In our 200th episode of React Round Up, the panelists take a look back at how their first appearances on RRU and how they came to be on the show. In addition to advice on how they got to where they are now, they also highlight some of their favorite guests who've graced RRU with all sorts of great React knowledge over the years and offer advice on how you can get started on your own tech podcast or (hopefully) be invited to join an existing one.

Here's to 200 more episodes!

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of React Roundup. I am TJ VanTole and with me I have Paige Neidringhouse.

 

Hey everyone.

 

And Jack Harrington.

 

Hey TJ, hey Pedro.

 

And today we have kind of a special episode. This is episode 200.

 

Whoa, no

 

Yay!

 

way!

 

Woo!

 

Oh my God. Whoa, who knew?

 

Time flies when you're having fun. So

 

It does, actually.

 

we thought today we'd do a little bit of a meta episode and look a little bit at the show itself. Maybe take a blast down memory lane,

 

Hmm.

 

talk a little bit about the show itself, why we do this and such.

 

Hahaha

 

And... I kind of thought to start, it would be a little bit fun to go to kind of dive into each of our origin stories, right? How we got started on this podcast. And so I dug up each episode that was our first episode and all of us started as guests on the show

 

Yeah.

 

as well. And then

 

And then

 

we're

 

I got

 

invited

 

bitten by

 

on.

 

a radioactive spider, but that's a different story.

 

You woke up a day,

 

You're

 

one day

 

right.

 

you're on

 

And

 

a

 

then

 

video

 

I was all

 

call.

 

sweaty and I was hanging out of the ceiling.

 

Jack, we can start with you because

 

Oh no. Oh,

 

your

 

I

 

first

 

am the baby.

 

episode, yeah,

 

Hehehe

 

your

 

Yeah.

 

first episode was episode 136

 

Woo!

 

to talk about micro front ends and module federation. So how much do you remember of that, first of all?

 

Well, I

 

Do

 

remember

 

you remember

 

a lot

 

what

 

of it

 

you...

 

because I listened to it this morning, just

 

Oh.

 

just because I was like, did my did I sound OK? What

 

Yeah.

 

was going

 

Okay.

 

on? Actually, it's I know it sounded pretty good. You know, it sounded OK. But yeah, I totally I remember it. And I think it was but it wasn't actually I didn't start then. I think I started like like 10 episodes later. I kind of got the hey, do you want to be on the show sort of thing?

 

Mm-hmm.

 

And that was that was fun. And I was like, yeah, immediately I was like, oh, this, this sounds great. Um, and it's been a great experience, but like, have, let me just, I just jumped back into the whole moderation module federation thing. It definitely still goes. In fact, actually, uh, Zach just released in open source, a next JS library so that you can get it into next JS, which has been this long running thing. But I think the whole area of microfinance has just gotten much, much bigger since first got into it. It was just sort of a module federation and a single spa and a couple others, which is where we're when we did that first initial podcast. And now there's like the whole island architecture concept, which I think is sort of similar and related. And there's Astro and there's quick

 

Mm-hmm.

 

and there's just, I mean, there's all these things and it's, it's just becoming very exciting. And of course, but it's not no less complex. I'll tell you, like having listened

 

Hehehe

 

to it, like, you know, A lot of that can play. Oh, and I think a lot of folks, they jump into it because there's this weird complexity curve around it where it's, it is slightly easier in the beginning to share code

 

Mm-hmm.

 

as opposed to like an NPM library with it, but then it gets really hard, really fast as you get into deployment. And so it's just like, you know, just, just most of the time, just do the NPM thing, I would say

 

Yeah,

 

that's

 

it's

 

just

 

funny

 

me.

 

because I remember a lot of the conversations we've had around it is it's such an awesome concept and at a high level, it just sounds amazing, right? I

 

Hmm.

 

can develop these islands in isolation. And I think if anything's changed in the last year and a half, like you said, there's more options but those, I think the reason for it is people are trying to solve some of these problems that came up, right?

 

Right.

 

How do

 

Mm-hmm.

 

I use it with this ecosystem? How do I... If I'm building 20 islands, how am I going to... Where am I gonna put them? How am I gonna

 

Right.

 

dynamically load them? How am I gonna handle errors when they come in? So I feel like a lot of our, honestly, of all of our topics, this one's probably one of the ones that comes up the most in just recurring episodes because I don't know, I feel like all sorts of different frameworks, Astro most recently comes to mind,

 

Yeah.

 

have been trying to tackle this in different ways, shapes or forms.

 

Right,

 

I mean,

 

there's a...

 

I think you're completely right, DJ. There hasn't, we haven't quite reached that level of maturity yet where there is kind of a prescribed or recommended way to do it. So everybody is still kind of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks, but we haven't quite gotten there yet where it's like, oh, this works really well. It's very easy to get started with. It's... You know, it continues to be easy once the applications get larger or things get more complex. So we're making inroads towards it, but we definitely haven't reached that yet.

 

Yeah, there's no jQuery of

 

Ehehheh

 

micro frontends yet. That's

 

HAHAHAHA!

 

what we need. Ha ha ha.

 

and just load the CD out and you're good to go.

 

I didn't know you were on the jQuery team, by the way, TJ. That's what I learned when I listened to your podcast.

 

Hehehe

 

Back in the day, it used to be a big selling point. Like it sounded really cool, but I think nowadays it's becoming more of like the ancient past.

 

jQuery is in more places than React.

 

That's

 

Still.

 

This

 

true.

 

is true.

 

Yeah.

 

It still powers a lot of the web.

 

Hell yeah.

 

I'll tell you what though, the various Dom knowledge from working like on the jQuery innards, like that stuff is sort of, that is the past because nowadays the number of times I have to bust out like tricks to traverse the Dom or work in both

 

Oh

 

directions.

 

lord, yeah.

 

Like

 

Yeah.

 

occasionally, like sometimes I'll be working on a marketing site and I'll be like, oh, you need a quick script that can get into that text and do something with it. It's like, oh, I know,

 

I know

 

I know

 

the

 

how to

 

way.

