Intro: Welcome to Syntax. Welcome to a brand new episode of the Front End Happy Hour podcast. Welcome to this week’s JS Party. Live from Ship Shape Studios, this is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. With your hosts, Robbie the Wagner, and me, Charles William Carpenter III. That’s right Charles. We drink whiskey and talk about web development.
Intro: I mean, it’s all in the name. It’s not that deep. This is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Do not adjust your set.
Robbie Wagner: Hey, what’s up everybody?
Robbie Wagner: This is Whiskey Webb and whatnot with your host Robbie, the Wagner and guest host today. Jason Langsdorf,
Jason: That’s right. Hat twins
Robbie Wagner: Yes. Yes. Very cool. Hats. Shout out Wes boss and the syntax team. And we have a guest today, Shrudy Kaur. How’s it going?
Shruti Kapoor: Hi. It’s going great. I didn’t get the memo on the hat. So West Boss, please hook me up.
Jason: That’s right. One. One. Internet Hat West.
Shruti Kapoor: we please.
Shruti Kapoor: yeah. I’ll give a quick intro. My name is Shati Kaur. I have been a software engineer for 11 years now. I used to work at Slack and PayPal before that, and then I was like, screw this.
Shruti Kapoor: I don’t need to get paid for my work, so I’m gonna become an in full-time independent YouTube content creator. And here I am.
Robbie Wagner: I’m nice. Yes, I like getting paid for my work, but you know, to each their own,
Jason: It’s, it’s truly the, the Silicon Valley dream. It’s for the
Shruti Kapoor: passion.
Shruti Kapoor: Yes.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: I’m doing it for my passion.
Shruti Kapoor: Okay. I don’t need money. Alright. YouTube.
Jason: is my passion.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: So we have a fray free fra,
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: don’t know.
Robbie Wagner: It is an alcohol removed wine. It is a sparkling brute. It is.
Jason: and that’s because it’s 10 o’clock in the
Jason: morning
Robbie Wagner: Well,
Jason: and it felt, it felt a little aggressive to try to do back to back episodes. Um,
Robbie Wagner: would disagree with you. He has already had seven whiskeys.
Jason: Chuck. Chuck doesn’t have to give a keynote in three
Jason: hours. yeah.
Jason: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Um,
Shruti Kapoor: Um,
Robbie Wagner: so this is a blend of chin blanc and pinot noir, and it is de ako hall eyes using an innovative spinning cone process, whatever that means,
Jason: a spinning cone process.
Jason: Yes.
Jason: Which, what does that even mean? I guess that’s, I bet that’s kind of like, uh, because oh, it’s kind of, because you get the, is it because you know what? I’m gonna, I’m gonna just scientifically explain this, knowing exactly zero
Robbie Wagner: the expert is here,
Jason: It’s because, alcohol is different density than the the water, right?
Robbie Wagner: that sounds right.
Jason: if you put it into a centrifuge, you can separate the alcohol from the rest
Jason: of
Jason: the beverage,
Jason: and then you’re able to just pour that alcohol
Jason: off.
Jason: , I’m sure they keep it somewhere. There’s, somewhere there is a, uh, a wine removed, alcohol that’s being sold in a liquor store near you. Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: They take all the
Shruti Kapoor: alcohol
Shruti Kapoor: That
Jason: sounds right.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah. It’s kind of like how they take in peanut butter. They, yeah. Pass one
Robbie Wagner: down peanut butter. They take all of the oil out sell the peanut oil and then put palm oil in the peanut butter. It’s
Jason: like
Jason: that.
Robbie Wagner: exactly.
Jason: Exactly.
Jason: Somewhere somebody’s got some grape juice. They’ve added the alcohol from the Shein
Jason: Blanc and they’re, they’re selling it as wine in a, probably in a box. More of like a one of those
Jason: plastic bladders. Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Oh god.
Robbie Wagner: Waste
Robbie Wagner: not all right. Yeah. Let’s, let’s see how this is,
Shruti Kapoor: you
Jason: not gonna face that label?
Robbie Wagner: label? No.
Robbie Wagner: Well, if
Jason: sir.
Shruti Kapoor: me,
Robbie Wagner: no. Yeah. There we go. You can kind of see it.
Shruti Kapoor: cheers.
Shruti Kapoor: Cheers. Cheers.
Jason: This is the benefit of these, uh, these in-person ones, you can
Jason: actually
Robbie Wagner: persons. Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Smells. Smells like wine.
Shruti Kapoor: Tastes
Shruti Kapoor: like juice.
Robbie Wagner: Oh, yeah. Does not taste like wine.
Shruti Kapoor: wine.
Jason: This reminds me
Jason: of, when I was a kid and, and you’d go to a New Year’s Eve party and the parents would have their champagne and then they would get the sparkling apple
Robbie Wagner: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Taste.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah. Yeah,
Shruti Kapoor: It does.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah. This is indistinguishable from sparkling grape juice. Would say, if you want this flavor just by Sparkling Ridge,
Shruti Kapoor: grape juice. Yeah.
Jason: get some grape juice and put it in your soda stream and you’ve
Jason: got this,
Shruti Kapoor: more or less,
Shruti Kapoor: Mm-hmm.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: I mean, it’s tasty. I don’t dislike it. I just thought it would be more wine
Robbie Wagner: like. Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: It’s, it’s very grape
Jason: this is, this is why they, um, all the, the other spirits, like the fake spirits. They have to do things to make the alcohol taste come
Jason: back.
Jason: Like, they’ll add something to
Jason: give it.
Jason: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Or they’ll put like,
Jason: something slightly spicy to give it an alcohol burn and like they’ll put something a little bitter to make it kind of have that alcohol flavor.
Jason: , And it feels like with this one, they just removed the alcohol and they were like, it’s still wine. Right. But the alcohol’s gone.
Shruti Kapoor: it’s,
Robbie Wagner: Yeah, technically it
Robbie Wagner: is.
Robbie Wagner: It’s
Robbie Wagner: lost.
Shruti Kapoor: balance.
Shruti Kapoor: I think.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah, that’s
Shruti Kapoor: true. I,
Shruti Kapoor: wonder if they just like added bubbles to juice. And be like, this is
Shruti Kapoor: wine. check us
Shruti Kapoor: Right?
Shruti Kapoor: I can sell it for more money.
Jason: the spinning cone technique was somebody in the marketing department being like, you’re not gonna believe what theories
Robbie Wagner: are
Robbie Wagner: gonna
Jason: come up
Shruti Kapoor: with for
Shruti Kapoor: how
Shruti Kapoor: we did
Shruti Kapoor: this.
Shruti Kapoor: Alcohol and water have different densities. Right.
Robbie Wagner: alright,
Robbie Wagner: so yeah, this is the first alcohol removed wine
Shruti Kapoor: I’ve had,
Robbie Wagner: so I don’t really know what to compare it to. We have a very complex rating system of zero to eight tentacles, zero being the worst, eight being the best. Four and a half is I guess,
Shruti Kapoor: the middle.
Robbie Wagner: yeah. Jason, you wanna give it a
Shruti Kapoor: rid?
Jason: I have had alcohol removed wines, and I would say that this one is. Probably the sweetest one that I’ve had. , And it’s, it’s made the least effort to still taste like wine. That being said, the flavor of this is good. So as a beverage, not as a wine.
Jason: I think this is like a six
Jason: tentacles
Jason: as a wine. This is like a
Shruti Kapoor: one
Shruti Kapoor: 10.
Jason: That’s
Shruti Kapoor: fair.
Robbie Wagner: Shrudy,
Shruti Kapoor: what
Shruti Kapoor: do
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: think?
Shruti Kapoor: Not
Shruti Kapoor: bad to taste,
Shruti Kapoor: not
Robbie Wagner: wine.
Shruti Kapoor: Would not drink this while
Shruti Kapoor: painting.
Shruti Kapoor: but would not hate it if it was served to
Shruti Kapoor: me. Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: So I’ll
Shruti Kapoor: give
Robbie Wagner: it three.
