Chats with Kent C. Dodds

Latest Episodes:

Stephan Meijer Chats About Side-Projects Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Side projects are important in our line of work. They sharpen our skills and sometimes they can even take off and lead our career in a new direction. But seeing people create these amazing projects over a weekend can be demotivating as a junior developer. "How can they do that when I'm five days deep into a todo app? What do they have that I'm missing?"

The answer might be a disappointment to some, but often it is because they have 10+ years more experience than you do. But don't let this demotivate you! You don't lack intelligence, you just have more experience.

If you want more advice on side projects and dealing with the influence of others, then listen to this episode where Stephan Meijer chats about how he switched from an architecture career into tech, side projects, and how to be true to yourself and your goals.

Homework

Take 10 minutes to think about how the advice that you've given to somebody recently may have influenced the direction that they're going in their life.
Take 10 minutes to think about how the advice that other people have given you has influenced your own direction and consider whether you're happy with that direction

Resources

My Career and Lessons Learned in a Nutshell

Guest: Stephan Meijer

Twitter: @meijer_s
GitHub: @smeijer
Website: meijer.ws

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Tracy Lee Chats About Positivity Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

We have to remember that we are all human beings with social and emotional needs. Our career suffers when we fall into a pit of negativity or when we put up mental barriers that prevent us from interacting with people we might've wanted to talk to.

In this episode, Tracy Lee chats about the importance of remembering that everyone, even the awesome people speaking at the conference are all human. When we idolize people it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking they're "better" than we are. We might miss out on opportunities to speak with them out of self-consciousness.

Tracy also addresses how general negativity can impact our careers. She cautions against doom scrolling on Twitter and gives us some great strategies on how to surround ourselves with positivity, without burying our heads in the sand to the problems in our world.

Homework

Thing of a specific positive thing and share it with somebody!

Resources

Guest: Tracy Lee

Twitter: @ladyleet
GitHub: @ladyleet
Website: thisdot.co

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Sandrina Pereira Chats About Accessibility Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Building our apps to be accessible is absolutely necessary, but building a great a11y friendly experience is extremely challenging when we ourselves aren't in a situation that requires the use of a screenreader is keyboard-only navigation.

We can't fully rely on tools to audit the a11y score of our apps. With the challenge being distinctly human, computers aren't able to get a complete picture.

That's why it's necessary for you to use these alternative methods for web navigation yourself. Try navigating your app's pages blindfolded while using a screen reader, or trying to just use the keyboard. If you find your website is unusable, consider it a bug. Accessibility is not an enhancement.

So if you're curious about what you can do to make your apps more accessible, check out this episode where Sandrina chats about methods that you can start using today.

Homework

Implement one of the following options in your app:
Disable all of the CSS and see if your app still makes sense visually
Use your app in direct sunlight. Spot any contrast issues
Navigate your app with only a keyboard
Blindfold yourself and try using your app with a screen-reader

Resources

Guest: Sandrina Pereira

Twitter: @a_sandrina_p
GitHub: @sandrina-p
Website: sandrina-p.net

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Ian Sutherland Chats About Improving Developer Experience Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Everything that developers do is DX (Developer Experience). But, it can be hard to know when it is appropriate to spend the time to improve the DX at your workplace. You also might be curious about what you can do to enhance the DX.

Repetitive tasks are an easy one to look out for. If you find yourself doing something again and again it's probably worth automating. This could come in the form of tests, scripts, generators, and snippets! For example, if you find yourself having to test some state that takes multiple steps to reach on your website, try using Cypress to automate reaching that state!

If improving your DX sounds interesting to you, check out this episode where Ian Sutherland chats about a variety of practical things you could be doing to enhance it.

Homework

Automate a tedious task that you have to do often

Ian Sutherland Chats About Getting Involved In Open-Source Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

"I should really get more involved in open-source" is something that's always on the back of our minds. You are fully aware of how rewarding it could be but that perfect opportunity to contribute never comes up.

Ian Sutherland, a maintainer of Create React App and contributor to NodeJS, used to be in that position. He had always struggled with getting into open source, he wanted to do something substantial but nothing ever came up. One day, he noticed a tiny bug in create react app. Ian quickly fixed it and put in a PR. Once he was past the first PR barrier, making additional ones was so much easier.

Fear is a big barrier to entry. People are maybe afraid they're going to do something silly, make a silly mistake and look foolish, but you really have to get over that as well. To get over it try to start small. When you start small, what was once a mountain to climb is now a hill. The stakes are much lower and success is still extremely rewarding!

Sometimes, getting involved can happen organically through opportunities from people you meet. Ian got involved with Node randomly at the Vancouver Node Interactive Conference during a collaborator summit. And an open-source raid group was formed in Kent's discord where they collaborate on helping out with various open-source projects. So remember that you don't have to do it alone, and look out for opportunities with others.

Homework

Next time you are hesitant to try something new, try starting smaller!

Resources

Guest: Ian Sutherland

Twitter: @iansu
GitHub: @iansu
Website: iansutherland.ca

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Vlad Magdalin Chats About The No-Code Movement Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Vlad Magdalin is the founder of Webflow, a powerful visual development tool that enables people to create professional websites without writing code. Webflow is on a much lower level of abstraction than something like Squarespace, and users still need to understand the core fundamentals of web development.