 

do that, but yeah.

 

Well, should we talk about your origin story page?

 

Yeah, so I am the next newest member of the team. And I actually appeared for the first time on React Roundup in episode 106, which was about responsive design and a then, I don't know if it was fairly well known actually, but it was a thing that I had stumbled across called React Socks. And it is an NPM library that is made specifically for loading different. different components into an application based on screen size. So instead of having to write media queries, or if you just have, you know, maybe you have a footer on a mobile site, but you have a sidebar on a regular desktop-sized site, instead of having to try and write different components and turn areas to inject one, but not the other or vice versa, this was something where you could just install React Socks. wrap that component and say, you know, when the screen size is large, show this, and when the screen size is small, show this instead. So it was just, I guess, an easier way to kind of handle ternaries or if you had multiple different cases, you know, instead of trying to write switch statements inside of components or things like that, it just simplified it a lot. And it was actually based on a conference talk that I had given on some different ways to do responsive design. And that was my invitation to React Roundup, where we talked about

 

Oh,

 

the talk,

 

okay. Oh,

 

the,

 

right.

 

you know, different ways to handle media queries and different ways to do responsive and similar to Jack, I was just kind of asked, you know, one or two episodes later, if I would like to become a recurring panelist. And I said, absolutely. I mean, it seemed like a great, a great way to be connected to the React community and keep up with the new changes and meet some really interesting people doing some really cool stuff. And I'm very glad that I did agree to that.

 

Absolutely.

 

It's been a lot of fun.

 

So looking at React Socks, it's last commit was over a year ago. It kind of looks like work on the project stopped kind of as soon as you talked about it, more or less.

 

That's probably true.

 

That's- Peak socks!

 

Yeah,

 

Peek

 

The

 

socks.

 

React

 

1

 

Roundup

 

it's funny.

 

is a- yeah. That's awesome.

 

But I will say that it's the sort of project that it's kind of feature complete as is, right?

 

Yeah,

 

Like,

 

what else

 

it

 

you

 

doesn't

 

can do?

 

like. you know, it provides a nice way of giving you breakpoints, some conveniences, and like, it's kind of feature completed as is. Like it doesn't

 

Mm-hmm.

 

really, as long as it works,

 

Yeah,

 

right?

 

you just gotta bump

 

So.

 

the React version every time React bumps, you know? It's like, okay,

 

Yeah.

 

well, it inherently can battle with everything, so, you know.

 

Yeah, and if you don't mind, you know, loading some more JavaScript into your React project, which you probably don't if you're a developer like the rest of us, then it's fine. But to be honest, I really haven't used it in any production applications myself. I've reached for CSS media queries and, you know, relied a lot more on CSS to handle that sort of thing than I have an extra library because I... It seemed like a good idea. It probably is great for some particular use cases, but at least for the stuff that I was building, it really didn't need to apply as much as it might for others.

 

Yeah, I literally did this just recently. Like within the past two weeks, I did the whole like Navbar change over for Mellmold kind of thing and it was material UI and I think it had just used use media query, which was

 

There you

 

is

 

go.

 

there a hook for you just give it. I think it's like, oh, it's got all kinds of cool variants, like up, down once. Oh,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

it's great. Actually, I'm loving on material five. Woof. So good.

 

Thanks for watching!

 

I do feel like this, React Socks probably had some influence because I feel like this approach is something that's quite common. Because the syntax here is kind of like what Material does, right? You're not going into CSS and hard coding some media queries for how things work. Instead, you're configuring your component. I know we've done this with Ant Design, where it has rows and columns and some different syntax you can provide for that. Bootstrap has similar things.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

I'm less familiar with material, but I know it does

 

Oh,

 

have some syntax

 

yeah, it's got that you

 

that's

 

got

 

somewhat

 

it's got

 

like

 

grids,

 

that,

 

it's

 

so.

 

got stacks, it's got all that.

 

So I don't

 

Yeah.

 

know, React stocks might not be super popular, but I feel like it's influence lives on.

 

Yeah, I'll

 

Yeah,

 

take that.

 

yeah, exactly. Alright,

 

So

 

how

 

TJ,

 

about you TJ? Yeah.

 

yeah.

 

All right, so my first episode was episode 102. So I just missed

 

Woo!

 

the 100th episode celebration, but

 

Ha ha.

 

on paid UI components versus open source components, which at the time I was a developer advocate for Kindle UI, which is a paid component suite. And so it was an episode where I was, I definitely had a bit of a biased interest, but I was also like

 

No!

 

very upfront. I was also very upfront and honest about that. as

 

Yeah.

 

well,

 

Yeah.

 

but it was actually a conversation about how crazy the JavaScript world is. Uh, just from the financial part of things, the fact that

 

Mm-hmm.

 

we are, this is an industry with very highly paid people working for companies that have a ton of money and yet all of our tools are completely free, like pretty much all of them. And just like the just taking a step back to appreciate how insane that is, trying

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

to explain to someone outside the tech world that the Facebooks and Googles have teams of people that their full-time job, highly paid jobs are for building these frameworks they give away for free.

 

Yep, open

 

It's just

 

source

 

how

 

everything.

 

crazy all of that is. And I was trying to make an argument that it can be okay to pay for things, especially if you're... deriving some significant value out of it because you're, especially if you're working for a larger organization, you get some things by spending money

 

Mm-hmm.

 

because you're less, by paying money and supporting people, you're less likely to bet everything on React socks and have it not be

 

Hey, it's still

 

I just...

 

out

 

maintained.

 

there, man.

 

Yeah.

 

I can still install that thing.

 

A year or two later, I... I think in terms of if anything has changed for this, I remember either at the time or shortly after that, Remix started off as a paid offering.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

And they were very, like, they made a big deal about it, right? Like, we want you to pay to use it, that it helps support the framework. So I remember talking with them about that because we were at the time making a pretty similar argument. And then they probably about, it's probably been about a year. basically

 

Mm-hmm.