Robbie Wagner: Okay.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I’m, I’m kind of in the same vein. I actually think it’s very tasty, but it doesn’t remind me of wine at all.
Robbie Wagner: So,
Robbie Wagner: we’ll say two. I’ll just split the difference between,
Shruti Kapoor: you.
Robbie Wagner: yeah.
Robbie Wagner: oh, I forgot the toast. The most important part.
Robbie Wagner: All right, here’s to react. The JavaScript Monarch. We complain about daily fork monthly and rewrite yearly. May it continue to evolve faster than we can keep up And may we all one day understand what Use Effect
Shruti Kapoor: does,
Shruti Kapoor: news effect.
Robbie Wagner: but
Shruti Kapoor: we know what use effect does not do. Right?
Robbie Wagner: well. I don’t personally, but
Shruti Kapoor: I never did figure it
Shruti Kapoor: out.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: All right, so we have some hot takes that we start with. I, uh, have changed these a bit from our ones we typically do, but we have one that we always do Git rebase or Git merge.
Shruti Kapoor: Git Git merge, why?
Shruti Kapoor: Old habits Die hard.
Shruti Kapoor: Okay.
Shruti Kapoor: I find it more cleaner. I find it easier to understand. I’ve been doing Git merge the whole time.
Robbie Wagner: Okay.
Robbie Wagner: No wrong answer.
Robbie Wagner: I’m just
Jason: I think this is the first time
Jason: that one of the hot takes has made me want
Shruti Kapoor: fight.
Jason: So Good,
Jason: good
Robbie Wagner: Fight me,
Robbie Wagner: Jason I’ll
Robbie Wagner: fight you.
Jason: I just, I, I’ve, like, I never
Jason: would’ve
Shruti Kapoor: thought
Jason: of
Jason: Git merge as
Jason: being
Shruti Kapoor: clean.
Jason: No. ‘cause
Jason: it, it,
Jason: like.
Jason: mangles everything into one flat thing, that’s a million changes and you have to recover from that.
Jason: Right? Like whereas Rebase is
Jason: like, here’s
Shruti Kapoor: just
Shruti Kapoor: the
Jason: commits that were made.
Jason: So Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: No
Shruti Kapoor: you’re wrong.
Shruti Kapoor: I
Shruti Kapoor: don’t like your answer.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah. There’s, there’s no wrong answer. I don’t know. I mean, it depends on what you’re trying to preserve. If you want the entire history and you don’t wanna squash
Robbie Wagner: to one.
Robbie Wagner: Then there’s really not
Robbie Wagner: a lot of
Robbie Wagner: difference.
Jason: I think it’s ‘cause you lose blame is the big reason that I, ’
Jason: especially like when I was working on big teams,
Jason: you have,
Jason: , A lot of people putting stuff together and like one deploy might be like a lot of branches that have all kind of made it into this feature branch. And if you merge that branch, you’ve lost all that.
Jason: You don’t know who worked on what. Right? And so it starts to get really difficult to, to sort of track that stuff down over time. . That was why I went rebase. Like that was a big thing for me was, , and I think it depends on each team’s workflow as well, because if you are the only person who’s ever worked on your branch, then a emerge doesn’t matter as much.
Jason: But like if
Jason: a
Jason: lot
Jason: of people
Jason: have
Jason: worked
Jason: on
Jason: it
Jason: now you’ve lost any, any ability to go back and say like, Hey, what were you thinking when you wrote this code? ’ Like, I don’t wanna break it if it’s, you know, something important, but I don’t get why it’s like this. And you can’t go find the person who
Jason: wrote it
Jason: in
Jason: a multi-person merge.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Why I like get rebates is, oh, sorry, GI Merch.
Shruti Kapoor: I
Shruti Kapoor: turned
Shruti Kapoor: it around.
Shruti Kapoor: you. Did it. I think like we worked a little bit differently at PayPal in which we all had our own domains. So what I would do is I would
Shruti Kapoor: typically have different branches even from my own domain. I was merging with my own stuff, so I did not want to see what the previous commits was.
Shruti Kapoor: . And like I was merging with my own stuff. So I was the only developer technically working on
Shruti Kapoor: this.
Shruti Kapoor: So it made sense to have Git merged.
Shruti Kapoor: That’s makes sense.
Shruti Kapoor: But I can see like your, logic of GI three base where you would want to
Shruti Kapoor: see
Shruti Kapoor: who did what and
Shruti Kapoor: find out the brain. Yeah. we
Shruti Kapoor: we change
Shruti Kapoor: it
Jason: from
Jason: a hot
Jason: take
Jason: to,
Jason: and it
Jason: depends.
Robbie Wagner: They
Jason: Like, Like
Jason: like
Shruti Kapoor: senior developers. Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Look at
Shruti Kapoor: this. Go.
Shruti Kapoor: There There
Shruti Kapoor: you go.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah. All right. Well, one that has a definitive
Robbie Wagner: answer
Robbie Wagner: is H-T-M-L-A programming language.
Shruti Kapoor: Who says it’s not? Who
Robbie Wagner: says
Robbie Wagner: it not people
Shruti Kapoor: not People? Do I know? Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Um,
Robbie Wagner: Pass.
Shruti Kapoor: I don’t know.
Shruti Kapoor: I’m so conflicted.
Robbie Wagner: Well, it depends on how you define
Robbie Wagner: it, right?
Robbie Wagner: So everyone has a slightly different definition, maybe
Robbie Wagner: of
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: programming language,
Robbie Wagner: and that’s why
Robbie Wagner: this is
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: hot take.
Robbie Wagner: It’s like, it’s up
Robbie Wagner: to you.
Shruti Kapoor: I’m
Shruti Kapoor: gonna say no.
Robbie Wagner: say no. Okay.
Robbie Wagner: What
Robbie Wagner: about CSS?
Shruti Kapoor: Uh,
Shruti Kapoor: no.
Robbie Wagner: Ooh,
Shruti Kapoor: okay.
Jason: Man, trutti, you are, you are making me want to fight today.
Shruti Kapoor: fight. Me, Jason,
Robbie Wagner: Yeah,
Jason: let’s
Jason: hear
Jason: it.
Jason: This
Jason: is, this
Jason: isn’t
Shruti Kapoor: my show.
Shruti Kapoor: This is
Shruti Kapoor: your
Shruti Kapoor: show.
Shruti Kapoor: Oh,
Robbie Wagner: yeah,
Shruti Kapoor: Well I can say whatever I want. Yeah. You are wrong. I’m right.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: We’re not here to argue with the take. We’re just here to
Shruti Kapoor: get
Shruti Kapoor: the take.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Jason: The comment.
Jason: The comments?
Shruti Kapoor: will set
Shruti Kapoor: me.
Shruti Kapoor: The
Robbie Wagner: comments
Shruti Kapoor: will set
Shruti Kapoor: me
Jason: free.
Shruti Kapoor: Alright.
Robbie Wagner: Uh,
Shruti Kapoor: for all
Shruti Kapoor: my burner
Shruti Kapoor: accounts from you.
Jason: I’m coming for you.
Shruti Kapoor: You
Shruti Kapoor: just wait. I have some too.
Robbie Wagner: All right. How
Robbie Wagner: about, classes or
Robbie Wagner: functional? In hooks.
Robbie Wagner: In
Robbie Wagner: hooks?
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Like
Shruti Kapoor: old
Shruti Kapoor: reactive, New
Shruti Kapoor: React,
Robbie Wagner: basically.
Shruti Kapoor: functional for sure. Okay.
Shruti Kapoor: If you say
Robbie Wagner: classes,
Shruti Kapoor: I’m gonna come and kill you.
Robbie Wagner: coming
Robbie Wagner: out, swinging. Okay.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: People don’t like classes.
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: don’t
Robbie Wagner: know why I
Robbie Wagner: like
Robbie Wagner: classes.
