls together unit testing, functional testing, continuous integration hooks, accessibility testing, etc.

It's rewritten in TypeScript to take advantage of modern JavaScript.

The Dojo CLI uses intern as the default test framework.

Kitson build the test-extras library to help with Dojo testing with intern.

Dojo Links

Picks

Cory

Amateur vs Professional

Aimee

DevFest Florida (use code 'jsjabber')

Chuck

Taking some time off
AudioTechnica ATR2100
How to define your life purpose in 5 minutes

Dylan

Kitson

Dunbar Number

Special Guests: Dylan Schiemann and Kitson Kelly.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 276: Vue.js with Maximilian Schwarzmüller

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 276: Vue.js with Maximilian Schwarzmüller

This episode of JavaScript Jabber features panelists AJ O’Neal, Aimee Knight, and Charles Max Wood. They talk with special guest Maximilian Schwarzmüller about Vue.js. Tune in to find out more!

[00:02:21] Introduction to Maximilian

Maximilian lives in Germany and is a self-taught web developer. He mostly teaches web development on Udemy and his YouTube channel. Vue.js is just one topic that he teaches. He enjoys teaching and passing on information to other web developers: he believes it is the best thing you can do.

[00:03:10] What other courses do you teach?

He tries to cover basic web development topics. On Udemy Maximilian teaches Angular and generic JavaScript courses. He also teaches courses on Angular and Node.js. On his YouTube channel he teaches more back-end development and Node.js courses.

[00:04:00] Elevator Pitch for Vue.js

Vue.js is a new framework that is popular because it is similar to React but also has Angular features. It is easier to learn than React: not everything is in JavaScript and JXS is not included. It is more also flexible and has better performance than Angular 1. Vue.js is easier than Angular 2 both to learn and master. It is still a JavaScript framework, where developers build single page applications or drop in existing applications to enhance views, control parts of a page with JavaScript, get rid of jQuery, and have an easier time creating applications.

[00:05:10] What are some challenges people run into as they learn it?

If developers are brand new to Vue.js, getting started is easy. It has one thing that a lot of frameworks lack which is awesome documentation. Vuejs.org has a comprehension guide that makes getting started simple. There is a general idea that developers still need to learn of how to structure the app, which is similar to React. Developers have to learn how to build components which is used to build the application. The build template is where everything is controlled with Vue.js. JavaScript code is used as well as template syntax.

[00:06:27] So you build the template and then tell it how each part is supposed to behave with JavaScript?

Yes. To get started use Vue instances, which are JavaScript objects, control parts of the page and it is marked by an id on an HTML element. Then, write a Vue template, which is basically HTML code where extra features can be used to easily output a variable. It makes it much easier to control via Vue instance. Then add a code, add a method which changes the property of Vue instance. It works together and is easy to build up templates and control your page with Vue.

[00:11:12] Vue’s Advantages

That depends on the application. Vue.js is easier to learn, which is an advantage when trying to get new developers. The documentation on the website is excellent, which helps when learning the language. Vue also has it’s own single team that develops it’s products, such as the Vue Router and Vue X. It has better performance, but for extremely big projects Angular 4 may be better.

[00:13:38] Does Vue have routing in it?

Vue.js has its own router. The core Vue team develops it, which is a different package that is downloaded separately. The advantage to this is that if you don’t need the router, then you don’t have it in your bundle but can easily add it. Once it is added it integrates nicely.

[00:14:16] How does the Vue router compare to the React router?

The Vue router offers the same features as the React router: nested routes, passing parameters, route guards, etc. The Vue router integrates nicely into the Vue package. It also injects into every component you have and is very simple. All that has to be done is just to execute one line of code and then the router is in the project.

[00:17:10] How often is Vue.js upgraded and how hard is it to keep up?

Vue.js only has two versions. Upgrading from Vue 1 to Vue 2 is easy. The base syntax and framework is still the same, you just need to adjust and move on. Since Vue 2 they released bigger upgrades. There so far haven’t been any issues upgrading, they have added new features, and still use the old code.

[00:19:09] What is the feature with Vue as far as adoption goes?

It is hard to predict but there are indicators that Vue.js has a good future. Vue.js probably will not overtake Angular but it is becoming important for companies in Asia, which is an important market. They have developed an Ionic version of Vue.js. There has also been an ongoing trend on GitHub.

[00:21:20] Why do we keep having new frameworks and versions?

The language of JavaScript itself is seeing rapid development. New features have been added, new web technologies developed, etc. One reason is that developers do more on the web. They want easier ways of building applications. There is no perfect framework so there has to be tradeoffs between the frameworks. There is no perfect solution for every application so need a framework for every application.

[00:23:16] What is left undone in Vue.js?

It is complete as far as something can be complete. Developers are working on service rendering to improve search engine optimization and initial rendering performance. They are also working on progress web app support.

[00:28:02] What drives the way that Vue grows?

There is simplicity in their documentation. While the documentation is simple, the framework is also easy to learn. Maximilian believes that the reason Vue.js took off is because the documentation and framework work together nicely.

[00:31:19] What is going to keep Vue around?

The support is not based on corporation, but there is an Asian company that is developing a framework that uses Vue to with their own product. Because of this, can draw an assumption that they will keep Vue.js around. Vue.js also has a strong community and core team, giving it a good support system.

[00:34:15] What are people using if they want to use Native Apps but they want to use Vue?

They are having a hard time right now. Frameworks for Quasar and Weex are in the early stages. A Vue.js app needs to be built but there are packages that are working in that direction.

[00:37:25] How do you structure your Udemy courses and what do you think of that as a whole?

Maximilian started teaching Udemy courses about one and a half years ago. He really enjoys teaching. Each course follows a similar pattern. He starts with a rough topic, researches the topic to see what is in demand, and builds a course around projects. He then fits all the things he wants to teach into the project, plans the course curriculum, records and edits the lecture videos, and then finally releases the course.

[00:39:22] What do you get the most questions about with your Vue course?

Questions are mixed. Students dive into the course quickly but then pause. Most questions are about the basics. They usually have something to do with the first few sections of the course or setup problems.

Picks

AJ:

Aimee:

Charles:

The Ketogenic Diet
2 Keto Dudes Podcast

Max:

Links

Special Guest: Maximilian Schwarzmüller.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 275: Zones in Node with Austin McDaniel

Tue, 22 Aug 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 275: Zones in Node with Austin McDaniel

The panel for this week on JavaScript Jabber is Cory House, Aimee Knight, and Charles Max Wood. They speak with special guest Austin McDaniel about Zones in Node. Tune in to learn more about this topic!

[00:01:11] Introduction to Austin

Austin has worked in JavaScript for the past ten years. He currently works in Angular development and is a panelist on Angular Air. He has spent most of his career doing work in front-end development but has recently begun working with back-end development. With his move to back-end work he has incorporated front-end ideas with Angular into a back-end concept.

[00:02:00] The Way it Works

NodeJS is an event loop. There is no way to scope the context of a call stack. So for example, Austin makes a Node request to a server and wants to track the life cycle of that Node request. Once deep in the scope, or deep in the code, it is not easy to get the unique id. Maybe he wants to get the user from Passport JS. Other languages – Python, Java – have a concept called thread local storage. They can associate context with the thread and throughout the life cycle of that request, he can retrieve that context.

There is a TC39 proposal for zones. A zone allows you to do what was just described. They can create new zones and associate data with them. Zones can also associate unique ids for requests and can associate the user so they can see who requested later in the stack. Zones also allow to scope and create a context. And then it allows scoping requests and capturing contacts all the way down.

[00:05:40] Zone Uses

One way Zone is being used is to capture stack traces, and associating unique ids with the requests. If there is an error, then Zone can capture a stack request and associate that back to the request that happened. Otherwise, the error would be vague.

Zones are a TC39 proposal. Because it is still a proposal people are unsure how they can use it. Zones are not a new concept. Austin first saw Zones being used back when Angular 2 was first conceived. If an event happened and they wanted to isolate a component and create a scope for it, they used Zones to do so. Not a huge fan of how it worked out (quirky). He used the same library that Angular uses in his backend. It is a specific implementation for Node. Monkey patches all of the functions and creates a scope and passes it down to your functions, which does a good job capturing the information.

[00:08:40] Is installing the library all you need to get this started?

Yes, go to npminstallzone.js and install the library. There is a middler function for kla. To fork the zone, typing zone.current. This takes the Zone you are in and creates a new isolated Zone for that fork. A name can then be created for the Zone so it can be associated back with a call stack and assigned properties. Later, any properties can be retrieved no matter what level you are at.

[00:09:50] So did you create the Zone library or did Google?

The Google team created the Zone library. It was introduced in 2014 with Angular 2. It is currently used in front-end development.

[00:10:12] Is the TC39 proposal based on the Zone library?

While Austin has a feeling that the TC39 proposal came out of the Zone library, he cannot say for sure.

[00:10:39] What stage is the proposal in right now?

Zone is in Stage Zero right now. Zone JS is the most popular version because of its forced adoption to Angular. He recommends people use the Angular version because it is the most tested as it has a high number of people using it for front-end development.

[00:11:50] Is there an easy way to copy the information from one thread to another?

Yes. The best way would probably be to manually copy the information. Forking it may also work.

[00:14:18] Is Stage Zero where someone is still looking to put it in or is it imminent?

Austin believes that since it is actually in a stage, it means it is going to happen eventually but could be wrong. He assumes that it is going to be similar to the version that is out now. Aimee read that Stage Zero is the implementation stage where developers are gathering input about the product. Austin says that this basically means, “Implementation may vary. Enter at your own risk.”

[00:16:21] If I’m using New Relic, is it using Zone JS under the hood?

Austin is unsure but there something like that has to be done if profiling is being used. There has to be a way that you insert yourself in between calls. Zone is doing that while providing context, but probably not using Zone JS. There is a similar implementation to tracing and inserting logging in between all calls and timeouts.

[00:17:22] What are the nuances? Why isn’t everybody doing this?

Zone is still new in the JavaScript world, meaning everyone has a ton of ideas about what should be done. It can be frustrating to work with Zone in front-end development because it has to be manually learned. But in terms of implementation, only trying to create a context. Austin recommends Zone if people want to create direct contacts. The exception would be 100 lines of Zone traces because they can get difficult.

Another issue Austin has is Node’s native basic weight. Weight hooks are still up in the air. The team is currently waiting on the Node JS community to provide additional information so that they can finish. Context can get lost sometimes if the wrong language is used. He is using Typescript and doesn’t have that problem because it is straightforward.

[00:21:44:] Does this affect your ability to test your software at all?

No, there have not been any issues with testing. One thing to accommodate for is if you are expecting certain contexts to be present you have to mock for those in the tests. After that happens, the tests should have no problems.