 

abandoned that and joined everybody else in giving their framework away for free and trying to make money some other way.

 

Yeah.

 

So

 

Right.

 

in

 

But

 

a sense,

 

then

 

that

 

on

 

was

 

the

 

another casualty to that argument.

 

on the other hand though you have GitHub Copilot which started out for its first year of life free for everybody who wanted to try it which I assume was a good way to get people hooked on it and not want to give it up when it switched to its now paid subscription model.

 

Boy, that worked out. You guys both gave up on it. I didn't,

 

Yes.

 

but, you know.

 

Well, I gave up on it before it was paid though.

 

Me too.

 

So yeah,

 

It wasn't even worth nothing!

 

I wouldn't even use it when it was free. So

 

Oh my god, that's hilarious.

 

We tried it, didn't like it.

 

I don't know, that's still a topic that I feel like is, that the paid versus free though, I feel like is just as relevant today.

 

Oh yeah, definitely.

 

Like honestly,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

if more so, but because it's still open source funding is still such a strange place. I think the other thing that's changed too is just how much VC money has come into the open source JavaScript world because two years ago, Vercell hadn't been thrown a boatload of money. Who are some of the other ones? There's like Roam, like all these projects that are raising, that Dino I think has raised money. All of these tools that have just money coming in for these completely free tools is

 

Mm-hmm.

 

kind of a weird place as well.

 

Yeah, you know, I've definitely seen a lot of authors out there kind of complaining about this. I think there's like there's the heavily like backed projects and then there's this giant chasm to this huge amount of projects that we use that get nothing or just like

 

Mm-hmm.

 

somebody's, you know, pet love, you know, the was it again, the

 

Left

 

shift

 

pad.

 

left or whatever. And left bad, right? The

 

Oh, left

 

14

 

head, yeah.

 

the

 

that

 

14

 

holds

 

lines

 

up a

 

that

 

million

 

destroy

 

different

 

the web.

 

packages.

 

Right, exactly. Yeah, I was looking at

 

Yeah.

 

one actually just a couple of days ago, like JS diff. And

 

I'm sorry.

 

it's run by Kevin Decker. I know Kevin and I don't think he makes anything out of that. But I mean, it's got 50 million downloads or some such things craziness

 

Mm-hmm.

 

used by everything.

 

Yeah,

 

It's

 

there's

 

not.

 

definitely, there's a problem for the people who write the little NPM libraries like Leftpad or other ones where they just do one, one thing, they do it really well. But there's no, I mean, as far as I know, there's no support, there's no Patreon, there's no anything for those people who's whose little contributions, you know, add up to these much greater frameworks and libraries and things like that. And it's so, it does seem like there should be some sort of compensation for them because it's so unfair. It's, it's not a whole lot of code necessarily, but, you know, everybody uses it, whether they know it or not. And that should get something besides, you know, a pat on the back, or you can see that you have 75 million downloads of this every

 

Right.

 

week.

 

Yeah, he

 

Thanks.

 

had the bragging rights, I guess. Didn't

 

Right.

 

exactly pay the bills.

 

Now.

 

And that's the that's that's the complaint. And

 

Yeah.

 

kudos to you, TJ, for being, you know, for doing that work in JQuery. I think that's great.

 

Thanks for watching!

 

Yeah, it's weird. It's, it's the going back to the, cause I know one thing we didn't want to discuss is just very metal, like why we do this at all. Uh, why would you, why would you podcasting?

 

Hehehe

 

But to get into like, why do open source? Like I definitely was. I definitely, some of my motivation was to make the jQuery library better, but some of my motivation was also very like, you know, personal, like this is a good name way to get my name out there to.

 

Yeah,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

totally.

 

Just the fact that I could put on my resume that I had done this, that was a big part of my motivation as well. And I feel like that's what keeps a good chunk of the open source world going too, because if you could say I'm the person that works on this popular tool, it has a way of opening doors.

 

Oh absolutely.

 

And opening doors is important. You know, the, the interviewing world is just still so crazy and bad. You know, you

 

Mm-hmm.

 

get these just absolutely not so interviews that have nothing to do with anything. And then, but if you can just say like, Hey, I'm part of this. I'm the maintainer behind X, you know, and, and they use it. I mean, that, that's that, as you say, it was a lot of doors.

 

Yeah,

 

It means a lot.

 

street

 

Leaves

 

cred

 

your interview

 

is huge.

 

road. Yeah.

 

So in terms of why we do the podcast, Jack,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

is that your motivation

 

What

 

for...

 

to make interviewing easier on myself? Oh, I wish.

 

Why are you here, Jack?

 

Why

 

This

 

am

 

is

 

fame

 

I

 

and

 

here?

 

like,

 

glory.

 

what is...

 

I'm here because I love you guys. I have

 

Ha ha ha.

 

no seriously. This is has turned into the best part of my week, honestly, is hanging out and just having fun. And if that's if people like enjoying and listen to it, I think that's great. And I think I originally sure it was I need I need subs on my YouTube channel, you know, and Just get out there, like get the name out. Like, but I will say, I guess having talked to God and you know, we talked to a lot of content creators. Cause I think one of the things, you know, our sourcer does is they go off and they look at like, you know, medium and, and, and dev two and all those. And it's like, oh, you wrote an article on random thing. You don't want to be on

 

Mm-hmm.

 

racked around up. And which is great. But I would say, you know, if you want to get your name out there, that's definitely. And I'm. Paging, you and I have talked about this a lot in the past. Like the easiest entry point is getting into content creation. It's just, just take the readme that you just wrote for yourself and just write an article around it and now you've got, you know, how to go and do Docker for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And yeah, that's the easiest thing to do. So yeah, I, I will say, yeah, it was probably that motivation, but now I just, I really enjoy talking to great guests and there was a couple of, you know, I can standouts for me recently. And of course being with you guys is just fun, just really fun.

 

Very cool.

 

Oh,

 

Page,

 

buttering

 

Page, why

 

us

 

are

 

up.

