Syntax &#8211; Tasty Web Development Treats

908: Storybook Has Evolved w/ Jeppe Reinhold Jun 04, 2025

Show notes

Wes and Scott talk with Jeppe Reinhold about Storybook 9’s powerful new features—including drastically reduced bloat, seamless Vite integration, and next-level component testing. They dive into visual regression testing, accessibility, performance, and best practices for writing robust, isolated UI components developers can actually enjoy testing and documenting.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
01:40 What is Storybook?
03:48 How Storybook makes component design easier
04:41 Vite integration and compatibility with other tools
- Vite
- webpack
- RSpack
06:50 Storybook’s significantly smaller bundle size
- e18e
- polka
13:31 Upgrading to Storybook 9
17:34 Testing components with Storybook
- Vitest
19:51 How do you write a component “story”?
24:29 Brought to you by Sentry.io
24:54 How visual testing works
28:38 How Storybook makes money
29:33 Best practices for component design
32:24 Mocking and testing strategies
34:49 Accessibility testing
40:51 Add-ons and future features
44:43 Storybook’s documentation
46:33 Sick Picks + Shameless plugs

Sick Picks

Jeppe: JBL Boombox 3 Wi-Fi

Shameless Plugs

Jeppe: chromatic

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907: Wes’ New Site: Gatsby → React Server Components Jun 02, 2025

Show notes

Wes rebuilt his personal site from Gatsby to a modern stack using Waku, React Server Components, and Cloudflare Workers — all while keeping the same design. Scott and Wes break down the pain points with Next.js, MDX, image handling, caching, and the custom setup that now powers a blazing-fast blog.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
01:03 Barcelona Conference.
04:09 Brought to you by Sentry.io.
04:33 Existing stack, goodbye to Gatsby.
06:11 New stack, the goals for moving.
06:56 So what is the new stack?
- 08:32 Challenges with NextJS.
- 08:58 Problems with plugins.
- 09:30 Problems with dynamic imports.
- 10:21 Problems with Cloudflare deployment.
12:37 Landing on Waku.
13:59 Hot Tips functionality updates.
16:30 Blog Posts + JavaScript Notes.
17:09 Moving from Gatsby.
19:03 Page speeds.
- 19:29 Removing nav resizing process.
- 21:03 Writing custom MDX plugins.
23:28 Hosting.
- 24:08 Why is the build so fast?
28:01 Pricing.
32:25 Caching.
34:49 Migration errors.
36:37 CSS.

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906: Tech Startups and Raising Money with Dan Levine (Vercel, Sentry, Mux…) May 28, 2025

Show notes

Wes and Scott talk with VC Dan Levine about how developers can raise venture capital, what investors look for in early-stage startups, the realities of bootstrapping vs. fundraising, and why great ideas often start as simple side projects.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
00:55 Dan’s background and career
03:10 Is it common for tech investors to come from a tech background?
04:40 How can developers raise money?
08:35 What investors look for
12:39 How much funding is enough?
15:41 Are founders working with multiple investors?
18:26 What can you use the money for?
22:49 How much influence do investors have in the business?
29:56 Brought to you by Sentry.io
29:56 How involved are VCs in the business?
34:22 How do you know a startup is in trouble—and what can you do about it?
38:56 How much of the company do investors own?
40:43 What’s the endgame for investors?
44:02 How do acqui-hires work?
46:29 Is the AI space a real opportunity or just hype?
53:22 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

Dan:
- Dandelion Chocolate
- Jules Pizza

Shameless Plugs

Dan: Linear

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905: You Should Learn Nuxt! May 26, 2025

Show notes

CJ steps in for Scott and joins Wes to share his experience working with Nuxt, from routing and data fetching to the pros and cons of the framework. They break down the Nuxt ecosystem, directory structure, and how it handles server routes and modules.

Show Notes

00:00 Syntax Meetup!
00:26 Welcome to Syntax
01:21 The deal with Nuxt.
- CJ’s Nuxt Course.
02:51 Why do you like Vue?
04:52 Brought to you by Sentry.io.
05:17 Routing with Nuxt.
- h3 - The Web Framework for Modern JavaScript Era.
- Nuxt Guides.
06:12 Built on Nitro.
06:49 The Nuxt Ecosystem.
07:52 API Route Support.
08:15 Nuxt Directory Structure.
09:09 Does Nuxt do too much for you?
11:15 Data fetching in a Nuxt app.
13:25 RPC, Form Actions, Server Actions?
15:00 Nuxt Server Folder Hastle.
15:57 useFetch Hook.
- CJ’s Nuxt Crash Course.
17:29 Core Modules and Community Modules?
- Nuxt Modules.
- shadcn-nuxt.
- @nuxt/ui.
- DaisyUI.
- Pinia.
21:17 Nuxt Hosting.
- Deploy.
- hub.nuxt.
23:59 Anything you don’t like?