Picks

Cory:

Apple AirPods

Aimee:

Charles:

Austin:

NGRX Library Redux

Links

Special Guest: Austin McDaniel.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 274: Amazon Voice Services and Echo Skills with Terrance Smith

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 274 Amazon Voice Services and Echo Skills with Terrance Smith

On today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber, we have panelists Joe Eames, Aimee Knight, Charles Max Wood, and we have special guest Terrance Smith. He’s here today to talk about the Amazon Alexa platform. So tune in and learn more about Amazon Voice Services!

[01:00] – Introduction to Terrance Smith

Terrance is from Hacker Ferrer Software. They hack love into software.

[01:30] – Amazon Voice Service

What I’m working on is called My CareTaker named probably pending change. What it will do and what it is doing will be to help you be there as a caretaker’s aid for the person in your life. If you have to take care an older parent, My CareTaker will be there in your place if you have to work that day. It will be your liaison to that person. Your mom and dad can talk to My CareTaker and My CareTaker could signal you via SMS or email message or tweet, anything on your usage dashboard, and you would be able to respond. It’s there when you’re not.

[04:35] – Capabilities

Getting started with it, there are different layers. The first layer is the Skills Kit for generally getting into the Amazon IoT. It has a limited subset of the functionality. You can give commands. The device parses them, sends them to Amazon’s endpoint, Amazon sends a call back to your API endpoint, and you can do whatever you want. That is the first level. You can make it do things like turn on your light switch, start your car, change your thermostat, or make an API call to some website somewhere to do anything.

[05:50] – Skills Kit

Skills Kit is different with AVS. Skills Kit, you can install it on any device. You’re spinning up a web service and register it on Amazon’s website. As long as you have an endpoint, you can register, say, the Amazon Web Services Lambda. Start that up and do something. The Skills Kit is literally the web endpoint response. Amazon Voice Services is a bit more in-depth.

[07:00] – Steps for programming

With the Skills Kit, you register what would be your utterance, your skill name, and you would give it a couple of sets of phrases to accept. Say, you have a skill that can start a car, your skill is “Car Starter.” “Alexa tell Car Starter to start the car.” At which point, your web service will be notified that that is the utterance. It literally has a case statement. You can have any number of individual conditional branches outside of that. The limitation for the Skills Kit is you have to have the “tell” or “ask” and the name of the skill to do whatever. It’s also going to be publicly accessible. For the most part, it’s literally a web service.

[10:55] – Boilerplates for AWS Lambda

Boilerplates can be used if you want to develop for production. If you publish a skill, you get free AVS instance time. You can host your skill for free for some amount of time. There are GUI tools to make it easier but if you’re a developer, you’re probably going to do the spin up a web service and deal it that way.

[11:45] – Do you have to have an Amazon Echo?

At one point, you have to have the Echo but now there is this called Echoism, which allows you to run it in your browser. In addition to that, you can potentially install it on a device like a Raspberry Pi and run Amazon Voice Services. The actual engine is on your PC, Mac, or Linux box. You have different options.

[12:35] – Machine learning

There are certain things that Amazon Alexa understand now that it did last year or time before that like understanding utterances and phrases better. A lot of the machine learning is definitely under the covers. The other portion of it Alexa Voice Service, which is a whole engine that you have untethered access to other portions like how to handle responses. That’s where you can build a custom device and take it apart. So the API that we’re working with here is just using JSON and HTTP.

[16:40] – Amazon Echo Show

You have that full real-time back and forth communication ability but there is no video streaming or video processing ability yet. You can utilize the engine in such a way that Amazon Voice Services can work with your existing tool language. If you have a Raspberry Pi and you have a camera to it, you can potentially work within that. But again, the official API’s and docs for that are not available yet.

[27:20] – Challenges

There’s an appliance in this house that listens to everything I say. There’s that natural inclination to not trust it, especially with the older generations. Giving past that is getting people to use the device. Some of the programming sides of it are getting the communication to work, doing something that Alexa isn’t pre-programmed to do. There isn’t a lot of documentation out there, just a couple of examples. The original examples are written in Java and trying to convert it to Node or JavaScript would be some of the technical challenges. In addition, getting it installed and setup takes at least an hour at the beginning. There’s also a learning curve involved.

[29:35] – Is your product layered in an Echo or is your product a separate device?

Terrance’s product is a completely separate device. One of the functionality of his program is medicine reminders. It can only respond to whatever the API calls from Amazon tells you to respond to but it can’t do anything like send something back. It can do an immediate audio response with a picture or turn on and off a light switch. But it can’t send a message back in like two hours from now. You do want your Alexa device to have (verbally) a list of notifications like on your phone. TLDR, Terrance can go a little further with just the Skills Kit.

[32:00] – Could you set it up through a web server?

Yes. There are examples out there. There’s Alexa in the browser. You can open up a browser and communicate with that. There are examples of it being installed like an app. You can deploy it to your existing iPhone app or Android app and have it interact that way. Or you can have it interact independently on a completely different device like a Raspberry Pi. But not a lot of folks are using it that way.

[33:10] – Monetization

Amazon isn’t changing anything in terms of monetization. They make discovery a lot easier though. If you knew the name of the app, you could just say, “Alexa, [tell the name of the app].” It will do a lazy load of the actual skill and it will add it to your available skill’s list.

However, there is something called the Alexa Fund, which is kind of a startup fund that they have, which you can apply for. If you’re doing something interesting, there is a number of things you have to do. Ideally, you can get funding for whatever your product is. It is an available avenue for you.

[36:25] – More information, documentation, walkthroughs

The number one place to go to as far as getting started is the Amazon websites. They have the Conexant 4-Mic Far-Field Dev Kit. It has 4 mics and it has already a lot of what you need. You have to boot it up and/or SSH into it or plug it up and code it. They have a couple of these kits for $300 to $400. It’s one of the safe and simpler options.

There are also directions for the AVS sites which is under Alexa Voice Services, where you can go to the Github from there. There will give you directions using the Raspberry Pi. If not that, there’s also the Slack chatroom. It is alexaslack.com. Travis Teague is the guy in charge in there.

Picks

Joe Eames

Cosmic Engineers by Clifford D. Simak

Aimee Knight

Conference: React Rally
Pancakes

Charles Max Wood

Terrance Smith

Special Guest: Terrance Smith.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 273: Live to Code, Don't Code to Live with 2 Frugal Dudes Sean Merron and Kevin Griffin

Tue, 08 Aug 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 273: Live to Code, Don't Code to Live with 2 Frugal Dudes Sean Merron and Kevin Griffin

This episode of JavaScript Jabber features panelists Aimee Knight, Cory House, and Charles Max Wood. Special guests Sean Merron and Kevin Griffin discuss how to live frugally. Tune in to hear their advice!

[00:02:14] Introduction to Sean and Kevin

Sean and Kevin are the hosts of the 2 Frugal Dudes Podcast. They are middle class software engineers. Sean works a 9 to 5 job, while Kevin owns a small business called Swift Kick. Swift Kick is a company that focuses on independent consulting, software development, and training companies for software development.

[00:05:50] Different Types of Financial Advisors

There is no legal reason that financial advisors have to work in your best interest. On the 2 Frugal Dudes Podcast, Sean and Kevin advise people to use fiduciary advisors. These types of advisors are not legally allowed to accept kickbacks from different funds. This means that they are more likely to help you to the best of their ability. They get paid for their services. Laws are currently changing so that everyone has to be a fiduciary advisor unless clients sign a specific form.

[00:10:00] What do I do with money left over at the end of the month that I can’t put into a 401K and Roth IRA?

They suggest that you put only the amount of money in your 401K that your company will match. Then, put the rest into a Roth IRA and max that out. Before you decide to do what next, you need to decide why you are saving money. When will you need the money? What will you need it for? Once you know the answer to these questions, you will be able to assess what your money will best be placed. For example, if you are saving to buy a house you need to put your money in a safe investment. A Roth IRA can be used as a savings vehicle or as an emergency fund. Sean believes that a Bank CD is the safest return you can get.

[00:14:30] Best Way to Save

For those who are self-employed, it is a good idea to have two emergency funds – a personal and a business fund. Business emergency funds should have five months of personal salary. Kevin built his up over two or three years and uses it as self-insurance.

Sean says that the employee world is different. For him, he only keeps the minimum amount in his emergency fund. He knows that he is in a field where his job is in high demand, so feels comfortable with being able to get a job quickly. For others, this may not be the case. Have to evaluate how much to save based on how long you think you may need the money.

[00:18:50] What is the first thing people should be doing for their own financial well being?

Kevin follows Dave Ramsey’s advice.

Basic emergency fund. He uses $1,000. Most emergencies fall under that amount of money.
Get rid of all consumer debt. This includes car payments, credit cards, and student loans. Mortgage is not consumer debt.
Grow an emergency fund to three or six months of expenses.
Investments. Setting up retirement funds, paying for college, or mortgages.

Sean values early retirement so he focuses on that. What does retirement mean to me? What does rich mean? You should always track your money through a budget. Then you can funnel money towards emergency funds and tackling debt.

Self-insurance means that you don’t have to worry about funds. It helps lower your stress knowing that you have your finances in order. It is a peaceful place to be and opens up opportunities for you. If someone has stressors in their life – for example, their car breaks down – and they have no money to fix it, they now have car and money problems. This stress can then potentially lead to other problems such as marriage problems. If the money to fix the broken car would have been there, it would alleviate stress.

[00:28:23] Difference between 401k, IRA, and Roth IRAs

A 401k is an employer provided, long-term retirement savings account. This is where you put in money before it is taxed. With this plan you are limited with the funds you can choose from to invest in.

IRAs are long-term retirement plans as well. The first type of IRA is a Traditional IRA, which is similar to a 401k. You get tax reduction for the money you put in the account. You pay taxes once you withdraw money. A Roth IRA is where you already pay taxes on money that you are putting in, but don’t have to pay taxes when withdrawing money. You can withdraw contributions at anytime without being penalized, you just can’t take out any earnings.

Another thing that is potentially good for early retirement is a Roth IRA conversion ladder. This is where you take money from a 401k and convert it into a Roth IRA and use it before 60 years old to fund early retirement.

Traditional IRAs are good for business owners looking for tax deductions now. An HSA (Health Savings Account) can also be used as a retirement device. It goes towards medical expenses if needed.

[00:34:20] Are there tools or algorithms I can use to figure this stuff out?

There are some. Portfolio Visualizer allows you to choose different portfolio mixes and put different amounts of money in each one. Portfolio Charts is similar to Portfolio Visualizer but gives nice graphics. Sean created a JavaScript website to help people use to figure out early retirement.

The hardest part is calculating return because you have to estimate what your return will be each year.

[00:39:00] Put Your Money Somewhere

The only bad investment is not making an investment. Even making a bad investment is better than not having any at all. Inflation eats away at money that is just sitting.

[00:42:05] If you get one of these advisors what advice should you be looking for?