Robbie Wagner: What do you think? But
Robbie Wagner: what in general, like if you’re doing
Robbie Wagner: Java, it’s got
Robbie Wagner: classes,
Robbie Wagner: is
Robbie Wagner: it a purely JavaScript front end thing where everyone
Robbie Wagner: hates
Jason: No, I I actually like,
Jason: I
Jason: like classes in JavaScript when they make
Jason: sense. Yeah.
Jason: But
Jason: I
Shruti Kapoor: don’t
Shruti Kapoor: think that
Shruti Kapoor: classes
Shruti Kapoor: are the
Shruti Kapoor: right
Shruti Kapoor: choice
Shruti Kapoor: for
Shruti Kapoor: like a component.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Okay. That’s
Shruti Kapoor: fair.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah. , If you say class component versus functional component, I’m gonna say functional component classes are useful, , especially for writing libraries, not for components.
Robbie Wagner: Okay. That’s fair.
Robbie Wagner: Remix
Robbie Wagner: Tans Stack or
Robbie Wagner: Next
Robbie Wagner: JS
Shruti Kapoor: 10 Stack.
Robbie Wagner: Tan Stack. Wow. No,
Robbie Wagner: no
Robbie Wagner: thoughts. Okay.
Shruti Kapoor: No
Shruti Kapoor: hesitation. What’s good
Shruti Kapoor: about 10 stack?
Shruti Kapoor: lightweight. You can opt in, you can choose what you want, you can pick what you need, , doesn’t force you into something that, , changes every day. Client first,
Shruti Kapoor: kind of
Shruti Kapoor: very intuitive.
Robbie Wagner: Okay.
Robbie Wagner: I have not looked
Shruti Kapoor: at
Shruti Kapoor: it at
Shruti Kapoor: all, so
Robbie Wagner: I,
Shruti Kapoor: that
Shruti Kapoor: was good.
Shruti Kapoor: That’s good
Robbie Wagner: yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: for a new video then.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t use React, so I haven’t looked at much React stuff. I’ve used Njs a little. I haven’t actually. I’ve used Remix a little too, but
Robbie Wagner: I have not looked at 10 sec, so
Jason: Well, they just, they just launched the new remix,
Jason: which
Jason: is all
Jason: different.
Jason: Like they dropped React in
Shruti Kapoor: Remix, yeah,
Jason: yeah,
Jason: yeah,
Jason: And little updates.
Jason: Yeah. Which
Jason: I gotta say,
Shruti Kapoor: I’m,
Shruti Kapoor: I’m
Shruti Kapoor: a fan.
Shruti Kapoor: You
Robbie Wagner: what? Like
Robbie Wagner: I’m a fan.
Robbie Wagner: Nothing
Jason: changes
Jason: unless you explicitly say
Jason: here’s
Jason: my
Jason: issue
Jason: is
Jason: I
Jason: think
Jason: that React has gone too far toward, like, you must be 100% react in order to get good results from
Jason: React. And so by sort of moving
Jason: themselves
Jason: into
Jason: a
Jason: position
Jason: of
Jason: having to
Jason: be the
Jason: platform, I
Jason: think you trade too much to
Jason: use
Jason: the reactive model of React.
Jason: Right. And
Jason: I
Jason: I think
Jason: that
Jason: moving
Jason: back toward the dom, because the, the browser APIs are really good now, right? Like they weren’t 10 years ago when, React was coming out.
Jason: They are now. And so , the thing that I’ve struggled with is
Jason: that React
Jason: is moving more and more toward, all
Jason: react
Jason: all
Jason: the
Jason: time.
Jason: Everything is
Jason: react
Robbie Wagner: your
Jason: I, your everything is
Jason: react, right? Like your server is react, your front end is react. You, your. HTML is react
Jason: for,
Jason: you
Jason: know,
Jason: even
Jason: if
Jason: it’s not reactive
Jason: it’s React and, I just, I am having a hard time seeing why, , especially when we’ve got so many options out there that can do.
Jason: Just the little bit of, of reactive stuff that the vast majority of websites not at.
Jason: No, you know, if you’ve got
Jason: a dashboard
Jason: react all day.
Jason: If you’re building a website though,
Jason: it just doesn’t,
Jason: it’s
Jason: just
Jason: hard
Jason: for
Jason: me
Jason: to
Jason: square it up.
Shruti Kapoor: just, I’m,
Shruti Kapoor: I’m
Shruti Kapoor: taking over
Shruti Kapoor: your
Shruti Kapoor: website.
Jason: I’m sorry.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Any,
Shruti Kapoor: any
Shruti Kapoor: response or,
Shruti Kapoor: I think I see where, what’s your point? , So as a front end developer, I do like that reactor is able to take care of updates for me, and I don’t want to think about manually updating them. I can see that there are applications where you need to kind of manually trigger it.
Shruti Kapoor: And for that, I think remix would be a good choice, for building a front end application. Like what I have done at Slack and PayPal. I do want the platform to take care of the updates for me without me having to manually do it. although there have been issues with the update as well. So I don’t know.
Shruti Kapoor: I’m, I’m curious to see how it’s gonna work out with Remix the, a new remix, but I am
Shruti Kapoor: not
Shruti Kapoor: a fan.
Jason: I wanna see it mature a little bit. I think the initial demos, you know, they, and they’ve even said like, it’s not ready. You know, they’re just showing us kind of where they’re headed. So, in general,
Jason: I
Jason: think
Jason: that
Jason: there
Jason: are,
Jason: ,
Jason: An equivalent number of foot guns between something like Remix and something like React.
Jason: I think that the challenge is always in what gets you the best result by default, which is like, that’s why I tend to reach for Astro, is because generally speaking, you can’t accidentally make something like Monstrously non-performing with Astro. But it’s really easy to make something monstrously, non-performing with next.
Jason: It’s not gonna be like, oh, remix has solved all
Jason: the
Jason: problems. It’s more about whether they get the defaults right, so that if a developer takes the laziest path forward, do they get a really good result? And historically, that seems to be what the remix team thinks about a lot.
Jason: just kind, of whether
Jason: or not
Jason: they
Jason: got that to translate in the API.
Shruti Kapoor: and I think a lot of developers are also tired of react, taking over a lot of stuff. , Automatically doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes so I can see for those developers, this would be something that they’re looking for.
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: personally like the magic. Anything that I don’t have to ever configure
Shruti Kapoor: or do
Shruti Kapoor: anything,
Robbie Wagner: that’s what I want.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah,
Shruti Kapoor: me too.
Robbie Wagner: I
Shruti Kapoor: I’m a lazy developer.
Robbie Wagner: Yep.
Robbie Wagner: Yep.
Shruti Kapoor: Do it for me, please. Okay.
Robbie Wagner: Okay. Console
Robbie Wagner: dot log or
Robbie Wagner: debugger
Shruti Kapoor: cons,
Shruti Kapoor: law,
Robbie Wagner: That’s,
Jason: How’s that one’s not a, the only hot take on that would be if somebody
Jason: ever
Shruti Kapoor: said
Shruti Kapoor: debugger,
Shruti Kapoor: Wait,
Shruti Kapoor: wait,
Shruti Kapoor: wait,
Shruti Kapoor: wait.
Shruti Kapoor: You
Shruti Kapoor: don’t,
Shruti Kapoor: you
Jason: like
Jason: debugger?
Jason: I
Jason: don’t,
Jason: it’s
Jason: not
Jason: that
Jason: I dislike
Jason: them, it’s
Jason: that
Jason: I’ve
Jason: never seen
Jason: anyone
Jason: use one
Jason: for
Jason: real.
Jason: I’ve used it.
Jason: I’ve used it. Sure. Like I, I’ve been in specific situations where
Jason: I’m
Jason: like,
Shruti Kapoor: oh,
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: know
Shruti Kapoor: what?
Jason: is
Jason: complicated
Jason: enough.
Jason: I’m gonna set up a debugger.
Jason: Yeah.