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904: React vs Svelte × Windsurf Worth $3B × Typescript as Const × Layout Shift Tricks × More May 21, 2025

Show notes

In this potluck episode of Syntax, Wes and CJ answer your questions about OpenAI’s $3B Windsurf acquisition, the evolving role of UI in an AI-driven world, why good design still matters, React vs. Svelte, and more!

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
- Devs Night Out
02:35 OpenAI acquires Windsurf for $3B
- Windsurf
- Ep 870: Windsurf forked VS Code to compete with Cursor. Talking the future of AI + Coding
05:20 What is the future of UI now that AI is such a heavy hitter?
08:45 Handling spam submissions on websites
- Cloudflare Turnstile
14:18 Duplicating HTML for desktop and mobile websites?
17:03 Is it okay to use a JSON file for simple website data?
19:04 How to handle anonymous and duplicate users
- Better-Auth
21:55 Working with TypeScript Object.keys() and “any” vs “@ts-ignore”
25:51 Brought to you by Sentry.io
26:38 What is the difference between React and Svelte?
30:24 How should you name your readme file?
31:55 How do you find time to refactor code?
35:20 Best practices for testing responsiveness
- Polypane
39:19 Avoiding layout shift with progressive enhancement
46:56 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

Sick Picks

CJ: Portable Chainsaw
Wes: White Lotus

Shameless Plugs

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903: Fork Yeah! Microsoft open sourcing Copilot May 19, 2025

Show notes

Scott and Wes are joined by Erich Gamma, creator of VS Code, and Kai Maetzel, Copilot Lead, to share some big news about the future of VS Code and Copilot. They discuss what it means for developers, how AI is shaping the future of coding, and why staying open to the community is key.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
01:00 The inception of VS Code.
02:49 VS Code adoption.
04:31 Brought to you by Sentry.io.
04:55 Syntax Denver Meetup!
05:19 The big announcement.
06:25 The current state of Copilot and VS Code.
08:31 The challenges with LLMs running outside of the codebase.
09:31 How to make a business case for AI.
10:47 The maturing of the AI landscape.
13:01 The limitations of extensions.
14:06 Open source vs closed source.
14:49 Copilot’s context is public.
19:23 Is context language-specific?
21:23 How does this affect paid Copilot features?
23:27 Secrets of Copilot’s server-side.
28:36 What will be open and what will not?
29:03 Is Copilot’s UI influenced by VS Code forks?
31:31 Maintaining VS Code identity in forks.
33:07 What does open-sourcing GitHub Copilot mean for Cursor and Windsurf?
38:42 Were you surprised to see VS Code forks?
40:03 Are other extensions able to tap into the AI offerings?
43:20 There’s work to be done.
44:13 The timeline.
45:39 Simulation Tests (S Tests).
48:07 How to test LLMs.
49:10 The future of software development with AI.
52:47 What’s your favorite model?

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902: Fullstack Cloudflare with React and Vite (Redwood SDK) May 14, 2025

Show notes

Wes talks with Peter Pistorius about RedwoodSDK, a new React framework built natively for Cloudflare. They dive into real-time React, server components, zero-cost infrastructure, and why RedwoodSDK empowers developers to ship faster with fewer tradeoffs and more control.

Show Notes

00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
00:52 What is RedwoodSDK?
04:49 Choosing openness over abstraction
08:46 More setup, more control
12:20 Why RedwoodSDK only runs on Cloudflare
14:25 What the database setup looks like
16:15 Durable Objects explained – Ep 879: Fullstack Cloudflare
18:14 Middleware and request flow
23:14 No built-in client-side router?
24:07 Integrating routers with defineApp
26:04 React Server Components and real-time updates
29:53 What happened to RedwoodJS?
31:14 Why do opinionated frameworks struggle to catch on?
34:35 The problem with Lambdas
36:16 Cloudflare’s JavaScript runtime compatibility
40:04 Brought to you by Sentry.io
41:44 The vision behind RedwoodSDK

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