Need someone that tries to understand your particular situation. “It depends” is very true and your advisor should know that. No two people will have the same financial goals. They should want to help reach your goals in the least costly way possible. Other things they should be able to do is be honest and help you control your emotions during upswings and downswings.

[00:47:08] Why index funds?

As an investor, you can buy an index fund cheaper than buying the whole index. A mutual fund will try to buy and sell the stocks in that index in order to follow the index's performance. As an investor, you have the opportunity to buy into a mutual fund that handles it for you.

You don’t have to independently invest in companies either. You can invest in an index instead that will look at, for example, top performing technology companies. It is usually a better value.

[00:53:33] How much do I invest in my business verses putting money into a Roth IRA or 401k?

Sean thinks it comes down to retirement goals. At some point you will want money to come in passively and retire in the future. If you can passively put X amount of dollars into your company then it can be looked at as a form of investment.

Kevin evaluates his business goals every quarter. He creates a business budget based off of those goals.

Picks

Cory

Aimee

Hacker News Thread – How to Not Bring Emotions Home With You
Phantogram

Charles

Sean

Kevin

Links

Special Guests: Kevin Griffin and Sean Merron.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 272: Functional Programming and ClojureScript with Eric Normand

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 272: Functional Programming and ClojureScript with Eric Normand

This episode of JavaScript Jabber features panelists Aimee Knight and Charles Max Wood. Special guest Eric Normand is here to talk about functional programming and ClojureScript. Tune in to learn more!

[00:1:14] Introduction to Eric Normand

Eric works for purelyfunctional.tv. The main target market for his company is those people who want to transition into functional programming from their current job. He offers them support, shows them where to find jobs, and gives them the skills they need to do well.

[00:02:22] Address that quickly

Functional programming is used at big companies such as Wal-Mart, Amazon, EBay, Paypal, and banks. They all have Clojure but it is not used at the scale of Java or Ruby.

So yes, people are using it and it is influencing the mainstream programming industry.

[00:3:48] How do you build an application?

A common question Eric gets is, “How do I structure my application?” People are used to using frameworks. Most start from an existing app. People want a process to figure out how to take a set of features and turn it into code. Most that get into functional programming have development experience. The attitude in functional programming is that they do not want a framework. Clojure needs to be more beginner friendly. His talk is a four-step process on how to turn into code.

[00:05:56] Can you expand on that a little?

There are four steps to the process of structuring an application.

Develop a metaphor for what you are trying to do. Developing the first implementation. How would you build it if you didn’t have code?
Develop the operations. What are their properties? Example: will have to sort records chronological.
Develop relationships between the operations.
Run tests and refactor the program. Once you have that, you can write the prototype.

[00:13:13] Why can’t you always make the code better?

Rules can’t be refactored into new concepts. They have to be thrown away and started completely over. The most important step is to think before beginning to write code. It may be the hardest part of the process, but it will make the implementation easier.

[00:17:20] What are your thoughts on when people take it too far and it makes the code harder to read?

He personally has written many bad abstractions. Writing bad things is how you get better as a programmer. The ones that go too far are the ones that don’t have any basis or are making something new up. They are trying to be too big and use no math to back up their code.

[00:20:05] Is the hammock time when you decide if you want to make something abstract or should you wait until you see patterns develop?

He thinks people should think about it before, although always be making experiments that do not touch production.

[00:23:33] Is there a trade off between using ClojureScript and functional JavaScript?

In terms of functional programming in JavaScript don’t have some of the niceties that there are in Clojure script. Clojure Script has a large standard library. JavaScript is not as well polished for functional programming; it is a lot of work to do functional programming it and not as much support.

[00:27:00:] Dave Thomas believes that the future of software is functional programming. Do you agree?

Eric thinks that it seems optimistic. He doesn’t see functional programming take over the world but does think that it has a lot to teach. The main reason to learn functional programming is to have more tools in your toolbox.

[00:31:40] If this is a better way to solve these problems, why aren’t people using it?

There is a prejudice against functional programming. When Eric was first getting into it, people would ask why he was wasting his time. Believes that people are jaded. Functional programming feels foreign because people are used to a familiar way of programming; they usually start with a language and get comfortable.

[00:40:58] If people want to get started with it, is there an easy way in?

Lodash is great to start replacing for loops. It will clean up code. There are other languages that compile to JavaScript. For example, Elm is getting a lot of attention right now. It is a Haskell like syntax. If you want more of a heavyweight language, use TypeScript or PureScript. ClojureScript is into live programming. You are able to type, save, and see results of the code immediately on the screen in front of you.

Picks

Aimee:

Eric

Charles

Ionic Framework

Links

Special Guest: Eric Normand.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 271: SharePoint Extensions in JavaScript with Mike Ammerlaan and Vesa Juvonen

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 11:00:00 +0000

JSJ 271: SharePoint Extensions in JavaScript with Mike Ammerlaan and Vesa Juvonen

This episode is a live episode from Microsoft Build where AJ O'Neal and Charles Max Wood interview Mike Ammerlaan and Vesa Juvonent about building extensions for SharePoint with JavaScript.

[00:01:28] Mike Ammerlaan introduction
Mike has worked at Microsoft for a long time on multiple Microsoft products and projects. He's currently on the Office Ecosystem Marketing Team.

[00:01:52] Vesa Juvonen introduction
Ves a is Senior Program Manager for the SharePoint Splat team. He's been with Microsoft for about 11 years and manages the community and documentation for the SharePoint framework.

[00:02:18] What is the SharePoint Framework?
This is how you write SharePoint extensions with JavaScript. SharePoint has changed. It now works with common modern development tools and web development techniques. SharePoint consolodates the extension effort

[00:03:32] What is SharePoint?
File sharing, team sites, communication points for teams. Part of Office 365. You use Web Parts to add functionality to SharePoint. Web Parts provide functionality like widgets and are scoped to a team, group, or set of users. It's usually hosted on premises, but you can also use it with Office 365 as a hosted solution.

[00:05:56] What extensions can you build for SharePoint?
You can build widgets for your front page or intranet. You can also add user management or data management or document management.

Examples:

Dashboards
Mini Applications
Scheduling and Time Tracking
Document Storage
Source code repositories

[00:07:39] What is WebDAV and how does it relate?
WebDAV is a protocol for accessing documents and SharePoint supports it among other protocols for managing documents.

[00:08:36] Do I have to build front-end and back-end components to get full functionality?
You can build the front-end UI with Angular and other frameworks. And then build a service in Azure on the backend. The backend systems can then access Line of Business systems or other data systems.

It really does take multiple skill sets to build extensions for SharePoint.

[00:11:10] SharePoint on Mobile
There is a mobile web app and the Web Parts work through the mobile application. You can also use any browser to connect to the application.

[00:12:08] Building extensions with standard Angular or React component libraries
There are standard Yeoman templates. You can also pull in the components through React or Angular just like what Microsoft does.

Newer Angular versions are designed for Single Page Apps and SharePoint isn't necessarily set up to work that way. The Web Parts are isolated from each other and Angular requires some workarounds.

[00:14:30] Getting around sandboxing
Google and Microsoft are talking to each other to see how to work around this when there are multiple sandboxed applications that can't talk to each other in very simple ways.

[00:15:39] Application library or naming collisions if my UI uses different versions or clobber page wide settings
There are guides for a lot of this. React does a bunch of the isolation work.

Addons are iframed in and an API token is given to grant access to the data and APIs.

Microsoft also reviews and approves plugins.

[00:18:30] How do you get started and make money at this?
Look at the SharePoint store. You can build things through websites and pages and offer the plugins through the store.

You can request a SharePoint tenant installation from the Microsoft Dev Tools for free. Then you can build into the tenant site. The rest of the tools are available on npm.

SharePoint Developer Tools

[00:22:13] Automated testing for SharePoint extensions
Unit testing is built in for JavaScript. Testing the UI's require you to sign into Office 365. There are people doing it, though.

[00:22:54] Building internal-only extensions
SharePoint is an enterprise tool, so a lot of enterprises may not want to install extensions from the store. You can definitely build and install private plugins for SharePoint setups. They also have their own backend systems that will require custom development.

[00:25:50] Office 365, SharePoint, and OneDrive
Office 365 is used by people across many different sized organizations and SharePoint is much more enterprise. Office 365 tools store files and information in SharePoint.

What about OneDrive versus Sharepoint? OneDrive is focused for one person. SharePoint is focused around a team. But they have the same APIs and use the same technology stack.

[00:29:05] The history and future of SharePoint
It started out on premises and has moved to the cloud. The SharePoint team is working to keep it available and useful in the modern cloud based era.

[00:30:25] What does the API footprint look like?
It spans modifying lists, data objects, attributes, items in a list, put Web Parts on a page, modify the experience, and manage and modify access, users, and documents. SharePoint is a way of building a way of conveying information.

SharePoint is layers of data and scopes.

[00:35:26] Tutorials and Open Source
dev.office.com
The Sharepoint framework is not open source yet, but they're working on that. They also need to open source the Yeoman templates.
Open source samples are available at github.com/sharepoint.

Picks

Charles Max Wood

BlueTick
Zapier
ScheduleOnce
Moo.com
Advice: Take the time to go talk to people.
Vesa adds that you should go to a session that's on something completely outside your experience.

AJ O'Neal

The Circle
Spontaneity/Happiness: AJ tells a story about a woman he saw running through sprinklers.
Oh the places you'll go by Dr. Seuss: AJ talks about a journal entry he read at a yard sale.

Mike Ammerlaan

Super hot VR on Oculus Rift

Vesa Juvonen

Family

A big thanks to Microsoft, DotNetRocks, and Build!

Special Guests: Mike Ammerlaan and Vesa Juvonen.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 270 The Complete Software Developers Career Guide with John Sonmez

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 270 The Complete Software Developers Career Guide with John Sonmez

This episode features a panel of Joe Eames, AJ O’Neal, as well as host Charles Maxwell. Special guest John Sonmez runs the website SimpleProgrammer.com that is focused on personal development for software developers. He works on career development and improving the non-technical life aspects of software developers. Today’s episode focuses on John’s new book The Complete Software Developers Career Guide.

Did the book start out being 700 pages?

No. My goal was 200,000 words. During the editing process a lot of questions came up, so pages were added. There were side sections called “Hey John” to answer questions that added 150 pages.

Is this book aimed at beginners?

It should be valuable for three types of software developers: beginner, intermediate, and senior developers looking to advance their career. The book is broken up into five sections, which build upon each other. These sections are: - How to get started as a software developer - How to get a job and negotiate salary - The technical skills needed to know to be a software developer - How to work as a software developer - How to advance in career

Is it more a reference book, not intended to read front to back?

The book could be read either way. It is written in small chapters. Most people will read it start to finish, but it is written so that you can pick what you’re interested in and each chapter still makes sense by itself.

Where did you come up with the idea for the book?

It was a combination of things. At the time I wanted new blog posts, a new product, and a new book. So I thought, “What if I wrote a book that could release chapters as blog posts and could be a product later on?” I also wanted to capture everything I learned about software development and put it on paper so that didn’t lose it.