You might think that tools like these are going to take jobs away from developers, but it actually does the opposite! When innovative technologies allow more people to do work that was once restricted to experts, it benefits everybody. That's what the no-code movement is about. Removing barriers, and giving development power to non-experts.

As developers, we'll be able to collaborate better with designers and other team members. And with the increased output of surface-level webpages, there will be more demand for developers with a deeper skillset.

Homework

Teach a non-coder one coding related topic without using code

Resources

webflow

Guest: Vlad Magdalin

Twitter: @callmevlad
GitHub: @callmevlad

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Taylor Bell Chats About Effective Teaching Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Teaching what you know is a great way to give back to your community, grow your reputation as an expert, and to even make some extra income. But, just because you're an expert doesn't automatically mean you'll be able to effectively transfer your knowledge and skills to others.

Taylor Bell works for egghead, and one of his main focuses is helping instructors plan courses through an academic discipline known as "instructional design". Specifically, the "Understanding by Design" methodology is used. This process ensures that instructors are able to effectively teach what they know and be confident in learners retaining the knowledge.

From a high level, it's a three stage process of determining the desired results, determining the evidence that proves the learner is achieving those results, and developing a plan that results in the learner being able to apply what they've learned to other scenarios.

So if you're interested in writing better instructional blog posts, recording better videos, and just becoming a more effective teacher in general, check out this episode!

Homework

Think of something that you could teach to somebody else, and try to frame it in the three stages of UBD. Email Taylor your homework - taylor@egghead.io

Resources

Guest: Taylor Bell

Twitter: @taylorbell
GitHub: @tayiorbeii
Website: taylorbell.com

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Daria Caraway Chats About Having a Generalist Skillset Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Software development has always been a fast-paced sector. New and better technologies are constantly coming out and if companies don't keep up they'll soon be out of date.

Daria has experience with multiple teams who were upgrading their stack, and through that has discovered joy in being a generalist who is capable of working with a variety of technologies and able to see the big picture.

She has found having a generalist skillset both keeps her interested and gives her the ability to communicate with the front and backend teams in ways they both understand. With her ability to understand the different levels and keep everyone on the same page she is on the path to becoming an effective engineering manager in the coming years.

"Generalist" doesn't just mean full-stack developer, there are many more skill areas than front and back end. Maybe you could work on the CI pipeline, or maybe automated testing. There is a lot of value in choosing this path instead of building the deep knowledge of a specialist. They can't work in isolation, someone has to be able to coordinate and "be the glue" between the different parts of the stack.

Homework

Take five minutes to think about whether you want to be a generalist or a specialist, and then write down the three things you can do to get your career to go in that direction
Talk to your manager about your career goals

Guest: Daria Caraway

Twitter: @dariacaraway
GitHub: @darcar31
Website: dariacaraway.com

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Daria Caraway Chats About TypeScript Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

TypeScript has been taking over, and for good reason. Have you ever had good end-to-end or integration tests that ended up being invaluable during some refactoring? You can think of TypeScript in the same way. It's amazing when it's done well, but when done poorly it's misleading and a huge headache.

Because of this, migrating to TypeScript is not a magic bullet. When converting large pieces of code from JavaScript to TypeScript you need to be cautious about typing things correctly, don't be afraid of using unknown and moving on if you're unsure.

In this episode, you'll learn more about these realities of working with TypeScript and why it's all totally worth it!

Homework

TypeScript Users: Take a look at five interfaces you wrote recently and see if you can refactor them to make them easier to read for the next person.
Non-TypeScript Users: Think about the last complex code that you had to interface with and whether it would have been easier to interface with if it had types.

Guest: Daria Caraway

Twitter: @dariacaraway
GitHub: @darcar31
Website: dariacaraway.com

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Michael Jackson Chats About Remix Oct 04, 2021

Show notes

Twitter and Instagram had a problem that would ordinarily be simple on smaller scales. They needed to be able to generate IDs on the order of millions per second. Twitter used a brute force method of having a triple-redundant service that generates the IDs. However, Instagram had the elegant solution of inserting a little script that could generate thousands of IDs per second but was sharded across 256 nodes.

This illustrates that with the right abstraction for the job, you'll be saved a ton of time and resources. This has been Remix's philosophy.

There was a lot of stuff that we have built in the current generation of web frameworks where the browser actually has a really good primitive already for that solution. In the same way that the spirit of React is "just use JavaScript", the spirit of Remix is just use the web. And in the process of using Remix, you are going to learn more about the web.

So give Remix a try! And see for yourself the power that the browser gives you.

Homework

Go through this Remix tutorial - Super Simple Start to Remix

Resources

Guest: Michael Jackson

Twitter: @mjackson
GitHub: @mjackson
Website: mjackson.me

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Website: kentcdodds.com
Twitter: @kentcdodds
GitHub: @kentcdodds
YouTube: Kent C. Dodds
Epic React: epicreact.dev

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Homework

Resources

Guest: Stephan Meijer

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Resources

Guest: Tracy Lee

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Resources

Guest: Sandrina Pereira

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Resources

Guest: Ian Sutherland

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Resources

Guest: Ian Sutherland

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Resources

Guest: Vlad Magdalin

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Resources

Guest: Taylor Bell

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Guest: Daria Caraway

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Guest: Daria Caraway

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Homework

Resources

Guest: Michael Jackson

Host: Kent C. Dodds

Related Podcasts

1

2

3

4

5

6