Jason: Nowhere in my regular life am I like,
Jason: oh
Jason: yeah, I’m
Shruti Kapoor: just
Shruti Kapoor: gonna
Shruti Kapoor: set
Shruti Kapoor: up
Shruti Kapoor: a debugger
Jason: right now. You console log it
Jason: You always console log it so
Shruti Kapoor: so
Shruti Kapoor: hard to
Shruti Kapoor: do it.
Robbie Wagner: Are
Robbie Wagner: you are
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: debugger? Maybe? Yeah. Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: because I don’t want to have to write all the console logs, so I just
Shruti Kapoor: wanna be
Shruti Kapoor: able
Shruti Kapoor: to see
Robbie Wagner: everything
Robbie Wagner: that’s
Robbie Wagner: right
Robbie Wagner: there
Robbie Wagner: at
Robbie Wagner: that
Robbie Wagner: time.
Robbie Wagner: So,
Robbie Wagner: I don’t know. It’s hard. It’s actually really hard when you can only use it. when
Robbie Wagner: you’re
Robbie Wagner: lazy,
Robbie Wagner: you don’t set up
Robbie Wagner: a node
Robbie Wagner: side debugger. ’ in the browser, it’s easy to throw debugger in there. Sure. But like, yeah. Node side,
Shruti Kapoor: you gotta
Shruti Kapoor: be
Shruti Kapoor: like,
Shruti Kapoor: oh,
Shruti Kapoor: vs.
Robbie Wagner: Code debug,
Robbie Wagner: terminal,
Robbie Wagner: whatever.
Robbie Wagner: Like
Robbie Wagner: that’s what
Robbie Wagner: I,
Robbie Wagner: yeah.
Robbie Wagner: but I, I’ve started doing that too because it’s like
Robbie Wagner: I got tired
Shruti Kapoor: of
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: million
Robbie Wagner: console
Shruti Kapoor: logs,
Robbie Wagner: so
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: guess
Robbie Wagner: you,
Jason: exception that proves the rule, I guess.
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: guess so.
Robbie Wagner: Okay. Last one.
Shruti Kapoor: Were React
Shruti Kapoor: server
Shruti Kapoor: components a
Shruti Kapoor: mistake.
Shruti Kapoor: No,
Robbie Wagner: They
Shruti Kapoor: a very small use case of Oh, okay. People are gonna hate me. , They have a specialized use case of when they’re helpful. , I think it changes the way you think about react. And it takes a, it’s a paradigm shift actually. but between loading data on the server and sending it over, and just client-side spa, I think the use case of React server components is limited.
Shruti Kapoor: I’m yet to find a place where I feel like, yeah, I need a React server component. Like I know what it is, I know what it does, but I’m yet to find a place where I’m like, oh,
Shruti Kapoor: this
Shruti Kapoor: is
Shruti Kapoor: where React server component is useful.
Robbie Wagner: yeah,
Robbie Wagner: I think
Robbie Wagner: there was a
Robbie Wagner: big push to put everything back on the server, which is sometimes okay. But I think spas are fine.
Robbie Wagner: they’re
Robbie Wagner: not a,
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: huge problem anywhere.
Robbie Wagner: So yeah,
Robbie Wagner: I don’t know why
Robbie Wagner: everything moved,
Robbie Wagner: but
Robbie Wagner: I don’t know. What
Robbie Wagner: do
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: think,
Robbie Wagner: Jason?
Jason: I, I think server components were a really, really cool technical implementation in search of an actual use case.
Jason: Like I think it
Jason: was
Jason: such
Jason: a
Jason: fun
Jason: problem to
Jason: solve
Jason: and it
Jason: just
Jason: didn’t
Jason: need to be solved.
Jason: That’s
Jason: good. But
Jason: that’s
Jason: part
Jason: of
Jason: I mean,
Jason: I,
Jason: and I
Jason: think
Jason: that it’s, you know, maybe it’s one of those things that ends up being a bridge where , the work that went into React server components is gonna lay some foundational tech for something cool that comes later.
Jason: But I agree
Jason: with Shruti. I, I’ve never really seen React server components be necessary. any solution that would involve React server components has an existing perfectly acceptable, it, it’s not like it was, you know, when you, when you got React and these reactive components, it was solving a problem that, that existed.
Jason: There was very real pain and React server components kind of came outta nowhere and
Jason: they
Jason: were like,
Jason: there’s this
Jason: problem. Everybody’s like,
Jason: I don’t, feel that. Yeah. Right. And I, I think that’s sort of the, primary issue is they were, they were searching like a pure technical solution to a pain.
Jason: People didn’t really feel, except it very, as you said,
Jason: very narrow
Jason: use case. Yeah,
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah,
Shruti Kapoor: and I can imagine for mobile developers it’s probably more useful, but for somebody who’s building for the web, , there are very small use cases where rack server components are something you would reach for because you need it. if your client site app is slow, you can always put the data on the server and then you can get a lot of benefit of what you’re trying to do with React server components from there.
Shruti Kapoor: If you’re a mobile developer, I can understand that you wanna render the component, then send the vendor component over instead of waiting for the component to render on the mobile device. But yeah, I don’t see a use for it right now.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I
Robbie Wagner: would say going
Robbie Wagner: even further,
Robbie Wagner: like an
Robbie Wagner: Astro style static site
Robbie Wagner: is
Robbie Wagner: more
Robbie Wagner: useful
Robbie Wagner: than server
Robbie Wagner: rendered. In my opinion,
Jason: I mean, this is where I’ve landed, right, is that this is why I tend to advocate for Astro is that
Jason: I find
Jason: that
Jason: the
Jason: type
Jason: of work I
Jason: do, which
Jason: is
Jason: not
Jason: dashboards,
Jason: , I build marketing sites. I build not full dashboards, but like user sites. . That have
Jason: a little bit
Jason: of, of server stuff, but it’s, everything is not server rendered.
Jason: There’s not a huge amount of dynamic content. It’s sort of like, make a request with your user. Id pull up some details and show those to you.
Jason: The,
Jason: amount of
Jason: effort
Jason: that
Jason: goes into making that stuff work really well on Astro the defaults are right there. , You just kind of lay things out and say, put this on the page.
Jason: And if you follow the, Hello world examples, you get something that gets good performance scores. The RUM scores are gonna come back Good. When you run your, metrics,
Jason: your Lighthouse me or
Jason: your, whatever
Jason: they’re
Jason: called
Jason: now, the, um, whatever they are, the,
Jason: the
Robbie Wagner: that
Robbie Wagner: everybody
Robbie Wagner: looks
Robbie Wagner: out. Lighthouse
Robbie Wagner: is
Robbie Wagner: still, I think,
Jason: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: page speed.
Robbie Wagner: Stuff is
Robbie Wagner: the
Robbie Wagner: same
Robbie Wagner: web
Robbie Wagner: performance or something,
Robbie Wagner: I don’t
Robbie Wagner: know.
Jason: that
Jason: kind
Jason: of
Shruti Kapoor: Web vitals
Jason: web vitals,
Jason: that core web vitals was the
Jason: one I was thinking of. ,
Jason: But you know, you, you’re gonna get good results by default. And I, I think again, it’s,
Jason: that’s
Jason: sort
Jason: of where
Jason: I
Jason: keep
Jason: landing is you just gotta, you gotta have a framework that’s gonna put you in a position to succeed when you get really
Jason: lazy. that’s
Jason: where I
Jason: keep seeing
Jason: it work out best is
Jason: in
Jason: something
Jason: like Astro.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah, that’s fair.
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Robbie Wagner: All right, so we are at all things open.
Robbie Wagner: So
Robbie Wagner: let’s
Robbie Wagner: talk about
Robbie Wagner: open
Robbie Wagner: source.
Robbie Wagner: How
Robbie Wagner: has Open Source influenced your life?
Shruti Kapoor: besides the point that everything I use is open source, we work at companies that are using these open source softwares, right?
Shruti Kapoor: We probably don’t contribute back to it, but we are using them all the time. So open source is, whether you admit it or not, something that influences all of our lives. how has it affected me? I think honestly, like, , I would say like building in open or building in public has changed my life more than open source itself.