What did people feel like they were missing (from Soft Skills) that you made sure went into this book?

All the questions that people would ask were about career advice. People would ask things regarding: - How do I learn programming? - What programming language should I learn? - Problems with co-workers and boss - Dress code

What do you think is the most practical advice from the book for someone just getting started?

John thinks that the most important thing to tell people is to come up with a plan on how you’re going to become educated in software development. And then to decide what you’re going to pursue. People need to define what they want to be. After that is done, go backwards and come up with a plan in order to get there. If you set a plan, you’ll learn faster and become a valuable asset to a team. Charles agrees that this is how to stay current in the job force.

What skills do you actually need to have as a developer?

Section 3 of the book answers this question. There was some frustration when beginning as a software developer, so put this list together in the book. - Programming language that you know - Source control understanding - Basic testing - Continuous integration and build systems - What kinds of development (web, mobile, back end) - Databases - Sequel

Were any of those surprises to you?

Maybe DevOps because today’s software developers need to, but I didn’t need to starting out. We weren’t involved in production. Today’s software developers need to understand it because they will be involved in those steps.

What do you think is the importance of learning build tools and frameworks, etc. verses learning the basics?

Build tools and frameworks need to be understood in order to understand how your piece fits into the bigger picture. It is important to understand as much as you can of what’s out there. The basics aren’t going to change so you should have an in depth knowledge of them. Problems will always be solved the same way. John wants people to have as few “unknown unknowns” as possible. That way they won’t be lost and can focus on more timeless things.

What do you think about the virtues of self-taught verses boot camp verses University?

This is the first question many developers have so it is addressed it in the book. If you can find a good coding boot camp, John personally thinks that’s the best way. He would spend money on boot camp because it is a full immersion. But while there, you need to work as hard as possible to soak up knowledge. After a boot camp, then you can go back and fill in your computer science knowledge. This could be through part time college classes or even by self-teaching.

Is the classic computer science stuff important?

John was mostly self-taught; he only went to college for a year. He realized that he needed to go back and learn computer science stuff. Doesn’t think that there is a need to have background in computer science, but that it can be a time saver.

A lot of people get into web development and learn React or Angular but don’t learn fundamentals of JavaScript. Is that a big mistake?

John believes that it is a mistake to not fully understand what you’re doing. Knowing the function first, knowing React, is a good approach. Then you can go back and learn JavaScript and understand more. He states that if you don’t learn the basics, you will be stunted and possibly solve things wrong. Joe agrees with JavaScript, but not so much with things algorithms. He states that it never helped him once he went back and learned it. John suggests the book Algorithms to Live By – teaches how to apply algorithms to real life.

Is there one question you get asked more than anything else you have the answer to in the book?

The most interesting question is regarding contract verses salary employment and how to compare them. It should all be evaluated based on monetary value. Salary jobs look good because of benefits. But when looking at pay divided by the hours of work, usually a salary job is lower paid. This is because people usually work longer hours at salary jobs without being paid for it.

What’s the best place for people to pick up the book?

simpleprogrammer.com/careerguide and it will be sold on Amazon. The book will be 99 cents on kindle – want it to be the best selling software development book ever.

Picks

Joe

Wonder Woman

The Alchemist

Charles

Artificial Intelligence with Python

John

Algorithms to Live by: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Apple Airpods

Links

Simple Programmer Youtube

Special Guest: John Sonmez.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 269 Reusable React and JavaScript Components with Cory House

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 269 Reusable React and JavaScript Components with Cory House

On today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber, we have panelists Joe Eames, Aimee Knight, Charles Max Wood, and playing the part of both host and guest, Cory House. Encourage your team to investigate reusable components, whether that’d be React, Angular, Vue, or Ember. Tune in!

[00:01:35] – Overview

We can finally write reusable components that it is really lightweight. It doesn’t take much framework-specific code to get things done.

Around 3 years ago, the idea of web component standard was all front-end developers could share our components with each other whether someone is in Angular or React. Web components continue to be an interesting standard but people continue to reach for JavaScript libraries instead – React, Angular, Vue.

[00:04:50] – Browser support issue

The story in JavaScript libraries is easier. You have more power, more flexibility, more choices, and get superior performance, in certain cases, by choosing a JavaScript library over the standard right now. If you try to use the web components standard, you have to Polyfill-in some features so you can run things across browser. You also won’t get JavaScript features like intelligently splitting bundles and lazy load different components.

Whether you’re in Angular or React, you have this model of putting your data in your curly braces. That setup is non-existent in standardized web components. You have to play the game of putting and pulling data into and out the DOM using DOM selectors. You actually take a step backward in developer ergonomics when you choose to leverage the platform instead.

[00:07:50] – Polymer

The reason that Polymer is useful is it adds some goodness on top of web components. One of those things is that it makes it easier to bind in data and not having to do things like writing a DOM query to be able to get your hands on this div and put this text inside of it. With Polymer, you can do something that feels more like Angular, where you can put in your curly braces and just bind in some data into that place. Polymer ends up adding some nice syntactic sugar on top of the web components standard just to make it easier to create web components. Polymer is also used to bundle in Polyfill for the features across browser.

[00:14:20] – Standards are dead

No. The standard itself has been embraced at different levels by different libraries. What you can see for the near future is popular libraries leveraging pieces of the web components platform to do things in a standard-spaced way. Effectively, Angular, Vue, Aurelia, are going to be abstractions over the web components standard. Arguably the most popular way to do components today is React. But React completely ignores the web components standard. When you look at React, you can’t see what piece of the web components standard would fundamentally make React a better component library.

Cory can’t seem to run to anybody that is actually using the standard in production to build real applications. People continue to reach for the popular JavaScript libraries that we so often hear about.

[00:17:05] – Libraries making reusable components

There is a risk that it would have been a waste for people writing components on Angular, for React, for Vue. But it’s not necessarily safer writing on the web component standard when you have so few people leveraging that standard. There’s always the risk that that standard may shift as well.

As an example, Cory’s team created approximately 100 reusable components in React. If they end up moving to a hot new library, the components are really just functions that take parameters and contain HTML. There is little there

[00:21:20] – Why opt for reusable components

Reusable components are inherently useful in a situation where you’re going to be doing something more than once. If you think about any work that you do as a software developer, we’d like to think that we’re coming in and creating new things but often it is groundhogs day. There are all sorts of opportunities for reuse.

As a company, we want to encapsulate our forms in reusable components so it’s literally impossible for our software developers to do something that goes against our standard. That’s the power of reusable components.

[00:31:20] – Rigid component vs. flexible component

As component developers, if we try to create a reusable component in a vacuum, bad things happen. If you’re going to do a reusable component, start by solving a specific problem on a given application. If we think that a component’s going to be useful in multiple places, we put it in a folder called reusable right there in our application source folder.

We try to follow that rule of three as well. If we’ve taken that component and used it in 3 places, that’s a good sign that we should extract it out, put it in our NPM package, that way, everybody has this centralized component to utilize. At that point, it has been tested. It’s been through the fire. People have used it in the real world in a few places so we can be confident that the API is truly flexible enough.

Be as rigid as you can upfront. Once you add features, it’s really hard to take features away. But it’s quite easy to add features later. If you start with something rigid, it’s easier to understand. It’s easier to maintain and you can always add a few more switches later.

[00:36:00] – Reusable components

The reason that we can’t reuse code is every time a new project comes up, people are spending up their own ideas rather than leveraging standards that should have been put in place previously.

We’ve had the technical ability to do this for a long time. We just haven’t been around long enough for consolidation to happen, for standardization to happen. You look at how quickly things are changing in our industry. For instance, a couple of years ago, everybody had pretty much decided that two-way binding was the way to build web applications. And then, React came along and shook that up. So today, you have different ways of thinking about that issue.

[00:42:45] – Component development on teams

Aimee’s team has component development and they’re using Angular 1.6. All of our base components are sitting in a seed application. We just go in when we want to create a new property and we just extend all of those components with specific functionalities that we need.

[00:47:45] – Mobile to web crossover

Cory’s team is creating React components but it’s not leveraged on a mobile application. But people use React Native components on the web. And in fact, if you use create-react-app today, you can do that right now. It’s wired up to work in React Native components. In that way, you can literally have these same components running on your Native mobile apps as you do on your web application.

[00:50:00] – Challenge

Cory’s challenge for everybody listening is sit down with your team and have a quick conversation about whether you think components make sense. Look back at the last few months of development and say, "if we have a reusable component library, what would be in it? How often have we found ourselves copying and pasting code between different projects? How much benefit would we get out of this story?"

Once you’ve realized the benefits of the component model, both in the way that makes you think about your application, in a way that it helps you move faster and faster over time, I really think you won’t go back to the old model. I’d encourage people to investigate reusable components, whether that’d be React, Angular, Vue or Ember.

Picks

Cory House

Joe Eames

UI-Router
Persistence

Aimee Knight

Charles Max Wood

Upwork.com

JSJ 269 Reusable React and JavaScript Components with Cory House

[00:01:35] – Overview

We can finally write reusable components that it is really lightweight. It doesn’t take much framework-specific code to get things done.

[00:04:50] – Browser support issue

[00:07:50] – Polymer

[00:14:20] – Standards are dead

[00:17:05] – Libraries making reusable components

[00:21:20] – Why opt for reusable components

[00:31:20] – Rigid component vs. flexible component

[00:36:00] – Reusable components

The reason that we can’t reuse code is every time a new project comes up, people are spending up their own ideas rather than leveraging standards that should have been put in place previously.

[00:42:45] – Component development on teams

[00:47:45] – Mobile to web crossover

[00:50:00] – Challenge

Picks

Cory House

Joe Eames

UI-Router
Persistence

Aimee Knight

Charles Max Wood

Upwork.com

Special Guest: Cory House.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

JSJ 268 Building Microsoft Office Extensions with JavaScript with Tristan Davis and Sean Laberee

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 268 Building Microsoft Office Extensions with Javascript with Tristan Davis and Sean Laberee

This episode is live at the Microsoft Build 2017 with Charles Max Wood and AJ O’Neal. We have Tristan Davis and Sean Laberee from the Office Team at Microsoft. Tune in and learn more about what’s new with Microsoft Office Extensions!

[00:01:25] – Introduction to Tristan Davis and Sean Laberee

Tristan Davis and Sean Laberee are Program Managers on the Microsoft Office team, focused on Extensibility.

Questions for Tristan and Sean

[00:01:45] – Extending Office functionality with Javascript

Office isn’t just an application on Windows that runs on your PC. It is running on iPhone, iPad, Android tablet, and apps on the browser with Office Online. The team needs a new platform, add-ins, which allow you to build apps that run across all places. It’s HTML and Javascript. HTML for all the UI and a series of Javascript module calls for the document properties. Sometimes we call it OfficeJS.

