FSJam Podcast

Michael Chan is the host of React Podcast, creator of lunch.dev, and maintainer of the React Podcast Discord.

In this episode we discuss the importance of online learning communities, when to pivot away from React, the long awaited Concurrent Mode, shortcomings of Create React App, the challenges of learning React in a post-hooks world, and why you should build a hundred components.

Michael Chan

• Twitter
• GitHub
• React Podcast
• Blog
• YouTube

lunch.dev

• Discord
• Home Page
• events.lunch.dev
• Lunch.dev Community
• YouTube

Links

• React Is Not a Rails Competitor
• Tom Preston-Werner on RedwoodJS

Note: In the time since this episode was recorded Michael has joined the newly formed React 18 Working Group.

Debbie O'Brien is the Head Developer Advocate at Bit.

In this episode we discuss workflows to enable sharing components across large codebases, how to make reusable frontend code, and techniques for navigating digital work environments.

Debbie O'Brien

• Home Page
• Twitter
• GitHub
• YouTube
• Twitch
• LinkedIn

Bit

• Home Page
• Twitter
• GitHub

Jenn Robison is the Director of Engineering at Echobind, a full service digital agency.

In this episode we discuss similarities and differences between popular JavaScript frameworks, opportunities for exploring new technology presented by a fast paced agency, the potential for a universal runtime with React Native and Expo, and when to eject from a framework.

Jenn Robison

• Twitter
• GitHub
• LinkedIn
• Blog

Echobind

• Home Page
• Twitter
• GitHub

Links

• react-native-template
• Expo
• React Native Web
• React Native Windows
• React Native MacOS
• Bison
• Responsively
• Sizzy
• E2E testing in React Native with Jenn Robison

Paul Copplestone is the CEO and Co-Founder of Supabase, a PostgreSQL hosting provider for developers.

In this episode we discuss building an open source alternative to Firebase, the architecture and open source tools underlying the Supabase platform, how companies can help push contributions back upstream, and the inherent trade off between velocity and stability among open source and closed source projects.

Paul Copplestone

• Twitter
• GitHub
• LinkedIn

Supabase

• Home Page
• Twitter
• GitHub

Links

• Supabase: Open Source Firebase with Paul Copplestone
• Contribute to Supabase - The open source Firebase alternative
• Supabase raises $6M for its open-source Firebase alternative
• Supabase Redwood Experiments
• pgAdmin
• GoTrue
• PostgREST
• PgBouncer
• Realtime
• Phoenix
• Elixir
• Erlang
• Kong

Uri Goldshtein is the founder of The Guild, a group of open source developers where each library is under a person’s name, not under The Guild organization on GitHub.

In this episode we discuss translating alternative API specifications into GraphQL with GraphQL Mesh, the benefits of using a GraphQL gateway, extending the ecosystem with Helix, Hive, and Envelop, and unconventional approaches to sustaining open source development.

Uri Goldshtein

• GitHub
• Twitter

The Guild

• Home Page
• GitHub
• Twitter

Links

• GraphQL Mesh
• GraphQL SOFA
• GraphQL Helix
• Dotan Simha
• Envelop
• GraphQL Hive
• GraphiQL
• GraphQL Playground
• Altair
• Meteor.js with Uri Goldshtein

Ben Myers is a web developer, accessibility advocate, and human T-rex. He is also the host of Some Antics, a weekly educational livestream.

In this episode we discuss the processes that lead to inaccessible websites, the mental models fullstack developers need to build accessible websites, the tools they can leverage to improve their site's accessibility, how to keep a healthy skepticism towards accessibility focused products, and the necessity of centering accessibility efforts on the experiences of disabled users.

Ben Myers

• Some Antics
• Website
• Twitter
• GitHub
• LinkedIn

Links

• Putting RedwoodJS Docs to the Test
• JAWS - Website
• NVDA - Website
• VoiceOver - Website
• axe DevTools
• axe-core
• axe-con
• GOV.UK Design System
• GOVUK-react
• Grommet
• Lighthouse accessibility scoring
• Lighthouse accessibility audits
• The Automated Accessibility Coverage Report
• Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM)
• Deque Systems
• The A11Y Project

Anthony
Ben Myers, welcome to the show.

Ben
Howdy. Howdy. It's good to be here.

Anthony
Why don't you introduce yourself to our guests and let us know who you are and what you do?

Ben
Absolutely. My name is Ben. I've been doing web development full time for nearly three years now. I try to be a force in the community for accessibility advocacy. Web accessibility is a big passion of mine, I like to blog about it. Recently I've started a weekly Twitch stream where I bring on guests and they teach me something about web development, core web tech and/or accessibility. So if you've seen me around, that's likely why.