 

you here? Make it, make it existential.

 

Ha ha! Yes please.

 

So I definitely came into being one of the panelists for React Roundup for better notoriety. So I, for those of you who haven't heard my origin story from the very beginning, I didn't start out with computer science. I don't have a CS degree. I don't have any of that background. I'm a marketer by trade and by teaching. So I did digital marketing for the first five years of my career and then decided that I really wanted to be one of the people helping create the solution, not just kind of project managing it and managing client expectations. I went back to school for four months and it was one of those immersive coding boot camps and then came out and started working for Home Depot as a software engineer. But one of the things that I always felt and I still feel to this day to some extent is the imposter syndrome because I don't have those credentials behind my name. I can't point to some sort of a computer science degree. Um, so one of the things that was a really great piece of advice that I got from a fellow senior developer at the time was to start writing and to start showing that I knew what I was doing and what I was talking about, even though I couldn't necessarily point to a traditional schooling background and that kind of. was what propelled me into being asked after writing for probably a year, a year and a half on Medium just on my own to start writing for companies. I was contacted by SaaS companies who have their own tech blogs and they asked if I wanted to write for them. And that led to being invited onto some podcasts like JavaScript Jabber, which is one of our sister podcasts as a guest. So it all kind of spiraled. kind of kept gaining momentum, but that was definitely one of the reasons that I wanted to be a regular panelist was not only would I be able to learn from some of the really interesting people that we get to have on our show as guests, but I would also be able to kind of help connect myself to the React community and show that I was part of it and a valuable contributor and member of the community. So that's how it started. And... I've stayed for similar reasons to Jack. It's really fun to talk to these people. It's fun to talk to

 

Yeah.

 

my panelists and my co-hosts each week. And I really enjoy being part of this team and this group of people. It's a lot of fun. It's really rewarding.

 

I do it even if I didn't get paid. Oh wait, I don't

 

Well...

 

Oh wait,

 

get paid.

 

we don't.

 

Yeah, right, I don't get anyone to know this.

 

Exactly.

 

But can I just throw in that Paige, I'm with you. I didn't go to college at all, actually. I have no background in CS. I started coding when I was 13 years old, and I just, you know, and so I have horrible imposter syndrome too. Like, oh my God. Every time I fail through an interview, I'm like, oh my God,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

do I have any skills

 

Do

 

at

 

I really

 

all?

 

belong?

 

I don't know. Ah!

 

Well, as someone who has a traditional computer science degree, I can tell you firsthand that while it does provide some benefit, especially right out of college, it's diminishing returns over time. Being

 

Right.

 

now, let's see, 15 plus, just over 15 years out from that degree, the amount that I recall or that I think it's actually benefiting me is pretty much nothing at this point.

 

Wait, you haven't sorted a binary tree lately? Really?

 

No,

 

Right?

 

no. And honestly,

 

A

 

even

 

linked

 

just

 

list.

 

its

 

Oh

 

biggest

 

my god.

 

value is just helping you get your first job. And then like one beyond that point, like it's, I don't know, it doesn't provide a ton of value. But yeah.

 

And thankfully, this is one of those careers where it's not like you get a teaching degree and it took you 100K to get the teaching degree for a job that pays 30K a year. It's definitely the inverse. You should be able to repay your student loans pretty quickly off of software

 

Yeah,

 

engineering.

 

I think like in hindsight, not to dive into this topic too deeply, I feel like we could point to a previous episode. We went down this rabbit hole before, but I feel like for me, college, the bigger things I got was actually not the computer science stuff. Like over time, the different writing and

 

Oh yeah.

 

that sort of aspect has actually been far more beneficial than just knowing how to do binary trees in C++.

 

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

 

But to bring it back to our topic of why we joined, for me, it was very much at the time I was a developer advocate in the React space. And so being a developer advocate in the React space, doing a React podcast is like the biggest slam

 

No

 

dunk

 

brainer.

 

ever,

 

Yeah,

 

right?

 

exactly. Yeah.

 

Made sense,

 

Oops.

 

Because

 

Hey.

 

right?

 

Yeah.

 

it is literally your job to get to know people in the React world and to be able to share whatever it is you're working on. So a podcast is like the perfect way to do that. But fast forward, it's now been two some years and I no longer do that. Right. I no

 

Hehehe

 

longer work in the react space directly. Uh, I kind of do indirectly, we do some react stuff at blues, but, uh, it's very much not my day-to-day job anymore. So the reasons I'm still here get back to really what page and, and Jack said. It's, it's being able to talk to interesting people. Uh, the one I'd say a couple of interesting things I'd say sort of behind the scenes is one. It's kind of amazing who will say yes to come on a show that you run. Like, because people, if you think about the people that come onto the show, they usually have some sort of incentive to be here, like they want to get their name out, they want to get their projects name out.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

So it's kind of amazing. Some of the big names that you can just reach out to through a Twitter DM or through an email, if they have an email listed and they'll just say yes, and

 

Yeah,

 

you can come

 

yeah, that's cool. That

 

talk

 

is definitely

 

to them.

 

cool, yeah.

 

There's a famous, I should look this up, but there's a Steve job. It's a, to quote, it's like a one minute video clip that I like quite a bit where he, when he was, I think 13 years old, he called up just the CEO of some, some random computing company, cause he found his phone number listed and asked if the guy had any like spare parts for working on, I can't even remember what he was working on, but he just cold called him and asked. And the guy said like, the guy was so amused that this kid had called up, right? That he said, yeah. And he gave him, he gave him the parts, right. And he got

 

Yeah?

 

him like a summer internship and such as well. So it's, it's, it's kind of crazy what you can get away with. If you just kind of

 

Ask.

 

reach out and ask. So

 

Yeah, you know it never hurts to ask.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Boy, that is a life lesson right there. It never hurts to ask.

 

So, I mean, if you are looking for a job, if you are trying to reach out, like just if you're trying your own content creation, right? Maybe you wanna do interviews, could be a podcast, it could be just for YouTube, whatever, streaming, whatever the kids are doing these days for your

 

TikTok.