[00:03:20] – This works on any version of Office?

It works on Office on Windows, Mac, Online and iPad.

[00:03:55] – HTML and CSS suck on mobile?

There are things that you’re going to want to do when you know you’re running on a mobile device. If you look at an add-in running on Outlook for iPhone, the developer does a lot of things to make that feel like part of the iPhone UI. Tristan believes that you could build a great add-in for Office using HTML and JavaScript.

[00:05:20] – Are these apps written with JavaScript or you have a Native with WebView?

Office itself is Native. All of it is Native code but the platform is very much web. The main piece of it is pointing at the URL. Just go load that URL. And then, you can also call functions in your JavaScript.

[00:06:35] – Why would you do this? How does it work?

The add-in platform is a way to help developers turn Word, Excel and PowerPoint into the apps that actually solve user’s business problems. The team will give you the tools with HTML and JavaScript to go and pop into the Word UI and the API’s that let you go manipulate the paragraph and texts inside of Word. Or in Excel, you might want to create custom formulas or visualizations. The team also let people use D3 to generate their own Excel charts.

And developers want to extend Office because it’s where a lot of business workers spend their days 0 in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel.

[00:10:00] – How did this get delivered to them?

There are 2 ways to get this delivered. One, there’s an Office Store. Second, if you go into Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, there’s a store button and you can see tons of integrations with partners.

For enterprises, IT can deploy add-ins to the users’ desktops without having stress about deploying MSI’s and other software deployments that the web completely rids off. The add-ins make a whole lot of pain the past completely go away.

[00:11:00] – Everybody in the company can use a particular plug-in by distributing it with Office?

That’s right. You can go to Office 365 add-in experience. Here’s the add-in and you can to specific people or everyone who’s part of a group.

For the developer’s perspective, if you have the add-in deployed to your client, you could actually push updates to the web service and your users get the updates instantly. It’s a lot faster turn-around model.

[00:14:20] – What about conversations or bot integrations?

There’s the idea of connectors at Teams. You can subscribe to this web book and it’ll publish JSON. When the JSON is received, a new conversation inside of Teams or Outlook will be created. For example, every time someone posts on Stack Overflow with one of the tags that team cares about, it posts on Outlook.

It’s a great way to bring all the stuff. Rather than have 20 different apps that are shooting 20 different sets of notifications, it’s just all conversations in email, making do all the standard email things.

And in the connector case, it’s a push model. The user could choose what notifications they want.

You’d also learn things like bots. You can have bots in Teams and Skype. The users can interact with them with their natural language.

[00:18:40] – How about authentication?

As long as you’re signed into Office, you can call JavaScript API to give you an identity token for the sign in user and it will hand you a JWT back. That’s coming from Azure Active Directory or from whatever customer directory service. That’s standard.

If you want to do more, you can take that identity token and you can exchange that for a token that can call Microsoft graph. This app wants to get access to phone, are you okay with that? Assuming the user says yes, the user gets a token that can go and grab whatever data he wants from the back-end.

[00:20:00] – Where does it store the token?

That’s up to the developer to decide how they want to handle that but there are facilities that make sure you can pop up a dialog box and you can go to the LO-flow. You could theoretically cache it in the browser or a cookie. Or whatever people think is more appropriate for the scenario.

[00:20:55] – What does the API actually look like from JavaScript?

If you’re familiar with Excel UI, you can look at Excel API. It’s workbook.worksheets.getItem() and you can pass the name of the worksheet. It can also pass the index of the worksheet.

[00:22:30] – What’s the process of getting setup?

There’s a variety of options. You can download Office, write XML manifest, and take a sample, and then, side loads it into Office. You can also do that through web apps. There’s no install required because you can go work against Office Online. In the Insert menu, there’s a way to configure your add-ins. There’s upload a manifest there and you can just upload the XML. That’s going to work against whatever web server you have set up.

So it’s either on your local machine or up in the cloud. It’s as much as like regular web development. Just bring your own tools.

[00:24:15] – How do you protect me as a plug-in developer?

There’s an access add-in that will ask your permission to access, say, a document. Assume, they say yes, pipes are opened and they can just go talk to those things. But the team also tries to sandbox it by iframes. It’s not one page that has everybody’s plug-ins intermingle that people can pole at other people’s stuff.

[00:27:20] – How do you support backward compatibility?

There are cases where we change the behavior of the API. Every API is gated by requirement set. So if a developer needs access to a requirement set, he gets an aggregate instead of API’s that he can work with but it isn’t fixed forever.

But it’s not at that point yet where we end up to remove things completely. In Office JS, we’ve talked about API’s as one JavaScript library but really, it’s a bootstrap that brings in a bunch of other pieces that you need.

[00:30:00] – How does that work on mobile? Do they have to approve download for all components?

You can download components by using the browser that the operating system gives. It’s another one of the virtues of being based on the web. Every platform that has a web browser can have JavaScript execution run-time. It allows for the way that their app guidelines are written.

[00:33:15] – How about testing?

It’s a place where there’s still have work to do. There’s a bunch of open-source projects that partners have started to do that. What they’ve done is they’ve built a testing library. Whatever the mock is, it's just a thing on Github. It is open-source friendly. So the team could be able to contribute to it. “Here’s an interesting test case for this API. I want to make sure that it behaves like this.

[00:35:50] – Could you write it with any version for JavaScript e.g. TypeScript?

A Huge chunk of the team is big TypeScript fans. They’ve done a lot of work to make sure that TypeScript experience is excellence.

Type is basically a collection of typing files for TypeScript. There’s a runtime process that parses your TypeScript, gives you feedback on your code, and checks for errors. You can also run it in the background.

There’s an add-in called Script Lab. Script Lab is literally, you hit the code button and you get a web IDE right there. You can go start typing JavaScript code, play with API’s, and uses TypeScript by default. It’ll just actually load your code in the browser, executes, and you can start watching.

[00:39:25] – Are there any limitations on which JavaScript libraries you can pull in?

There a no limitations in place right now. There are partners that use Angular. There are partners that are big React fans. If you’re a web dev, you can bring whatever preferences around frameworks, around tools, around TypeScript versus JavaScript.

[00:45:20] – What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen done with this API?

Battleship was pretty cool. There’s also Star Wars entering credits theme for PowerPoint.

[00:46:40] – If a developer is building a plug-in and get paid for it, does Microsoft take credit for that?

There are 2 ways that folks can do it. You can do paid add-ins to the store. Either you do the standard perpetual 99 cents or you can do subscriptions, where it’s $2.99/month. Tristan encourages that model because integrations are just a piece of some larger piece of software.

But Microsoft is not in the business of trying to get you to pay me a little bit of 10 cents a dollar. It’s really in the business of making sure that you can integrate with Office as quickly as possibly can.

When the users go to the store, they can use the same Microsoft account that you use to buy Xbox games or movies in the Xbox, Windows apps in the Windows store.

[00:52:00] – The App Model

If folks are interested in the app model, they should go to dev.office.com to learn more about it because that’s where all the documentation is. Check out our Github. Right there in the open, there’s the spec. Literally, the engineers who are coding the product are reading the same marked-down files in the same repo that you, as a developer, can come and look at. And you can comment. You can add issues like you could have a dialogue with that PM. Under the OfficeDev, you’ll find a tunnel repository that contains samples. Our docs are there.

Picks

AJ O'Neal

Lithium

Charles Max Wood

Tristan Davis

Amazon Echo
Microbiome

Sean Laberee

Running
Garmin watch

Special Guests: Sean Laberee and Tristan Davis.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

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JSJ 267 Node 8 with Mikeal Rogers, Arunesh Chandra, and Anna Henningsen

Tue, 27 Jun 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 267 Node 8 with Mikeal Rogers, Arunesh Chandra, and Anna Henningsen

On today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber we have panelists Joe Eames, AJ O’Neil, Amiee Knight and Charles Max Wood and we are talking about Node 8. To help us we have special guests Mikeal Rodgers, Arunesh Chandra, and Anna Henningsen. It’s going to be a great show. Tune in.

[1:56] Is Node 8 just an update or is there more?

More than just an update
Two main points:
Improved Prana support
Native API
Native APIs are helpful for Native Add-ons. For both the consumer and the developer side.
Prior to update these Node Native modules ran in C++ and bound to specific to Node 8 APIs.
Causes these modules to be updated or reconciled every time these modules are rereleased.
Creates burden for module maintainers.
Creates friction in upgrading Node versions in production departments.
If you have a deployment depending on a certain Native module, some of the modules may not get updated in time when updating your Node versions. Keeping people from updating Node.
Creates compatibility issues with Node users not using Node 8
Experimental support for a Native layer in Node 8 to eliminate these issues as much as possible.
Important milestone for the module ecosystem.
You can write extensions for Node in C++ and it decouples V8 so you can use something else on the front.
Modules takes dependency on V8 API specific to a particular version. So if V8 changes your module will be extracted from that.
As a side benefit, you can have another VM to take advantage of that.
Major version upgrades mean updating Native modules and usually some of those modules haven’t updated to the newest version of Node and be complicated.
Deep dependency wise, about 30% depends on a Native module somewhere
In the future, with the Native API, you’ll be able to update Node without breaking modules.

[5:51] What kind of work went into this?

Most of the work was in C++
First thing that was done was, they looked at the top dependent Native modules in the ecosystem.
Looked for what kind of V8 exposure they had and cataloged it
Looked at how these APIs and what their purposes were
Looked for a way to extract them so that they are part of Node Core
Created neutral APIs, now part of the Node core.
All C APIs
Also has a C++ wrapper to improves usability of the API.

[7:17] What’s an example of what you can do with these APIs?

Native modules allows for tighter integration and better module performance
Specific APIs that you can use in V8 that isn’t available through JavaScript
If you have a C++ variable code and you want to expose a variable into JavaScript, that is V8 API note a Node 8 API
Having it bound directly to the VM was something they wanted for a long time
Google controls V8 and they bind to V8
Created a better relationship with Google starting in IOJS
Also worked with Microsoft with their Node Shocker work.
Same with SpiderMonkey
SpiderNode is in the works

[9:23] Have you guys done any testing for performance?

Some. There is a performance working group.
There is a need to stay on top of V8
V8 team has focused on new language features
Many features have been added over the years
Many didn’t come in optimized
The performance profile has changed with these features
If you’re using new language features, you will see a performance boost
In core, still tracking down code that was specific to the old optimizer and rewriting i to work the new optimizer
Turbo C compiler hasn’t landed yet, but is to come.
Will have a completely different performance profile
In most real world applications it will be faster
Waiting on the release to take a version of V8 to make it easier to upgrade features in the future

[11:28] Are the new features picked up from V8 or implemented in Node?

It’s all in V8
Better longterm support
Promises are made better in Node as a platform
Added new method called util.promisify()
Implementation comes from V8
Allows for more optimization for promises in Node core
Promise support for the one-deprecated domains module.