Shruti Kapoor: I was laid into the open source game. , I started building in public I don’t know, like six years ago when I started writing blog posts and started doing conference talks. , Through that is how I got introduced into open source. I actually created an open source project and that’s how I got introduced into open Source.
Shruti Kapoor: Now I contribute to Tant Stack Start, which is kind of my biggest open source contributions. I think what I love about Open Source is that it kind of gives you a. Uh, talking about TransTech start, for example, like it gives you a perspective outside of the small, , environment that you’re working in, maybe at your work.
Shruti Kapoor: So it gives you a new perspective of how people are working. What are the problems that people are facing outside of your like little bubble that you work in at work? What are other libraries people are using? So it’s a really great kind of way to learn stuff outside of
Shruti Kapoor: your
Shruti Kapoor: normal
Shruti Kapoor: day
Shruti Kapoor: to
Shruti Kapoor: day, like office stuff.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: It’s like
Robbie Wagner: a, a,
Robbie Wagner: low
Robbie Wagner: stakes
Robbie Wagner: way to explore
Robbie Wagner: new technologies, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s been super useful for me just to like be exposed to different things and learn how to work with people and like just learn how to contribute
Robbie Wagner: to
Robbie Wagner: something
Robbie Wagner: on GitHub.
Robbie Wagner: Like
Robbie Wagner: we haven’t done that
Robbie Wagner: before
Robbie Wagner: for work
Robbie Wagner: or otherwise.
Robbie Wagner: What
Robbie Wagner: do you
Robbie Wagner: think
Robbie Wagner: about,
Robbie Wagner: like is it helpful to contribute, to open source, to then like
Robbie Wagner: get
Robbie Wagner: notoriety to get a job
Robbie Wagner: or something like that? Do you think that’s helpful or
Robbie Wagner: not?
Shruti Kapoor: I think absolutely. Like for, as somebody who interviewed people at PayPal and Slack, if they have contributed to open source, that’s like one big kind of thing that helps them stand out from other people.
Shruti Kapoor: And that is something that we absolutely look for. when I put my open source contributions on my profile. I know that employers always ask about it in interview, so it definitely gets you noticed. I think what it shows is that you have passion to contribute back to the community. And also you’re looking to learn outside of your, like I said, your normal day to day.
Shruti Kapoor: So it shows that you are looking to grow, you’re
Shruti Kapoor: looking to
Shruti Kapoor: learn
Shruti Kapoor: and that you are
Shruti Kapoor: passionate
Shruti Kapoor: about this community.
Shruti Kapoor: That’s
Robbie Wagner: good point. I didn’t consider that. It just shows general curiosity, which is helpful for,
Robbie Wagner: that’s
Robbie Wagner: the
Robbie Wagner: kind
Robbie Wagner: of person
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: wanna
Robbie Wagner: hire
Robbie Wagner: usually, so, yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah. Okay.
Jason: , There are ways that can backfire a little bit. Like there was the, the backlash over Hack Tober Fest where people kept submitting these really small.
Jason: Kind of
Jason: not necessary
Jason: prs.
Jason: Right?
Jason: And,
Jason: and I, but I think
Jason: that there is a, there is sort of , the blanket advice, you know, get involved in open source, it’ll help you get a job, but there’s, not the caveat, which is if you do a bunch of bad open source work, it’s going to prevent you from getting the job.
Jason: Like
Jason: if I go look at your GitHub history and you’ve opened 10,000 prs
Jason: that
Jason: are
Jason: like small
Jason: word
Jason: changes in
Jason: read
Jason: mes that’s
Jason: not
Jason: gonna help
Jason: your
Jason: chance. Right. So
Jason: it’s,
Jason: it’s
Jason: gotta
Jason: be something
Jason: like,
Jason: don’t do it because you feel like you need to do it. Do it because it’s solving a problem. Like, if you’re working on something and you think the thing could be better, go make it better.
Jason: If you are in the docs and you, and you had to go solve a problem by googling for it, improve the docs, right? Any of those contributions shows me as a, an interviewer that you are all the things that Shruti said. , But yeah, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be like meaningful contributions. Don’t just go spam. you know the,
Jason: nobody
Jason: wants
Jason: that.
Jason: Don’t, don’t
Jason: go spam
Jason: repos with
Jason: like
Jason: tiny changes.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah. I think Hector Fest was actually a really cool way to get involved with open source and encouraged a lot of people to get started with open source. I feel like that’s probably how I started with open Source as well. But you’re right, like that isn’t because it is so easy to get started with.
Shruti Kapoor: Easily abused as well. and I like your point about like, you know, if you find documentation hard, make a PR to open, uh, like open a PR to actually fix the documentation. Writing tests is another thing, like we all need more tests. We all don’t like to write tests, so if you are somebody who is learning about a new open source thing, make tests for it, make documentation for it.
Shruti Kapoor: Also writing examples and writing, , tutorials on how to use it. I think that’s a great way as well. That’s how, why got started with Hand Tech start. It helps you
Shruti Kapoor: learn. It
Shruti Kapoor: also
Shruti Kapoor: helps
Shruti Kapoor: other
Shruti Kapoor: people
Shruti Kapoor: learn
Shruti Kapoor: that technology as well. Yeah,
Jason: Yeah, that’s been my primary way of, contributing to open source is like I don’t really work on the repos themselves.
Jason: I usually don’t have
Jason: enough context to do anything meaningful, but I can build a lot of examples and that tends to be the thing that I do, and I just try to put those back in whatever way. Is is helpful to folks.
Jason: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: no
Robbie Wagner: one wants
Robbie Wagner: to write
Robbie Wagner: documentation, so
Robbie Wagner: if
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: wanna help with that.
Robbie Wagner: Definitely do
Robbie Wagner: that.
Jason: Yeah.
Jason: I
Jason: mean,
Jason: it’s,
Jason: and it’s also like you as the user are usually the person that should be suggesting documentation use cases. If I make a library, I’m gonna write docs and the docs are gonna be what I can think of. , But when you hit your, your corner, I had no reason to think about that because I know this
Jason: stuff inside
Jason: and out
Jason: when
Jason: you
Jason: get
Jason: stuck,
Jason: that’s
Jason: a
Jason: good sign
Jason: that like.
Jason: There’s
Jason: a thing
Jason: that
Jason: I never
Jason: would’ve thought of, that’s you giving me a gift as a, as a user of the project. If you say like, Hey, I was trying to do this and I couldn’t figure it out. Here’s like a quick writeup, and then, you know, maybe I’ll submit it as is, or maybe I’ll just go in and clean up what you wrote and turn it into official docs.
Jason: But either way, that’s something that I
Jason: never would’ve
Jason: thought of on my own.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah, I
Robbie Wagner: think
Robbie Wagner: that’s
Jason: a, a good thing to keep in mind. Right.
Robbie Wagner: All right.
Robbie Wagner: So you just got back from React Comp recently. what
Robbie Wagner: were
Robbie Wagner: some
Robbie Wagner: highlights from
Robbie Wagner: that? ,
Robbie Wagner: What’s
Robbie Wagner: new
Robbie Wagner: in
Robbie Wagner: the react
Robbie Wagner: world?
Shruti Kapoor: React Foundation.
Shruti Kapoor: Okay. What is that? Okay, so React Foundation is, kind of equivalent Linux Foundation, if you’ve ever heard of that. But basically the idea is it is a open source foundation where people from, or companies actually from the ecosystem who are using React.
Shruti Kapoor: Like I said, we’re all using React. We don’t probably contribute to it, but it’s a way for these different companies who are, uh, using React to contribute to React. the details of it are still blur, like how much, kind of say these companies would have, plus like how do new features get developed?
Shruti Kapoor: Is that still part of the React core team or is that part of, the foundation? Those details are still kind of blur. It’s not been talked about, but React Foundation is there and. Companies who want to get involved with React can now become part
Shruti Kapoor: of React Foundation
Shruti Kapoor: by submitting
Shruti Kapoor: $200,000 a year. I
Shruti Kapoor: think Just
Shruti Kapoor: a
Shruti Kapoor: small
Robbie Wagner: amount
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah. It’s no big deal.