 

TikTok videos, yeah.

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah.

 

it's all of it. It's all of it. You know, yeah. Never heard

 

It never

 

that. I'm

 

hurts

 

going to

 

to

 

go

 

ask. Uh,

 

ahead and

 

so

 

do a

 

that

 

little

 

would

 

bit

 

be

 

of a

 

one thing. And so talking to interesting people, talking to page and Jack, that's definitely one reason. The other thing too, is like, I feel in a remote working world, uh, it's. I'm mostly okay with it. I've been doing it for a long time at this point, but I rely on conversations like this for my sanity quite

 

Yeah,

 

a bit as well,

 

yeah, yeah.

 

because if, if it's just me in my office all day, um, Some days that's okay, but sometimes you're hit with this just like existential dread of like, oh, it's just me here. I haven't left, I haven't really talked to anybody. And so just having an hour a day every week to chat with interesting people, have a fun conversation. I don't know, I find it fun. That's why I'm

 

Yeah,

 

still here and still doing it.

 

boy, you're so right. And it's I think of a lot of jobs. I'm I'm like the one or two React developers, right? And,

 

Mm-hmm.

 

you know, one and it's like. OK, I really want to get into the nitty gritty of why you state blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And people are like, can't we just order tacos? You know, and I'm like, oh, but I want to talk, man. I want to get into this. And it's like

 

Yeah.

 

this is that. Yeah.

 

Well, and who better to talk to you? Like you can, like, you want to talk, oh, Astro is kind of interesting. Well, why not invite the creator of Astro on here?

 

Exactly.

 

And ask, right?

 

Right. Yeah.

 

And ask him, ask him why. You know, that's,

 

And of course, they'll

 

that's

 

just

 

kind of

 

show

 

fun.

 

up because they're cool. They're very

 

Well,

 

nice.

 

and something that's kind of fun that you don't necessarily get as a viewer is that we talk to each other even outside of this podcast. We have a Discord where we chat and we'll throw things in there. It could be about something that we're working on at work. It could be about what mic and camera setup do you use for

 

Right.

 

your recording. It's all kinds of different things like that, but it's actually really fun to... you know, to have people who you can ask these questions because they do similar stuff, but also have their own, you know, unique points of view or unique things that they're working towards or trying to solve for. So it's really, it's fun in that regard. And it's more, it's a lot more personal than maybe Twitter relationships or random discord people who you've talked to or written to, but never actually seen or spoken to.

 

Yeah, I ran into, man, I'm tugging myself in circles, but I've

 

I'm

 

ran

 

gonna

 

into

 

go.

 

podcast guests at conferences, right?

 

Uh-huh.

 

Oh really?

 

And it's amazing how when you see somebody in person, it's like, oh, you can reach back to that time you talked. And it's just like an

 

Right.

 

easy intro, right? To knowing who some of these people are.

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah.

 

and you're like, you're not the same height that I thought you were on camera.

 

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

 

Yeah.

 

Just always the case.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I can't. I would love at some point to meet you guys in person. Like I,

 

Yeah.

 

you know, I mean, I'm on the West Coast. You all are like Pager East Coast and T.J. I think you're mid Midwestern somewhere or something

 

Mm-hmm.

 

like that. I don't know. Whatever.

 

I am in Michigan, yeah.

 

Oh, there

 

I've got

 

you

 

Yeah.

 

a Detroit

 

Ha ha

 

Lions

 

go.

 

shirt on,

 

OK.

 

man.

 

Oh, right.

 

ha.

 

I'm

 

My

 

giving

 

bad.

 

you all the hints.

 

Yes. Sure. Because

 

And.

 

I actually do football sometimes. But OK. I'm

 

And

 

sorry,

 

by the way,

 

by the way, Detroit Lions.

 

It was a previous guest of the show, James Quick, who was on back in episode 129. I ran into him. He's now quite the, the YouTube superstar too.

 

Oh yeah,

 

Like,

 

at the heat

 

like

 

just

 

Jack.

 

hit 100k. Oh.

 

Oh,

 

Nice.

 

nice.

 

Yeah.

 

But I ran into him at that conference and it's like, good to say like, oh, hey, I remember,

 

I know

 

I remember

 

you.

 

chatting with you. Yeah.

 

Yeah. I don't

 

Yeah,

 

think I've

 

that

 

ever

 

is fun.

 

talked to

 

And

 

him.

 

that would be something that we need to try and do. You know, we can all go to the same, we should all show up at the same conference at some point.

 

and not get COVID like y'all going

 

Right.

 

Heheheheheheh.

 

to your IoT conferences and getting everybody I am like you guys are gonna get COVID no no no and then they all come everybody's got

 

It's just the world

 

All

 

we

 

right.

 

live in now.

 

All right. So I know the last topic we wanted to get into, we, we, we normally don't like to pick favorites, but I think that's the last thing we're going to do. Do we, do we have any personal favorite interviews or guests or any, anything we want to call out?

 

Mm-hmm.

 

you

 

I mean,

 

for sure.

 

go ahead, Jack. You start

 

Oh, okay.

 

us off.

 

Well, I paid I'm so I think you missed this one when it was really sad Eva cop was just I'm but I she's so so good and it

 

Hehehe

 

was just a such a great interview and man she was like three steps ahead of us on everything and it was just so much fun. So that's my personal favorite.

 

That's a good one. One of my favorites was Mark Erickson, because

 

Hmm

 

he's one of the redux, yeah, he's one of the redux maintainers. And just the amount of experience and the depth of knowledge that this guy has is amazing. And he's also a fantastic speaker. So whatever episode that was, and we'll have to link to it in the show notes, but we just talked for probably over an hour. and he just had interesting anecdotes and information and it was by far one of our most interesting and most chock full of knowledge episodes. So he was really a lot of fun to interact with.

 

I remember listening to that and thinking, this guy is just so down to earth. I mean, it was just like,

 

Yes.