[13:02] Is there anything more than NMP 5?

First off, delete your NMP cache.
It’s in your home directory usually with a .npm extension

[14:09] What are the new features in V8?

Unlimited heap sizes, previously had a 4gb limit. No fixed limit.

[14:09] Will you see things like chakra come out tuned for servers?

Profiles of a server for application process are getting smaller
Getting cut into containers and VMs and micro services
Vms that have cold boot time and run quickly in a strained environment is looking more like what we will see in the future
Yes, especially if you’re using cloud functions
V8 is optimized for phones, but Chakra is even more so
Looking for opportunities for VMs can be solely optimized for a device target
Node take advantage of that VM
VM neutrality is an interesting concept
VM Vendors trying to optimize it based on workloads of a server
Opens opportunities for Node
Node Chakra has been proved to iOS. You can cut off jitting off which was a requirement to be able to be in the Apple App Store
Node is not just for servers anymore
Node doesn’t take a long time configuring it
When a developer runs code on an IoT or a mobile app they don’t control the VM that is bundled, they run it on top of Node and it just works.
VM neutrality gives a new vector, so you can swam a whole different VM

[18:44] When running different engines like iOS vs Android, does the profile change?

What it comes down to is if it’s eventive programming
The browser is an eventive environment, is very efficient waiting for things to happen before it does something
The way that we program servers and nodes are the same as well
the basics are the same generally
environmental differences exist but the programming model is usually the same
What does impact it is memory and processor and hardware and things like that
That is where tuning the VM comes into play

[20:29] What is the new Async Hooks API used for?

Node has been lacking for automated inspection of Async Hook
No way for Node to tell you when scheduling and beginning of an Async operation. Hook helps with that
it’s a way for developers to write debugging features
Node tells the application that it’s working with Asynchronous way.
The embedded inspector has been embedded since Node 6
Now has a JavaScript API to use it
You can use things like Chrome debugger inside the running node process
Old debugging protocol has been removed
VM.run is still there but in the process of being deprecated

[22:34] How like is the experimental Node API will change?

Marked as experimental because it’s the first time in the open
Hopefully out of experimental soon
Soon can port API to the existing LTS
Looking for more people to participate with the new API and give feedback
Fix any concerns before it goes to LTS
Some other experimental things are in the works like ASync Hooks and how it interacts with promises
Renaming some features
Another new feature - serializer and deserializer that comes with V8
experimental but will most likely stay

[25:31] what is your standard for going to LTS?

Major releases every 6 months
Next Oct Node 9 will come out and then Node 8 will be LTS
Documentation, updates, additions etc will be ready then
Plan to do it for 2.5 years
Every even releases come out to LTS as the odd release comes out
Helps keeps a current line while having something new in the release line
Node 6 is the current LTS version

[27:26] What are you taking out or deprecating in Node 8?

Use the word deprecate sparingly
If many people use features, it’s hard to get rid of
Security issue with Buffer, constructor argument was ambiguous
Had added APIs that were more explicit over time and pushed those
Now it will be deprecated

[28:43] 21% - 33% Performance increase with some Node updates

Someone online updated their React app to Node 8 and found an 21% - 33% increase
Benchmarking group tests to make sure things are getting faster
V8 is always getting faster as well
Code changes fast and so there is a chance performance slows down so they have people to check
Benchmark test are all automated by a team

[30:47] Is it safe to just switch to Node 8?

For front-end, yes
clear your NPM cache
Back use cases will usually wait until LTS

[31:28] Where any of the features hard to implement?

The API work took about a year
It was a collaboration which made it interesting
IBM, Intel, Google were involved
The collaboration took a while
Also Async hooks took at least a year.
Async hooks used to be called async wraps and has been in the work for almost 3 years
many of the changes were the accumulation of small chances

[33:07] It’s the little things

Letting people get small changes in accumulate into a big difference
the product gets much better that way

[33:57] What versions of Node are you actively updating?

Current releases of Node 8 for a half of year
Node 6 is LTS
Additional year of maintenance of previous LTSs.
Schedule is at http://github.com/node8js/lts in a chart
Support for Node 4 with only critical updates, Node 6 minor updates, and Node 8
Node 7 doesn’t get much support unless it’s vital security supports.
If you’re running 0.10 or 0.12 stop. Those do not get security fixes anymore

[35:42] Where do you see things going from here?

Mostly still working out Async hooks
Maybe add some web worker or worker support for Node JS
ES module support
Working to make promises better
Working on the performance profile and internal systems

[20:29] What is the adoption like of Node 8?

Node team gets better at getting people to adopt quickly
but about 5% - 6% will not upgrade
community doubles each year at 8 million users right now
Here is a graph on Twitter posted by NPM
Limiting breaks and softly deprecating things makes it’s easier to upgrade

[40:11] How can people contribute and get involved?

NodeToDo.org shows how to make contribution
Occasionally major conferences have information on how to contribute
Test it out and help make it stronger

[42:08] If people install Node 8 and have issues what can they do?

If it’s an NPM problem check with them
clear cache!
install newest version with: npm install -g npm@latest
Report problems to either NPM or Node
If you’re not sure where the problem is, check github.com/nodejs/help

Links

Node8 Node’s Twitter Node’s Medium Node Evangelism Group

Mikael on Twitter and GitHub Arunesh on Twitter Anna on Twitter

Picks

Overclocked Remix Super Mario RPG Window to The Stars

Amiee

Blogpost RisingStack on Node 8
2 Frugal Dudes

Charles

Homeland
House of Cards

Joe

Shimmer Lake

Mikael

Blake2b-wasm

Aremesh

Current Nightly News

Special Guests: Anna Henningsen, Arunesh Chandra, and Mikeal Rogers.

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JSJ 266 NPM 5.0 with Rebecca Turner

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today’s episode of JavaScript Jabber, Charles Max Wood and panelist Joe Eames chat with Rebecca Turner, tech lead for NPM, a popular Javascript package manager with the worlds largest software registry. Learn about the newly released NPM 5 including a few of the updated features. Stay tuned!

[1:58] Was the release of node JS 8 tied to NPM5?

Features in NPM5 have been in planning for 2 years now.
Planned on getting it out earlier this year.
Node 8 was coming out and got pushed out a month.
Putting NPM5 into Node 8 became doable.
Pushed really hard to get NPM5 into Node 8 so that users would get NPM5 and updates to NPM5.

[2:58] Why would it matter? NPM doesn’t care right?

Right you can use NPM5 with any version of node.
Most people don’t update NPM, but upgrade Node.
So releasing them together allowed for when people updated Node they would get NPM 5.

[3:29] How does the upgrade process work if you’re using NVM or some node version manager?

Depends. Different approaches for each
NVM gets a fresh copy of Node with new globals. NVM5 and Node 8 are bundled.
For some, If you manually upgrade NVM you’ll always have to manually. It will keep the one you manually upgraded to.

[4:16] Why NPM 5?

It’s night and day faster.
3 to 5 times speed up is not uncommon.
Most package managers are slow.
NPM 5 is still growing. Will get even faster.

[5:18] How did you make it faster?

The NPM’s cache is old. It’s very slow. Appalling slow.
Rewrote cache
Saw huge performance gains

[5:49] What is the function of the cache?

Cache makes it so you don’t have to reinstall modules from the internet.
It has registry information too.
It will now obey http headers for timing out cache.

[6:50] Other things that made it faster?

Had a log file for a long time. It was called shrinkwrap.
NPM 5 makes it default.
Renamed it to packagelog.json
Exactly like shrinkwrap package file seen before
In combo with cache, it makes it really fast.
Stores information about what the tree should look like and it’s general structure.
It doesn’t have to go back and learn versions of packages.

[7:50] Can you turn the default Packagelog.json off?

Yes. Just:
Set packagelog=false in the npmrc

[8:01] Why make it default? Why wasn’t it default before?

It Didn’t have it before. Shrinkwrap was added as a separate project enfolded in NPM and wasn’t core to the design of NPM.
Most people would now benefit from it. Not many scenarios where you wouldn’t want one.
Teams not using the same tools causes headaches and issues.

[9:38] Where does not having a lock show up as a problem?

It records the versions of the packages installed and where NPM put them so that when you clone a project down you will have exactly the same versions across machines.
Collaborators have the exact same version.
Protects from issues after people introduce changes and patch releases.
NPM being faster is just a bonus.
Store the sha512 of the package that was installed in the glock file so that we can verify it when you install. It’s Bit for bit what you had previously.

[11:12] Could you solve that by setting the package version as the same version as the .Json file?

No. That will lock down the versions of the modules that you install personally, not the dependancies, or transitive dependancies.
Package log allows you to look into the head of the installer. This is what the install looks like.

[12:16] Defaulting the log file speed things up? How?

It doesn’t have to figure out dependences or the tree which makes it faster.
Shrinkwrap command is still there, it renames it to shrinkwrap but shrinkwrap cannot be published.
For application level things or big libraries, using shrinkwrap to lock down versions is popular.

[13:42] You’ve Adopted specifications in a ROC process. When did you guys do that?

Did it in January
Have been using them internally for years. Inviting people into the process.
Specifications
Written in the form of “Here is the problem and here are the solutions.”
Spec folder in NPM docs, things being added to that as they specify how things work.
Spec tests have been great.

[14:59] The update adds new tools. Will there be new things in registry as well?

Yes.
Information about a package from registry, it returns document that has info about every version and package json data and full readme for every version.
It gets very large.
New API to request smaller version of that document.
Reduces bandwidth, lower download size, makes it substantially faster.
Used to be hashed with sha1, With this update it will be hashed with sha512 as well as sha1 for older clients.

[16:20] Will you be stopping support for older versions?

LTS version of NPM was a thing for a while. They stopped doing that.
Two models, people either use whatever version came with Node or they update to the latest.
The NPM team is really small. Hard to maintain old NPM branches.
Supports current versions and that’s pretty much it.
If there are big problems they will fix old versions. Patches , etc.

[17:36] Will there ever be problems with that?

Older versions should continue to work. Shouldn’t break any of that.
Can’t upgrade from 0.8.
It does break with different Node version
Does not support Node versions 0.10 or 0.12.

[18:47] How do you upgrade to NPM?

sudo npm install -gmpm
Yes, you may not need sudo. depend on what you’re on.

[19:07] How long has it been since version 4?

Last October is when it came out.

[19:24] Do you already have plans for version 6?

Yes!
More releases than before coming up.
Finally deprecating old features that are only used in a few packages out of the whole registry.
Running tests on getting rid of things.

[20:50] Self healing cache. What is it and why do we want it?

Users are sometimes showing up where installs are broken and tarbols are corrupted.
This happens sometimes with complicated containerization setups makes it more likely. It’s unclear where the problem actually is.
CaCache - content addressable cache. Take the hash of your package and use it to look up address to look it up in the cache.
Compares the Tarbol using an address to look it up in the cache.
Compares to see if it’s old. Trashes old and downloads updated one.
Came out with the cache. Free side effect of the new cache.