Robbie Wagner: change.
Shruti Kapoor: You
Shruti Kapoor: know?
Shruti Kapoor: Microsoft
Shruti Kapoor: that
Shruti Kapoor: yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Jason: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: It’s,
Shruti Kapoor: it’s
Robbie Wagner: a,
Robbie Wagner: uh,
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: rounding
Robbie Wagner: error
Robbie Wagner: on
Robbie Wagner: the
Robbie Wagner: AWS bill.
Shruti Kapoor: Right.
Jason: right. Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Okay.
Robbie Wagner: That’s
Robbie Wagner: cool. is the idea
Robbie Wagner: that depending on like how much money you’re putting in and whatever that you could influence, like we need
Robbie Wagner: these
Shruti Kapoor: features
Shruti Kapoor: and react,
Shruti Kapoor: so we want
Shruti Kapoor: you to focus on that. As
Shruti Kapoor: the next
Shruti Kapoor: thing
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: build, or
Shruti Kapoor: I thought that might be the case. And that was actually the question that I asked the React core team, actually Seth Webster, who’s the head of React, , at Meta, , the answer is the details are still not flushed out, so they’re still thinking about how to do that. But the question I asked was specifically this, like in past open source foundations typically lean more towards a company that pays more.
Shruti Kapoor: Right. So is that what’s gonna happen with this foundation? And they said that
Shruti Kapoor: they are aware
Shruti Kapoor: of things
Shruti Kapoor: like
Shruti Kapoor: that,
Shruti Kapoor: and they’re
Shruti Kapoor: gonna
Shruti Kapoor: try
Shruti Kapoor: not
Shruti Kapoor: to do that.
Robbie Wagner: Okay.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah, it’s a hard problem
Robbie Wagner: ‘cause if somebody’s like,
Robbie Wagner: here’s
Robbie Wagner: $20
Robbie Wagner: million,
Robbie Wagner: you’re
Robbie Wagner: probably like,
Robbie Wagner: Hey,
Robbie Wagner: I will,
Robbie Wagner: uh,
Robbie Wagner: prioritize
Robbie Wagner: what
Robbie Wagner: you want.
Jason: Well, and
Jason: and I mean.
Jason: historically that’s been the right way to do open source. Like if, that’s how open source projects get built , is a company comes in and they’ve got money and they either hire developers to work on it or they pay , the open source team to build out features that they need.
Jason: And that’s what makes open source sustainable. So I think
Jason: it’s
Jason: murky,
Jason: but it’s less murky in my mind than this sort of like shadow, how much control does VL have over React directly now that they’ve hired a bunch of core members? And how much of React is being built directly for next js?
Jason: Because
Jason: obviously
Jason: public
Jason: statement is always
Jason: gonna
Jason: be,
Jason: we would never do that,
Jason: but
Jason: we’ve seen like alpha versions of React get shipped in next, so they’re clearly. you know, they’re
Jason: planning
Jason: stuff behind the,
Jason: so
Jason: putting
Jason: it in a foundation,
Jason: I think is a, is a strong step in the right
Jason: direction. Yeah,
Jason: and even if that’s like all forms of governance suck because large groups of people are impossible to govern,
Robbie Wagner: Sure.
Jason: but
Jason: something
Jason: that is
Jason: more
Jason: public
Jason: is
Jason: a
Jason: lot
Jason: better
Jason: than
Jason: something that’s not
Shruti Kapoor: so, absolutely. Yeah. There’s
Shruti Kapoor: like no
Shruti Kapoor: visibility
Shruti Kapoor: into
Shruti Kapoor: what’s happening
Shruti Kapoor: right
Shruti Kapoor: now,
Shruti Kapoor: so
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Besides the React Foundation, there were other features announced.
Shruti Kapoor: One specific one that I’m super excited about is Performance Tracks. so now in Google Chrome. You can see how your components are performing. So initially we had this react dev tools, which is, it gives you like profiler and components, but now performance tracks are actually integrated
Shruti Kapoor: within the
Shruti Kapoor: performance
Shruti Kapoor: panel
Shruti Kapoor: of
Shruti Kapoor: the chrome
Shruti Kapoor: dev
Shruti Kapoor: tools itself. So now, yeah, and you can also see like how long your render took, how long your commit took, how long your transitions took, and how long
Shruti Kapoor: the
Shruti Kapoor: process
Shruti Kapoor: is just
Shruti Kapoor: sitting in idle. So that is really helpful. And understanding which of your components and which of your phases are in blocking phase. So I’m super excited about that because I think that’s gonna really help people understand
Shruti Kapoor: why
Shruti Kapoor: their
Shruti Kapoor: components are
Robbie Wagner: Mm-hmm. In which
Robbie Wagner: phase
Robbie Wagner: it’s
Robbie Wagner: really, yeah.
Robbie Wagner: That’s super helpful ‘cause.
Shruti Kapoor: I
Shruti Kapoor: frequently have no
Shruti Kapoor: idea
Shruti Kapoor: my
Shruti Kapoor: performance
Shruti Kapoor: is doing.
Shruti Kapoor: Right. I’ll
Shruti Kapoor: make the
Shruti Kapoor: bundle
Robbie Wagner: smaller. That’ll
Robbie Wagner: help.
Robbie Wagner: But.
Jason: Well, I think that was one of my core frustrations that led to me kind of taking steps back from React is that it started to feel so black boxy
Jason: because, , they’re doing things like double rendering components or the use effects get triggered, but you put your dependencies in. But then like sometimes it felt like they were running anyways, and I was like, what’s left to put in the dependency array?
Jason: I don’t understand why
Jason: it’s still rendering.
Jason: So having, the ability to see in a
Jason: complicated
Jason: ui, which component is slow, that alone saves a ton of time. Yeah. Because
Jason: otherwise
Shruti Kapoor: I’m
Shruti Kapoor: like,
Jason: take, I’m like commenting things
Shruti Kapoor: How was it fast?
Shruti Kapoor: Like,
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah. And, and like React, profiler helped with that a little bit. Yeah. Uh, and still does, like, it’ll tell you why it reloaded, , re-render and like, which pops changed, so it’s still helpful. but like knowing how much
Shruti Kapoor: time
Shruti Kapoor: each of
Shruti Kapoor: those phases took, it’s so cool.
Jason: and having
Jason: it built
Jason: into the browser. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I, I, I think this is. Kind of going back to my, my earlier complaint, I feel like React is getting further from the, the browser by saying like, you have to go all in on React, but this is actually a good counterpoint to what I was saying.
Jason: If they’re getting things integrated back into the browser that feels good, like they’re trying to work toward, let’s
Jason: make it part of the platform as opposed to
Jason: an alternative to the. Yeah,
Shruti Kapoor: yeah.
Robbie Wagner: yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Robbie Wagner: All
Robbie Wagner: right, Jason, you
Robbie Wagner: wanna
Robbie Wagner: ask your question
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: wanted? Uh,
Jason: yeah.
Jason: So Shruti, you said you’ve gone independent, right? You were at Slack, , and now you are working for
Jason: Shruti Kaur International
Jason: Unlimited. Right.
Jason: And so, ‘cause I’ve
Jason: done
Jason: the
Jason: same
Jason: thing. I’ve
Jason: gone indie and,
Jason: and
Jason: one of
Jason: the
Jason: things
Jason: that I
Jason: thought
Jason: would
Jason: be
Jason: fun
Jason: to
Jason: talk
Jason: about
Jason: is
Jason: the indie
Jason: pendulum.
Jason: Right. And the feeling of is it going well? Is it going
Jason: bad?
Jason: and
Jason: how
Jason: does that cycle
Jason: work
Jason: for
Jason: you?
Jason: How
Jason: are you
Jason: navigating that?
Shruti Kapoor: oh, I love this question. , Yeah, Jason, you are actually a big inspiration because of which I actually took the step and I was like, I can quit this.