 

oh, you know, I'm just chilling, watching TV. And it's like, I guess I just looked through the PRs on the thing,

 

Yeah,

 

you know, whatever, it's all good.

 

maintain

 

But you know,

 

one

 

maintain

 

of the most popular

 

Redux.

 

React

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

libraries.

 

Maintain like half the React ecosystem, like there. Boom, you know, just, you know.

 

Right.

 

Gotta do something

 

I think that's

 

while you

 

the thing.

 

binge watch Game of Thrones.

 

You know, that's the thing that I've still never totally understood because we've had sort of by the nature of running this podcast, the people we interview are very productive people.

 

Oh

 

Mm-hmm.

 

yeah.

 

It's just what we're going to attract for guests. And I feel like we've asked the question, like, how do you get so much done to

 

Yeah.

 

like probably 40, 50 different people? And

 

And they're just like.

 

they all just shrug it off, right? They're all just like, I don't know, I just do it, right? Like...

 

Right?

 

There's never been like, oh, with this three quick tricks, you can also process 20 PRs a day. It's just very just down to earth. Like, I don't know, I just like doing this, so I do it sort

 

Yeah.

 

of deal.

 

And they're like, I've got a couple kids, I've got a wife, I've

 

Yeah.

 

got a full-time job that's not this, and I still do this.

 

Yeah, I don't know about that. I mean, the kids part, woo. Wow, the first couple of years of the kids, man, wow. But yeah, time management is just super critical.

 

And really that leads into my favorite interview. And that was when we talked to Tanner Linsley, who

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Ooh,

 

is

 

another

 

probably

 

good one.

 

the most prolific

 

Yeah.

 

Oh my God.

 

human I think I've ever met in terms

 

Yeah.

 

of the, just the amount of work he puts into the frameworks and also just the hands-on stuff for that. And also because the interview was just genuinely useful as well. Like we're now using React query for

 

We

 

our

 

are.

 

day job, right?

 

Yeah,

 

So like. It's

 

right.

 

another benefit of doing this. It's good. It's a kind of way it's technical support, right? Like

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah.

 

yeah.

 

questions about how things work. Well, why not reach out and, and see if you can get them answered, but

 

Mm-hmm.

 

he's just a fun guy. And also another thing just for just behind the scenes, when you're doing a show like this, you want guests that are just talkative people just

 

Yeah,

 

Yes.

 

in general.

 

yeah.

 

So like the, not that any guests are better than others,

 

Hehehe

 

of course, but the, the The hard thing as a host is when you get a guest where you ask them a question and they just answer with like, yeah,

 

Yeah,

 

or

 

yes,

 

like,

 

yes,

 

yeah.

 

Right.

 

no.

 

One word.

 

Yeah,

 

Right.

 

right? Yeah.

 

And like you want people to elaborate, to maybe tell

 

Yeah.

 

a story about it, right? Both because like, not only does it help make the show more entertaining, but it's just more just interesting, right? To get a backstory behind this, you want to provide the reason people are listening to this is they want more than just something they could easily Google. Because

 

Hehehe

 

anybody to get a look up just simple answers, which is why we try to ask questions that are hopefully a little bit more interesting and engaging.

 

Yeah. So

 

Sometimes.

 

for any future guests who want to be on the podcast,

 

Ha ha ha

 

just be willing to expand upon your answer.

 

Exactly. Yeah. There's definitely times that I look at like this show prep and it's like, it's just one article and the article is like very, very like detailed on one little thing. And like, how am I going to make 45 minutes out of this? I have no idea. Like, I hope you can talk about different things. But Tanner

 

Hehehe

 

Lindsay, what a great person. Oh, my gosh.

 

Yeah.

 

I know him outside of all this. And it's just, wow. Holy moly.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah,

 

Yeah.

 

he's a fun one and he is one who not only came on once, I think he's been on two or three times. So

 

Hmm.

 

we're always getting updates on the latest and greatest for React query and React table and React router and, you know, whatever else has become part of the tan stack. So

 

Mm-hmm.

 

that's really cool, too, to see how it's evolved and grown and become even more stable and mature over time.

 

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I guess. People do take what we say seriously, right, and they take it as recommendations. And there's a lot of people folks out there looking for the right way to do things. And when we say, you know, it's whatever, when we recommend X or Y, they take it really seriously, you know, which is, you know, not always the best thing to do, but whatever. I mean, I guess, you know,

 

Hehehe

 

I mean, same thing with the YouTube videos or medium articles, but. I would say Tanner Linsley libraries and Daishi Kato libraries, which are, he's the guy that's doing like last state management stuff are the two ones that like just off the top of my head, I could say I would never have a reservation recommending those they're

 

yeah

 

so well supported, so well

 

rock

 

written,

 

solid.

 

so well, right, just rock for a solid. And yeah, so can't go wrong.

 

And I would hope that we're pretty good about dropping in our, it depends

 

Ha!

 

or it

 

We try!

 

depends on what you're building.

 

We say it a lot.

 

So

 

Since

 

hopefully,

 

We

 

last

 

do.

 

week.

 

hopefully people take everything we say on here with a healthy grain of salt.

 

Right. You must

 

you should

 

do your

 

you're an engineer

 

own due diligence.

 

yeah you're an engineer you know if you're an engineer then you then if it's on your code base you are responsible for it regardless of if you wrote it or not and therefore you should do your due diligence yeah for sure

 

Awesome. Well, are there any other meta topics we want to get into? Anything we missed? Anything else to celebrate for number 200?

 

Do we get a birthday cake or something?

 

Some party streamers and balloons.

 

Alright! Where's the plaque? I mean the plaque!

 

We should do,

 

Well...

 

so go ahead, Paige.

 

Well, one thing that we could do, and we kind of touched on this a little bit, but I guess is how would you get into a podcast if you were interested in it and didn't necessarily want to go out and start your own because that's a lot of work and a lot of, you know, just extras, but if you wanted to get to somewhere like we are, do you have any advice for people?