Anthony
We've gotten to know each other through the React Podcast Discord, we actually just talked with Chan yesterday. You have now spun off your Twitch channel, Some Antics, which I really like I think that's a really great name for an accessibility channel.

I was really excited that you were doing it because we had already been talking about doing some sort of accessibility themed stream for RedwoodJS. We got to do that for Some Antics and I had a great time. I would love to hear a little bit about who your influences were in terms of creating it. I kind of have an idea, but I think our listeners would find it interesting.

Ben
So in terms of that stream, the main influence would be a Jason Lengstorf and his Learn with Jason show. For viewers, or I guess listeners who are unfamiliar, Learn with Jason is a twice weekly show where Jason brings on guests and they cover various aspects of the Jamstack. It's really great because you get to see just a wide variety of the web development world. It's such an open, inviting community, which I really appreciate.

I've been trying to sort of, I don't want to say like, ape that whole thing. But, I've been inspired by that approach, bringing on people in the web development world. People who can show off interesting things that perhaps they don't always have the platform to do. And just teach me and teach the audience a new thing the web.

I focus on core web technologies because. I think that's really foundational to the stuff that we do on a day in and day out basis. We have tons of frameworks. We have meta frameworks, I'm sure at some point we'll have meta meta frameworks, but at some point it all comes down to the building blocks. And I think the single most impactful thing I can do for web development is really focusing on getting absolutely solid with those building blocks.

Anthony
I'd be really curious to hear, how did you first get it programming? Like what was the first kind of program you ever wrote or your first programming language or your first website? Anything like that?

Ben
Okay. I have always been a computer guy. This goes back to even as an infant, as a toddler. One of my favorite like family stories that gets passed around every once in a while, is that my parents realized like, "Oh, Ben's probably been on the computer too much as of late and we need to wean them off of that." They turned the computer off and you know, this was in the day where all computers by default had towers and everything that people weren't really using laptops.

They turn the computer off and they stuck a post-it note over the power button on the tower. If it said no little toddler me really wanted to use the computer. So he took the sticky note off, turned it upside down. So it said on stuck it back on, turn the power on and started using the computer. Just really and truly computers have been a big part of just me growing up. They were a big part of my childhood.

I actually made my first website back in like 4th and 5th grade. I used one of those free website builders and it was atrocious. I do not look back on that site with the most kindness, perhaps, but it was my first site. I got to college and I had this idea that I was probably going to end up doing something technical, but I wasn't sure what that would be.

I was undecided for my major, but I figured, you know what? I like computers. I'm going to play around with computer science as well as the business IT program that we had. Ultimately I ended up taking computer science and really enjoying that. That's kind of my journey to getting into programming, a childhood full of computers.

Anthony
Yeah, it definitely resonates with, I'm sure, me and Chris, same sort of situation growing up. We're really excited to have you here because something that I talked about when I was on your stream is that we're really focused on full stack development here, obviously this is FSJam, fullstack Jamstack. Part of what we really enjoy about that is that it allows solo developers to go really far by themselves with these tools. But what comes along with that is a responsibility, I see, of having a whole end to end understanding of...

Brandon Bayer is the creator of Blitz.js.

In this episode we discuss his recent decision to fork Next.js and continue building with it on a parallel track to Vercel.

Brandon Bayer

• Twitter
• GitHub
• Blitz.js

Links

• RFC - Time to maintain a fork of Next.js?
• Compilers are the New Frameworks

Brian Douglas is a Staff Developer Advocate at GitHub.

In this episode we discuss the origins of the Jamstack, the creation of the Netlify dashboard, advice for recent bootcamp grads, and how to increase diversity in open source.

Brian Douglas

• Twitter
• Dev.to
• GitHub
• Jamstack Radio
• This Developing Story

Links

• Open Sauced
• The ReadME Project
• "I think the first guy that tipped the word was a friend of mine, Andreas Sæbjørnsen"

Chris Mather is the Founder and CEO of Elements, an application framework and build tool for TypeScript that makes developing apps fun again.

In this episode we discuss when to build your own solutions, the reinvention of server side rendering, horizontal scaleability through copying, why we should stop being afraid of SQL, and the origin behind the name of the project.

Chris Mather

• Elements.dev
• Discord
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Links

• Founder Friday: Chris Mather of Elements
• The Elements framework with Chris Mather
• A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks

Monica Powell is a software engineer at Newsela, Egghead Instructor, and organizer of the React Ladies meetup.

In this episode we discuss how to create free, high quality educational material, the Redwood IDE and structure package, and how to build a more diverse open source community.

Monica Powell

• Home Page
• Twitter
• GitHub

Links

• RedwoodJS Structure
• Pudding Speaker Rider
• devcolor