Shruti Kapoor: I can do this, I can do it on my own. I got some money, I can do this. , Yeah, Indi pendulum, I love that word. And my life is kind of like that a lot. Some days I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna be the biggest human YouTuber. And then the next
Shruti Kapoor: day I’m like, uh, I’m gonna start applying for interviews. This is not going well.
Shruti Kapoor: yeah, it’s a constant battle. , I think we were talking about that yesterday. Like, what has been super helpful for me is thinking about, , this content creation or being independent as sort of like a business. I mean, it is a business, but thinking of it as a business of, , not just one day or one week, but as a quarter, right?
Shruti Kapoor: So. in a quarter, one month may be good, one month may be bad, but in, on an average, how are you doing? Right? and your bandwidth could be different. You could look at it from like maybe one quarter or two quarters, a year, however you want to do it, whatever financial goals you have or like growth goals you have, you can look at it that way.
Shruti Kapoor: But instead of focusing on like the small vision or like the small, term plan, think of the long term plan that has helped me stay sane. Because, yes, like one month is not gonna be good. For example, right now I’m traveling quite a lot for conferences and I do not have time to make videos, right?
Shruti Kapoor: Which means that the video, growth is suffering a little bit, but then on a three month average, it averages out and I’m still making progress towards it, and I’m still growing, and I’m still doing better than I was. And at the end of the day, am I having more fun? And I am, am I learning? And for me, the answer for the last three quarters has been yes.
Shruti Kapoor: And I have been growing. So for me, that kind of helps me keep going. But yeah, looking at it like day by day, I see my numbers kind of drop, numbers kind of rise. It’s like, am I doing this one or not?
Shruti Kapoor: What’s
Shruti Kapoor: going on? So Yeah,
Jason: Yeah, I, that’s a, that’s a healthy way to look at it. Like kind of looking at the,
Jason: , You look
Jason: at
Jason: the averages. You
Jason: never
Jason: look
Jason: at an
Jason: individual day or an individual
Jason: video or.
Robbie Wagner: market.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Jason: Right. Yeah,
Jason: I,
Jason: but
Jason: I think that’s
Jason: actually the, the right approach to take to it. If you’re looking at anything as an individual effort, and this was a huge mistake that I’ve made in my career over and over again where I’d, take on a project and I’d be like, this is the project that’s gonna solve all my problems.
Jason: And whether that was at work, whether
Jason: that
Jason: was independently, I
Jason: would
Jason: be
Jason: working on
Jason: something
Jason: and, and, you know, you kind of
Jason: come out the
Jason: other
Jason: side
Jason: of it
Jason: thinking
Jason: once
Jason: I
Jason: launch this, everything will
Jason: change.
Jason: And
Jason: inevitably it’s disappointing. Like it, it’s crushing because you’re never gonna get the overnight success of, , I shipped this
Jason: thing
Jason: and
Jason: now
Jason: my whole
Jason: life
Jason: has
Jason: changed.
Jason: Like,
Jason: a
Jason: vanishingly,
Jason: small
Jason: number
Jason: of
Jason: people have that experience. But if you consistently put things out there and you’re, thinking in quarters or years, then as you look back at
Jason: the chart,
Jason: it’s always
Jason: kind
Jason: of moving
Jason: up.
Jason: Mm-hmm. And
Jason: , You’ll look back at two years ago and go, oh dang,
Jason: I’m actually
Jason: doing a lot
Jason: more.
Jason: Than I was two years ago. Even if it feels like on any given day, it’s like, oh, it’s
Jason: 1% better. Who
Jason: cares? 1%
Jason: blah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah, it
Robbie Wagner: adds
Jason: in,
Jason: in,
Jason: big, big,
Jason: ways
Jason: over
Jason: time.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah,
Robbie Wagner: Yeah,
Robbie Wagner: yeah.
Robbie Wagner: the Primo Gen always talks
Robbie Wagner: about
Robbie Wagner: how
Robbie Wagner: he’s
Robbie Wagner: streamed
Robbie Wagner: to
Robbie Wagner: like six
Robbie Wagner: people
Robbie Wagner: for
Robbie Wagner: four
Robbie Wagner: years.
Jason: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: you just
Robbie Wagner: gotta
Robbie Wagner: keep
Robbie Wagner: going
Robbie Wagner: and it’ll, happen.
Robbie Wagner: So.
Jason: So one of the things you talked about was, you know, like you’ve been making videos, but then this, month you’re on a, like a big conference push. you could also be doing courses. You could be
Jason: doing internal trainings.
Jason: You could be teaching
Jason: workshops.
Jason: Like
Jason: there’s
Jason: so
Jason: many
Jason: things
Jason: an independent creator
Jason: can
Jason: do.
Jason: How
Jason: are you choosing which things are
Jason: the right things for you to spend your time on? Because there’s, such a large number of options out there.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah. That’s a great question because that’s something that I think about a lot, especially now that I’m independent.
Shruti Kapoor: I don’t have a boss who’s gonna tell me what to
Shruti Kapoor: do.
Shruti Kapoor: , Which honestly, I left at Slack and PayPal, like somebody telling me what to do and I can just do it. now I’m my own boss, which comes with a lot of responsibility and freedom. But one of the things is you have to decide what is the right path to take.
Shruti Kapoor: And if you do end up taking the wrong path, then it could be
Shruti Kapoor: disastrous.
Shruti Kapoor: thankfully it’s not as disastrous as we make it in our head, so, you know, you can always backtrack. So, you know, one course goes back. but the way I like to do is, is, , every year and every like six months, I’ll have goals of what I want to do with my channel and then my, like, content that
Shruti Kapoor: I
Shruti Kapoor: crave. So, for example, this year I started out with the goal that I want to speak at 10 conferences. I want to write a book and I want to launch a course. Those are my three main goals, right? 10 conferences. in terms of like how easy it is for me to do, 10 conferences is relatively easier for me to do because I go to a lot of conferences.
Shruti Kapoor: So it’s easier to do that.
Shruti Kapoor: Writing
Shruti Kapoor: a book is harder because, you know, I’ve never written a book so far. So first I have to find a publisher. I have to find a topic. So that’s a relatively difficult thing to do. So that becomes a long-term project, like a long-term goal. And then the third is like creating a course, which for me it’s relatively easy because I’ve already created one course.
Shruti Kapoor: I was just a matter of adding another course, right? So that way I divide my goals into long term, short term, and sort of like easy to do. , So for me, easier to do would be like applying to conferences, going to conferences. And then I divide my year into different quarters. So for example, I know that I wanna write a book this year, which means I, at some point, I need
Shruti Kapoor: to start talking to publishers. So if I, my
Shruti Kapoor: goal
Shruti Kapoor: is to this year.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah,
Shruti Kapoor: this
Shruti Kapoor: year.
Shruti Kapoor: it’s October.
Shruti Kapoor: I already have a
Shruti Kapoor: publisher.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah. Listen, I’m making progress. Listen. So, which means that by the first quarter I
Shruti Kapoor: should have,
Shruti Kapoor: whatever the goal may be, I should have made
Shruti Kapoor: this
Shruti Kapoor: kind of
Shruti Kapoor: progress towards that. Right. For me, that would be writing book.
Shruti Kapoor: So that means that I should have like a signed deal or
Shruti Kapoor: whatever.
Shruti Kapoor: I have two signed deals
Shruti Kapoor: now.
Shruti Kapoor: Nice.
Shruti Kapoor: Uh, yeah, so like, , for me it’s also deciding like what my personal goals are, but at the same time, you also
Shruti Kapoor: have to decide
Shruti Kapoor: about, those have to look at what the industry is trending towards.
Shruti Kapoor: Right. For
Shruti Kapoor: example,
Shruti Kapoor: in the
Shruti Kapoor: beginning
Shruti Kapoor: of this year, AI
Shruti Kapoor: was everywhere. I mean, it still
Shruti Kapoor: is today.