 

So I'd say with anything, first of all, don't be afraid to start something up. It's anything else

 

Hmm.

 

in life, you have to do it. With podcasting with anything else, you have to do it a bunch to get good at it. You'll make a first podcast, you'll hate it, but until you

 

Hehehehehehe

 

go through that process of doing it, you're never gonna learn. So I'd say that's the first thing. I'd say buy an average microphone. Like you don't need a... a high end mic to run this, but you don't want to be recording on just like your MacBook Pros mic because

 

No.

 

it will podcast is the one place where audio quality, you can notice it to an extent. You can definitely notice, like if you've listened to podcasts where they bring in a guest, you can always tell if the guest is like calling in on the phone or

 

Ha

 

something

 

ha ha.

 

like that, because you can just tell the audio quality degrades quite a bit. It makes it harder to listen to.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

So I'd say buy a decent bike. You can buy like I'm with the. using a Blue Yeti here, which is not super expensive. It's a decent investment if you're starting up a podcast. And I also say use some sort of software that makes your life a little bit easier. The modern podcasts are tricky in that you can upload them to many different places. So some sort of software to help automate that process is probably gonna make your life a little bit easier as well. And then invite guests, you know, ask people.

 

Yeah.

 

Make like a show website and make it seem like a really big deal. Because that's all people that are going to show up to it. They don't know how many people are listening, right?

 

No!

 

They have no idea.

 

It's true! Yeah.

 

They have no idea. So make your website look really, really impressive, right?

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Like put, invest in that, invite some cool people and chances are you'll get somebody to say yes.

 

Pagie, any ideas? I mean...

 

I would definitely second the microphone.

 

Hmm.

 

It's funny, I was watching, I think it was a news clip the other day and they were interviewing somebody who was a doctor and you could tell just from the poor audio quality that he was using his computer's speaker and microphone.

 

Uh...

 

It just sounded so tinny and hard to understand and it was very difficult to even make out what he was talking about. So, like TJ said, get a- And it doesn't have to be a super expensive, you know, I'm about to become a newscaster type of microphone at all, but just get something, even

 

Yeah.

 

if it is a cheapy one from Amazon, it'll, it'll make a huge difference. So definitely that. Um, and as far as getting, you know, like getting onto a podcast, like we are where we're hosts, but we don't necessarily have to deal with the, the backend portions of stuff. do something or write something or make something that is worth talking about. That's the thing.

 

Hmm.

 

It's like we all in some form made videos or wrote articles or gave meetup talks or whatever for years. And then the traction started to come. So there'll be a while where you feel like nothing that you're doing is making an impact or is worth really talking about or sharing. But the more that you do it consistently and the more practice that you get at it, the more likely you are that you're gonna get picked up by one of these JavaScript newsletters, or you're gonna be asked by a company to write a technical article for them, or somebody is just gonna kind of reach out to you because you wrote something really good, and they're like, hey, we'd like to come on and talk more about this. So you gotta put something out there that is worth somebody taking note of. and you're gonna put a whole lot more out there that nobody's gonna take any note of before that happens. So don't expect overnight success, I guess, but if you keep plugging away at it, eventually you're gonna get good and you're gonna make waves in one way or another.

 

Yeah. So another behind the scenes thing is that we sometimes these are really short and we have about an hour to record stuff and sometimes we'll get a guest on who's like talking through a perfect thing, Mike, and you're like, and then we're like, no, man, I can't.

 

Mm-hmm

 

No. And so he spent 15 minutes trying to bug like, wait, do you have your fan on? to at least a decent level where we can just kind of noise reaction at, you know, trying anyway, whatever. But that's yeah. So if you're going to try and do this thing, yes, please get a, get a decent mic. They're not that expensive, honestly. Um, and then, you know, it's interesting that, yeah, just expect that you're going to go through with this valley of despair. You know, when you, you, You're like,

 

Yep.

 

Oh wow, my, I'm going to put content out there and everybody's going to love it immediately. Cause man, it worked. They tell me I'm just the greatest blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you put stuff out there and like three people watch it, you know, and you're like, Whoa, that's not what I expected. And it lasts for a long time.

 

Yep.

 

And then in your end and I've seen so many people give up, you know, and people will have like big followings, you know, like I have 40,000 Twitter followers and I'm going to get my YouTube channel and it's just like, just doesn't, you know, because it's different, different thing. But

 

Mm-hmm.

 

one I Ira glass who's on this

 

this

 

American

 

American

 

life,

 

life.

 

right?

 

Yep.

 

Had a really, some really good advice. Like he was doing one of those talk about the show kind of things and being interviewed about the show and was like, you just have to have a sense of taste. of your own taste of like what you would want to listen to. And then just constantly be following that sense of taste. Like, you know, so that you're, you don't feel like you've ever gotten to the point where you're at the top of the mountain, you're doing your best work. It's like, there's always something you can improve upon. Like you can get bigger guests, you can love a level. You can promote it better. You can have better production quality, whatever it is you're looking to do.

 

Yeah, that's a mantra and the product development land too, where you should be building products you want to use. So it's

 

Yeah,

 

a similar concept,

 

yeah.

 

right? What would you want to listen to? And you're banking off the fact that they're almost, they're, they're for sure. A lots of people like you out there. So if

 

Mm-hmm.

 

you're creating something useful, if you're putting in the hard work to create something useful, it'll pay off. But like Jack said, you have to be ready to suffer through a good amount

 

Woo!

 

of time of, yeah, you got to put in the grind.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it's very If you have an ego, you're not gonna have an ego by the end of it. Or I

 

Yeah.

 

tell you what

 

It's a humbling experience.

 

It's a homily exactly

 

Well, and having some like a pages marketing experience can help a lot. You start to realize

 

Yeah.

 

the value of that when you get into something like this, because you can put out the best content ever that people would

 

Mm-hmm.

 

enjoy a lot. But if they never hear about it or they never find it, then you know, what good did it do?

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, article titles are key.