[23:14] New information output as part of the update?

NPM has always gave back you the tree from what you just installed.
Now, trees can be larger and displaying that much information is not useful.
User patch - gives you specifically what you asked for.
Information it shows will be something like: “I installed 50 items, updated 7, deleted 2.”

[24:23] Did you personally put that together?

Yes, threw it together and then got feedback from users and went with it.
Often unplanned features will get made and will be thrown out to get feedback.
Another new things ls output now shows you modules that were deduped. Shows logical tree and it’s relationships and what was deduped.

[25:27] You came up to node 4 syntax. Why not go to node 8?

To allow people with just node 4 be able to use NPM.
Many projects still run Node 4. Once a project has been deployed, people generally don’t touch it.

[26:20] Other new features? What about the File Specifier?

File specifier is new. File paths can be in package json, usually put inside pointing to something inside your package.
It will copy from there to your node modules.
Just a node module symlink.
Much faster. Verifiable that what’s in your node modules matches the source. If it’s pointing at the right place it’s correct. If not, then it’s not.
Earlier, sometimes it was hard to tell.

[27:38] Anything else as part of the NPM 5 release? Who do you think will be most affected by it?

For the most part, people notice three things:
1st. no giant tree at the end
2nd. Much faster
3rd. Package lock.

[28:14] If it’s locked, how do you update it?

Run npm installer and then npm update
Used to be scary, but works well now.
Updates to latest semver, matches semver to package json to all node modules.
Updates package lock at the same time
Summary in Git shows what’s changed.

[28:59] Did Yarn come into play with your decisions with this release?

The plans have been in play for a long time for this update.
Yarn’s inclusion of similar features and the feedback was an indicator that some of the features were valuable.

[29:53] Other plans to incorporate features similar to yarn?

Features are already pretty close.
There are other alternative package managers out there.
PMPM interesting because when it installs it doesn’t copy all the files. It creates hard links.

[30:28] Does PMPM and Yarn use NPM registry?

Yes! Other than CNPM. The NPM client used in China.
CNPM Registry mirror behind firewall. Have their own client to their registry. Their registry is a copy of ours.

[31:15] What about RNPM?

I wouldn’t be surprised.

[31:45] “Won’t you come and say something controversial about your competitor?”

We all want it to be collaborative.
When we were writing our new cache, we also helped Yarn with their cache and sped things up tremendously.

Picks

Charles

Rush Limbaugh’s children’s books
Tinker Crate
Kiwi Crate
NPM
Episodes on My JS Story.

Joe

Gravity Falls
Board Games

Rebecca

NPX

Funstream

Links to keep up with NPM and Rebecca

Twitter @rebeccaorg
NPMjS on Twitter
blog.npmjs.com

Special Guest: Rebecca Turner.

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JSJ 265 Wade Anderson and Ramya Rao on Visual Studio Code

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 10:00:00 +0000

JSJ 265 Wade Anderson and Ramya Rao on Visual Studio Code

This episode is live at the Microsoft Build 2017 with Charles Max Wood and AJ O’Neal. We have Wade Anderson and Ramya Rao from the Visual Studio Code Team at Microsoft. Tune in and learn more about what’s new with Visual Studio Code!

[00:01:20] – Introduction to Ramya Rao and Wade Anderson

Ramya Rao and Wade Anderson are in the Visual Studio Code Team at Microsoft.

Questions for Wade and Ramya

[00:02:00] – Elevator Pitch for Visual Studio Code

Our vision on Visual Studio Code is to take what was best out of the IDE world (Visual Studio, Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc.) and bring what was best from the lightweight editor world (Sublime Text, Notepad++, Atom) and merge those two together. We wanted the lightweight features from text editors and the debugging capabilities of Visual Studio and Eclipse. We did general availability last year. We’ve been stable for a year. Additionally, this is Visual Studio Code for Mac, Windows, or Linux. It’s also built in Electron.

[00:03:45] – What are your roles on the team? Do you have particular parts that each of you work on?

Wade’s title is a Program Manager. He does more non-developer things but Ramya is an engineer on the team so she gets a lot more coding that Wade does. Everybody has a key area to own but nothing stops them to go into another area. We try to share knowledge between people but we always have that one key owner that you always go to.

Ramya is a recent addition to the team. She started out maintaining the Go extension, maintaining and adding features. She’s slowly branching out to the Emmet features of the product.

[00:05:30] What is Emmet?

Emmet, or Zen Coding, is a must-have tool for you. You can write, say abbreviations and that expands to really huge HTML to update tags, rename tags, etc. That is one of the features of Emmet and Sergey actually wrote the library. We have an in built integration in the product. I [Ramya] am currently working on that.

[00:06:28] Does Visual Studio Code make it easy to go to the parts that I need to customize on an HTML?

In that case, we have a multi-cursor software in Visual Studio Code, as well. You could place your cursor in different positions, and then, simultaneously edit things.

[00:07:42] Is Emmet an extension or does it come with Visual Studio Code?

Right now, it’s in Built. If you want to know more about Emmet features, you can to emmet.io. That has all the documentation that you need to learn about Emmet features. In Visual Studio Code right now, we’re looking at making into an extension. We pull it out of the main code and maybe more people can contribute and make it even more better.

[00:08:21] – What’s new in Visual Studio Code?

One of our main pillars for this year is to improve performance of the product. We’ve grown a larger team so we’re adding a lot more features every month. Last few months has been, “How can we get some stability on the issues coming in while making sure we’re reducing our tech load?” We really keep to those core principles that we started with at the beginning, which was, we want a fast, lightweight editor.

We built a few extensions that we call key map extensions. They are just a mapping of key bindings that you learned in Sublime Text. You don’t have to re-learn any key bindings in Visual Studio Code.

We also build this Welcome page where you can flip through and see features really briefly. In that Welcome page, one of the key things is an interactive playground where you can play with existing code in different sections. Additionally, as we’ve mentioned, we also put multi-cursor features.

Another thing is workbench naming. You can change the theme of Visual Studio Code but it will be restricted to the editor and not the rest of the workbench.

[00:13:40] – Do you know how Xterm.js works as it was one of the features that you’ve added in Visual Studio Code?

Daniel’s another engineer that’s here with us today. He was the largest contributor to the Xterm.js project. He built the integrated terminal for Visual Studio code so I can’t speak to the internals of how that works.

[00:14:12] – Are we going to start seeing Visual Studio Code integrated into web experiences with other Microsoft products?

That’s actually where we started. We were Monaco editor where you get this cloud-based editing experience. We’re getting people to use it but we’re only getting people who were already using Microsoft products. When electron came out, we saw an opportunity of, “Hey, can we port this Monaco editor to Electron and we could then, run it on Mac and Linux.”

[00:19:45] – What are the performance things that you’ve done?

One thing that we did recently was adding an ability to calculate the start time for Visual Studio Code? That’s one of our full steps to get more information from the user-side. How can you get a profile of what things are running? Which part of the process took much time?

We also need to identify what are the things people are doing that’s causing the editor slow down. An example is when you open a large file and things get laggy.

Another exercise we did was we looked at all of our extension API’s to see which one of those could be a malicious extension.

The difference between VS Code and Atom is that, we ask questions like, “Are we using good data structures? Are we managing our memory properly? Are we removing stuff we don’t need anymore?” That just comes down to all those little things you learn from basic textbooks that have been around for decades about how to write good code. That’s what we have been doing and that’s what we’ll continue to try to do, to try and improve the performance.

[00:25:55] – Do you have problem on the desktop? Are all the modules just load at once?

We definitely don’t load everything at once. Different parts of the editor is loaded differently. When you do the Require, we don’t do it at first load. We do it when we notice that the user wants to use Emmet. We don’t try to load all the library at the beginning and delay the whole process.

We try to lazy load as much as possible, even the extensions. We have a separate process called extension host that takes care of loading all the extensions. Whether the extensions are completed loading or not, that does not stop you from typing in a file. Simple actions shouldn’t be bugged down by fancy actions.

[00:28:25] – What’s coming next for Visual Studio Code?

Every month, when we plan our iteration, we create iteration draft plan. We put it out there for people to see. Performance and helping people get started are probably the top two for us. You can look at github.com/Microsoft/vscode, look for the label ‘iteration plan draft.’ So that’s the current work that we’re doing that month.

Another feature is the multi-root workspace where you can open multiple folders. When you look at the issues and sort by most comments, multi-root is the number one. The second one that is little paper cuts around formatting and auto-intending – just things that make your code prettier.

Picks

AJ O’neal

Breath on the Wild
Microsoft’s Intelligent Edge

Charles Max Wood

Boom Beach
Bluetick.io
Emacs key binding extension for Visual Studio Code

Wade Anderson

Kindle Paperwhite
Twitter @waderyan_

Ramya Rao

Open source
Twitter @ramyanexus

Special Guests: Ramya Rao and Wade Anderson.

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JSJ 264 Mendel with Irae Carvalho

Fri, 09 Jun 2017 03:00:00 +0000

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JSJ 263 Moving from Node.js to .NET and Raygun.io with John-Daniel Trask

Tue, 23 May 2017 10:00:00 +0000

This episode features Moving from Node.js to .NET and Raygun.io with John-Daniel Trask. John-Daniel is the Co-founder and CEO of Raygun, a software intelligence platform for web and mobile. He's been programming for many years, and is originally from New Zealand. Tune in and learn what prompted them to move to the .NET framework!

Special Guest: John-Daniel Trask.

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JSJ 262 Mozilla Firefox Developer Tools with Jason Laster

Tue, 16 May 2017 10:00:00 +0000

Join AJ, Aimee, and Joe as they discuss Mozilla Firefox Developer Tools with Jason Laster. Jason just started working at Mozilla since March. But even before that, he has been working on Chrome's dev tool extension called Marionette. That's when he discovered that the browser is an open source that anyone can play with. Now, he is working on a new debugger in Firefox. Tune in!

Special Guest: Jason Laster.

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JSJ 261 HTTP 2 with Surma

Tue, 09 May 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Charles, Aimee, and Cory discuss HTTP 2 with Surma. Alongside being part of the Chrome DevRel Team for Google, Surma works on different web app performance. He is also engaged in HTTP 2, interaction, UX, and spec work. Stay tuned to discover what HTTP 2 can do for you!

Special Guest: Surma.

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JSJ 260 Practical JavaScript with Gordon Zhu

Tue, 02 May 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Charles, Joe, and Cory discuss Practical JavaScript with Gordon Zhu. Gordon is the founder of Watch and Code, and teaches the Practical JavaScript online course. His mission is to help beginners become developers through tutorials. Tune in!

Special Guest: Gordon Zhu.