 

It's just a lot of work. It's a lot of also, you know, you got to cross promote. You got to collaborate. You got to go on the other podcast, talk about your podcast and your content. All of that, you know, so yeah, it's a lot of work. A lot of work.

 

Well, excellent. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Do we want to move into our 200th edition of PIX?

 

Sure.

 

Let's do it.

 

All right, Paige, why don't you kick us off this time?

 

Alright, so this time I have a tech gadget that I'm going to recommend to anybody who is a Macbook user like me and knows that four Thunderbolt ports are not enough for anything.

 

Hehehehehe

 

I have two external monitors. I have a microphone, I have a camera. I have now because I work for an IoT company I typically have hardware on my desk that's being powered and four ports just and a cord for the MacBook to power the whole thing. So it just does not cut it at all. I've had dongle,s I've had hubs of just extra USB ports. I've tried a lot of things and I hated all of it because it was just more wires and stuff sticking out of my computer making it look not great. So this weekend I finally did the research and bought a Thunderbolt port or a Thunderbolt dock

 

Hmm.

 

and it is awesome. I got the CalDigit Thunderbolt dock and it has three USB ports, three Thunderbolt ports I should say on the back. It has four USB ports on the front and it has its own power source so you can eliminate your MacBook charging cable. I can plug in both of my monitors which are on Thunderbolt cables. I've got my camera plugged in, I've got my mic plugged in, I've got my keyboard plugged in and charging, I've got an IoT device on my desk that's being powered. Everything is all connected to this one little box and the box is only like yay big. It's

 

Right? Yeah.

 

a little bit bigger than a pack of cards. The actual power supply for it, the battery is larger

 

It's

 

than

 

chunky.

 

the box itself.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah, it's just

 

but that's on the back

 

beast.

 

of my desk, so I can't see it, it's out of the way.

 

Yeah.

 

And... So far, I love this thing. It's great. I only have one cable that now goes to my actual laptop and everything else just plugs into this and it does it. So it is a bit of an investment, I will say, but for the lack of things that I have to plug and unplug to take my MacBook anywhere, and now I can have everything running at the same time, I would say that it was definitely worth it for me.

 

I'm gonna have to check it out. Cause the little, I've got a little docking thing as well, but I went with kind of a cheaper thing off Amazon. And I mean, it works, but I would put works in air quotes because like sometimes my monitors don't connect and I have to just unplug it, replug it a few times. And it's not, I don't know. It's okay, but I definitely think it's, I might revisit this and invest a little bit more.

 

Yeah, I tried for one of the cheaper ones at first as well, and it seemed like it was going to do everything that I needed it to do, but when I got it, I realized that it does not support Thunderbolt. It was just USB-C,

 

O

 

so my monitors wouldn't turn on, wouldn't even realize that they were connected, so that's when I learned that I must invest more in order to get this.

 

And then there's like another level, which is you gotta get one if you have like I have an Mac M2, but it's the 13 inch which only has the two ports and you can only run one monitor directly off that. And so you have to get a one that has display link and then you can run additional monitors. But if you have a macro pro that has the four. You can use the Cal digit and run two monitors directly. It's such a mess. Oh my God.

 

Yeah, and see both my monitors run off HDMI, which is part

 

Hmm.

 

of my problem, which I think I could probably convert, but it gets into just

 

Now

 

more

 

you gotta

 

dongles.

 

get the display link

 

Yeah,

 

and ayayayayay.

 

I don't want to purchase more cables. I've got enough

 

Yeah.

 

cables.

 

And oh my gosh, the EU decision to do USBC. Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, finally.

 

I don't necessarily agree with it, so we'll have to

 

Oh,

 

have

 

I agree

 

a...

 

to disagree on that one. Oh, well,

 

It'll be a subject. Well, it's complicated.

 

I am. I love it. That's great.

 

True.

 

Jack, what pics do you have?

 

I don't know if anybody playing the Lego home game. I just finished up the Ferrari Daytona SP3. My wife got me for my birthday and it was a cool, very cool build. So strongly recommended on that one. Looks fantastic.

 

Awesome.

 

Nice.

 

For me, I'm going to pick another podcast. It's

 

Hmm?

 

one called Dithering, which is with Ben Thompson from Strutechary and John Gruber, who's known for doing all the Apple reviews. And it's a podcast that is, I think it's twice a week, but its gimmick is that it's only 15 minutes. So

 

Hmm.

 

they

 

Nice.

 

talk on a topic for 15 minutes. It's nice and sweet. It's pretty easy. I think it is a paid podcast because Ben Thompson offers it as part of his Strotecary subscription, but that is also a pretty good deal. So if you're into

 

Hehehe

 

that sort of stuff, it's all tech stuff also. Like they talk about anything tech, like the last episode was on Stadia, the death of Stadia and what all that meant and stuff. So if you're into tech and you're looking for something short and sweet, I find it pretty entertaining.

 

I think

 

Nice.

 

the idea of short cast is very intriguing for sure. Like, it certainly appeals to me. I don't like listening

 

Yeah,

 

for

 

who's

 

something

 

got

 

for four

 

time

 

hours.

 

for that?

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah,

 

yeah,

 

who wants

 

hang

 

to listen

 

away.

 

to

 

Ain't

 

a 45,

 

nobody got time

 

50,

 

for that. Right,

 

who wants to

 

exactly.

 

listen

 

Right!

 

to a 50 minute podcast, right?

 

Yeah,

 

Like

 

about

 

this.

 

people

 

Who

 

droning

 

would do that?

 

on about their 200th episode. What do I care?

 

All right, everybody. Well, this was a blast,

 

It was,

 

as

 

it's

 

it

 

always

 

always

 

fun.

 

is.

 

Yeah.

 

But it's fun to do for a 200th episode. So

 

Yeah.

 

I guess here's the 200 more.

 

Yeah,

 

Yeah,

 

I should get

 

exactly.

 

in Kazoo- BOOT!

 

Hehehe.

 

All right, everybody. Thanks for joining us and see you next week.

 

See you next week.

 

See you then.