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JSJ 259 Clean Code JavaScript with Ryan McDermott

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's JavaScript Jabber Show, Charles, Joe, Aimee, Cory, and AJ discuss Clean Code JavaScript with Ryan McDermott. Ryan is a UX Engineer at Google and has been a professional developer for 5 years. He's focused on frontend Angular and backend node.js. Stay tuned to learn more about his current project with JavaScript!

Special Guest: Ryan McDermott.

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JSJ 258 Development in a Public Institution with Shawn Clabough

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's JavaScript Jabber Show, Charles and Aimee discuss Development in a Public Institution with Shawn Clabough. Shawn is a developer and developer manager at Washington State University. He works with the research office, and has been in the industry for 20 years. Tune in to this exciting episode!

Special Guest: Shawn Clabough.

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JSJ 257 Graphcool with Johannes Schickling

Tue, 11 Apr 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's JavaScript Jabber Show, Charles, Aimee, and AJ discuss Graphcool with Johannes Schickling. Johannes is based in Berlin, Germany and is the founder of Graphcool, Inc. He also founded Optonaut, an Instagram for VR, which he sold about a year ago. Tune in to learn more about GraphQL and see what's in store for you!

Special Guest: Johannes Schickling.

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JSJ 256 Wordpress and Wordpress API for JavaScript Developers with Roy Sivan

Tue, 04 Apr 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's JavaScript Jabber Show, Charles, Aimee, Joe, and Cory discuss Wordpress and Wordpress API for JavaScript Developers with Roy Sivan. Roy is a WordPress (WP) developer at Disney Interactive. He has long been a fan of JavaScript and WP. During a WordCamp, the WP Founder announced the need for WP developers to learn JavaScript. But, what's in WP that developers should be interested about? Tune in to learn!

Special Guest: Roy Sivan.

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JSJ 255 Docker for Developers with Derick Bailey

Tue, 28 Mar 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's JavaScript Jabber Show, Charles Max Wood, AJ O'neal, Aimee Knight, Joe Eames, and Cory House discuss Docker for Developers with Derick Bailey. Derick is currently into Docker and has been doing a series on it at WatchMeCode. He is also writing an ebook titled Docker Recipes for Node.js Development which aims to provide solutions for things that concern Node.js. Stay tuned to learn more about Docker and the ebook which Derick is working on!

Special Guest: Derick Bailey.

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JSJ 254 Contributor Days with Tracy Lee

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 11:00:00 +0000

On today's JavaScript Jabber Show, Aimee Knight and Charles Max Wood discuss Contributor Days with Tracy Lee. Tracy is a Google Developer Expert and a co-founder of This Dot Media and This Dot Labs. She's passionately into helping startups create a connection with investors. Part of what she's been up to lately is what this episode is about. Tune in to learn about it!

Special Guest: Tracy Lee.

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JSJ Special Episode: Azure with Jonathan Carter

Fri, 17 Mar 2017 11:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Aimee Knight, AJ O'Neal, Cory House, Joe Eames, and Charles Max Wood discuss Azure with Jonathan Carter. Jonathan has been working at Microsoft for 10 years. He currently focuses on Node.js and Azure. Tune in to learn how you can use Azure in building applications and services.

Special Guest: Jonathan Carter.

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JSJ 253 Gomix with Daniel X Moore

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's JavaScript Jabber Show, Aimee Knight, Cory House, and Charles Max Wood discuss Gomix with Daniel X Moore. Daniel is a Software Developer at Fog Creek Software, and has been in the industry for 10 years. Their company currently offers an amazingly convenient way to build apps. Tune in to learn about it!

Special Guest: Daniel X Moore.

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JSJ 252 The 20th Anniversary of Visual Studio with Bowden Kelly

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 11:00:00 +0000

Javascript Jabber is hosted this week by Joe Eames, Aimee Knight, AJ O'Neal, Cory House, Charles Max Wood and their special guest Bowden Kelly. Bowden is a program manager at Microsoft and he shares some insight into the new features in Visual Studio 2017 RTM with Bowden Kelly.

Special Guest: Bowden Kelly.

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JSJ 250 Celebration

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 11:00:00 +0000

JavaScript Jabber turns 5! On today's episode, Charles Max Wood, AJ ONeil, and Aimee Knight travel down memory lane to reminisce the highlights of the show. Tune in and enjoy the celebration!

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JSJ 251 InfoSec for Web Developers with Kim Carter

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 10:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Charles Max Wood and Aimee Knight discuss InfoSec for Web Developers with Kim Carter. Kim is a senior software engineer/architect, an information security professional, and the founder of binarymist.io. He is currently working on his book called Holistic InfoSec for Web Developers. Tune in to learn more on what his book is all about.

Special Guest: Kim Carter.

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JSJ 249 Loading and Optimizing Web Applications with Sam Saccone and Jeff Cross

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 11:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Charles Max Wood, Joe Eames, and Aimee Knight discuss Loading and Optimizing Web Applications with Sam Saccone and Jeff Cross. Tune in to their interesting talk, and learn how you can improve user experience and performance with better loading!

Special Guests: Jeff Cross and Sam Saccone.

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JSJ 248 Reactive Programming and RxJS with Ben Lesh

Tue, 07 Feb 2017 11:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Charles Max Wood, Joe Eames, and Tracy Lee discuss Reactive Programming and RxJS with Ben Lesh. Ben works at Netflix and also has a side job for Rx Workshop with Tracy. He is the lead author of RxJS 5. Tune in to learn more about RxJS!

Special Guest: Ben Lesh.

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JSJ 247 Building a Development Environment with Cory House

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 11:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Charles Max Wood, AJ O'neal, Joe Eames, and Aimee Knight discuss Building a Development Environment with Cory House. Pluralsight recently added a course on this. Tune in to know more!

Special Guest: Cory House.

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JSJ 246 GraphQL and Apollo with Uri Goldshtein

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 11:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Charles Max Wood and Aimee Knight discuss GraphQL and Apollo with Uri Goldshtein. Uri is a core developer at Meteor Development Group, and is an expert with GraphQL and Apollo.

Special Guest: Uri Goldshtein.

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JSJ 245 Styled Components and react-boilerplate with Max Stoiber

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 11:00:00 +0000

On today's episode, Aimee and Chuck welcome Maximillian "Max" Stoiber to the show. Max hails from Austria and is an expert in open source development at Think Mill. Tune in to JSJ 245 Styled Components and React-Boilerplate with Max Stoiber.

Special Guest: Max Stoiber.

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244 JSJ Visual Studio with Sam Guckenheimer

Wed, 28 Dec 2016 13:00:00 +0000

1:05 - Introducing Sam Guckenheimer

2:45 - Continuous integration with Visual Studio

4:15 - Visual Studio on Macs

Download link

5:55 - Is Visual Studio just for C#?

Chris Dias JSJ Episode

8:45 - Container support and the Cloud

14:20 - Docker and Visual Studio

17:40 - Communicating with multiple services

24:15 - Talking to clients about change and working with transformation

33:00 - Telemetry and collecting data

37:50 - Xamarin forms

47:50 - Deployment with changed endpoints

Picks:

Contractor by Andrew Ball

Unroll.Me (Charles)

Focused Inbox on Outlook (Sam)

WhiteSource (Sam)

The Girl On The Train (Sam)

The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carre (Sam)

Special Guest: Sam Guckenheimer.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

243 JSJ Immutable.js with Lee Byron

Wed, 21 Dec 2016 13:00:00 +0000

1:05 - Introducing Lee Byron

- Ruby Rogues episode

1:55 - Immutable.js

4:35 - Modifying data and operations using Immutable.js

7:40 - Explaining Big-O notation in layman’s terms

11:30 - Internal tree structures and arrays

15:50 - Why build with Immutable.js?

23:05 - Change detection with a mutable

25:00 - Computer science history

34:35 - Other positives to using mutables

37:50 - Flux and Redux

39:50 - When should you use a mutable?

46:10 - Using Immutable.js instead of the built-in Javascript option

51:50 - Learning curves and learning materials

Docs

54:50 - Bowties

Knotty Co

Picks:

17 Hats (Charles)

Asana (Charles)

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare (Joe)

LEGO Star Wars (Joe)

Advent of Code (Lee)

Special Guest: Lee Byron.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

242 JSJ Visual Studio and .NET with Maria Naggaga

Wed, 14 Dec 2016 13:00:00 +0000

1:15 - Introducing Maria Naggaga

.NET
Twitter

2:32 - .NET new developers

3:55 - NYC Microsoft bootcamp

6:25 - Building a community of .NET programmers

7:25 - Why would a Javascript developer care about .NET?

9:30 - Getting started with .NET

15:50 - The power of asking questions

22:45 - Recruiting new programmers to the industry

37:00 - Javascript and C#

48:30 - Running .NET on Raspberry Pi

Picks:

Super Cartography Bros album by OverClocked ReMix (AJ)

Daplie (AJ)

The Eventual Millionaire (Charles)

Devchat Conferences (Charles)

15- Minute Calls (Charles)

Codeland Conference (Maria)

March by Congressman John Lewis (Maria)

Microsoft Virtual Academy (Maria)

Special Guest: Maria Naggaga.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

241 JSJ Microsoft Docs with Dan Fernandez

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:00:00 +0000

0:55 - Dan Fernandez and his work

7:50 - Walkthrough of the doc experience

15:00 - Editable nature of the doc

21:00 - Test driving a language

26:30 - Catering to the user

32:30 - Open Source

34:40 - User feedback

37:30 - Filters and Tables of Content

40:45 - Form submissions

41:50 - Community contributors

Picks:

Ghostbusters (AJ)

Daplie (AJ)

JSJ Episode 199, Visual Studio Code with Chris Dias and Erich Gamma

.NET Rocks (Charles)

ScheduleOnce (Charles)

Devchat.tv 2017 Conferences (Charles)

Disable HTML5 Autoplay (Dan)

Visual Studio Code (Dan)

JSJ episode Visual Studio Code with Chris Diaz and Eric Gamma (Charles)

Special Guest: Dan Fernandez.

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/javascript-jabber/donations

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

240 JSJ Visual Studio Code with Chris Dias

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 13:00:00 +0000

Previous Episodes with Visual Studio Code’s Team:

JSJ Episode 221, Visual Studio Code with Wade Anderson

1:45 - What’s new at Visual Studio Code

3:42 - Confusion with Javascript versus separate languages

7:15 - Choosing your tools carefully

8:20 - Integrated shell and docker extensions

12:05 - Agar.io Extensions and extension packs

16:15- Deciding what goes into Visual Studio Code and what becomes an extension

18:20 - Using Github Issues and resolving user complaints

22:08 - Why do people stray away from VS proper?

23:10 - Microsoft and VS legacy

27:00 - Man hours and project development

31:30 - The Visual Studio default experience

37:10 - What are people writing with VS Code?

39:20 - Community versus developer views of VS Code

41:40 - Using Electron

44:00 - Updating the system

44:50 - How is Visual Code written?

48:00 - The future of Visual Code Studios

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues

Picks:

Don McMillan (AJ)