Shruti Kapoor: say,
Shruti Kapoor: is
Shruti Kapoor: it
Shruti Kapoor: not?
Shruti Kapoor: not?
Shruti Kapoor: now.
Shruti Kapoor: Nobody’s talking about AI now. What are you talking about? What’s ai? but yeah, like in the beginning of this, , year, everything, I think charge GPT, like, , I don’t know what new thing came out in the beginning of this year. I think it was agents probably that was around like last year. So everything, everybody was talking about AI agents today, it’s still like MCP and agents and stuff.
Shruti Kapoor: the idea is that you, you also gotta take a look at the trends and what people are looking for. So that also becomes one of the things that you should build content for as a content creator or whatever, as a developer. So that also becomes part of my goals as well. And then it’s a matter of like weaving in what I want to do and what the community wants to see into, content and kind of dividing it in quarters and then weeks and so on.
Shruti Kapoor: Gotcha.
Jason: Gotcha.
Jason: Yeah, that makes
Jason: a lot of sense.
Robbie Wagner: So I
Shruti Kapoor: So I want to hear about training your dog.
Shruti Kapoor: Ooh, I need
Shruti Kapoor: more
Shruti Kapoor: context into
Shruti Kapoor: what this,
Shruti Kapoor: what kind
Shruti Kapoor: of
Shruti Kapoor: training are
Shruti Kapoor: you doing? My dog’s name is Pepper. She is the sweetest lab hound,
Shruti Kapoor: retriever mix.
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: have
Shruti Kapoor: not
Shruti Kapoor: seen Pepper.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah, I,
Jason: I,
Jason: yeah, I
Jason: met
Jason: your
Jason: dog.
Jason: didn’t
Jason: you
Shruti Kapoor: bring
Jason: her to the house and
Jason: she
Shruti Kapoor: at
Shruti Kapoor: me the whole time. Oh,
Shruti Kapoor: she did
Shruti Kapoor: it. She would never do that. I have trained her not to do that. What are you talking about? No, she’s a very sweet pup. I have been training her to do all sorts of things. , pepper is my first dog. I’ve never had a dog before, so I was super passionate about like training her and like making sure that she does
Shruti Kapoor: all
Shruti Kapoor: these
Shruti Kapoor: tricks. So it started off with like just the
Shruti Kapoor: simple tricks, like sit, stand,
Shruti Kapoor: those kind
Shruti Kapoor: of things.
Shruti Kapoor: But now I’m training
Shruti Kapoor: her
Shruti Kapoor: to
Shruti Kapoor: pick
Shruti Kapoor: up,
Shruti Kapoor: , Newspaper in the morning. So we get like newspaper delivered once
Shruti Kapoor: a week
Shruti Kapoor: and I’m training her to do that and she can do that. Now I’m training her
Shruti Kapoor: to shut
Shruti Kapoor: the door and open the door so that you know, when somebody comes, she can shut the door and I don’t have to do it.
Shruti Kapoor: And when I’m feeling lazy, I can tell her, pepper
Shruti Kapoor: shut the
Shruti Kapoor: door.
Shruti Kapoor: we’ve gotten to like 75% of
Shruti Kapoor: it where like
Shruti Kapoor: if I
Shruti Kapoor: do
Shruti Kapoor: have
Shruti Kapoor: the treat, she will
Shruti Kapoor: shut the door.
Shruti Kapoor: But if I don’t have the treat, she doesn’t do that. so
Shruti Kapoor: I’m
Shruti Kapoor: just
Shruti Kapoor: Training her to be
Shruti Kapoor: my
Shruti Kapoor: assistant
Shruti Kapoor: in-law. Like,
Shruti Kapoor: Nice.
Shruti Kapoor: That’s
Shruti Kapoor: very
Shruti Kapoor: cool.
Shruti Kapoor: Have
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: seen
Shruti Kapoor: the
Shruti Kapoor: things, they
Shruti Kapoor: have
Shruti Kapoor: like
Shruti Kapoor: 50
Shruti Kapoor: words
Shruti Kapoor: and
Shruti Kapoor: people
Shruti Kapoor: like,
Robbie Wagner: get
Robbie Wagner: the
Robbie Wagner: dogs to
Robbie Wagner: do
Shruti Kapoor: Have you
Shruti Kapoor: tried anything like that? Those are So cool. I
Shruti Kapoor: wanna
Shruti Kapoor: do that.
Shruti Kapoor: I haven’t gotten
Shruti Kapoor: around to
Shruti Kapoor: doing
Shruti Kapoor: those, but
Shruti Kapoor: I wanna do
Shruti Kapoor: that. That is
Shruti Kapoor: so
Shruti Kapoor: cool.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Jason: I
Jason: feel like
Jason: those ones are a big
Jason: time investment,
Jason: like to, ‘cause
Jason: I think you
Jason: have to like,
Jason: sit
Jason: with
Jason: the,
Jason: dog
Jason: and like
Jason: push the
Jason: button
Jason: as
Jason: you do
Jason: the
Jason: thing.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Jason: like
Jason: a
Jason: lot
Jason: of
Shruti Kapoor: repetition
Shruti Kapoor: and, and
Shruti Kapoor: I
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: think
Robbie Wagner: that’s
Robbie Wagner: yeah.
Jason: for a while. yeah.
Jason: And
Jason: I feel like
Jason: the
Jason: dog,
Shruti Kapoor: when
Shruti Kapoor: it
Shruti Kapoor: realizes
Shruti Kapoor: which one means
Shruti Kapoor: like,
Shruti Kapoor: hungry,
Shruti Kapoor: hungry,
Robbie Wagner: hungry,
Robbie Wagner: is
Robbie Wagner: just like,
Robbie Wagner: that’s
Robbie Wagner: the
Robbie Wagner: one
Robbie Wagner: I’m
Shruti Kapoor: gonna
Shruti Kapoor: hit.
Shruti Kapoor: right.
Shruti Kapoor: I
Shruti Kapoor: don’t need
Shruti Kapoor: any
Shruti Kapoor: of the other
Robbie Wagner: ones.
Robbie Wagner: Have
Robbie Wagner: you seen
Robbie Wagner: those
Robbie Wagner: videos
Robbie Wagner: where
Shruti Kapoor: ,
Shruti Kapoor: The
Shruti Kapoor: dog is
Shruti Kapoor: like,
Shruti Kapoor: bitch,
Shruti Kapoor: bitch,
Shruti Kapoor: bitch,
Shruti Kapoor: But it’s So
Robbie Wagner: So
Robbie Wagner: like,
Shruti Kapoor: I am not
Shruti Kapoor: getting
Robbie Wagner: but yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Oh
Robbie Wagner: yeah.
Robbie Wagner: I saw
Robbie Wagner: one
Robbie Wagner: that was like, something about like the dog’s owner was
Robbie Wagner: like, oh, do
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: want mama
Robbie Wagner: to like do something? He was like, no dadda
Robbie Wagner: or something.
Shruti Kapoor: And
Shruti Kapoor: then
Shruti Kapoor: like.
Robbie Wagner: the
Robbie Wagner: guy
Robbie Wagner: comes
Robbie Wagner: over
Robbie Wagner: and
Robbie Wagner: it’s like,
Robbie Wagner: no,
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: don’t
Robbie Wagner: like
Robbie Wagner: you.
Robbie Wagner: Or,
Robbie Wagner: so,
Robbie Wagner: I dunno. It’s
Robbie Wagner: like
Robbie Wagner: dog
Robbie Wagner: is
Robbie Wagner: very,
Robbie Wagner: uh,
Robbie Wagner: opinionated
Robbie Wagner: about that.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Okay, so one last question
Robbie Wagner: before
Robbie Wagner: we end.
Robbie Wagner: If
Robbie Wagner: you weren’t
Robbie Wagner: in
Robbie Wagner: tech,
Robbie Wagner: what
Robbie Wagner: other career
Robbie Wagner: would
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: choose?
Robbie Wagner: And
Robbie Wagner: this
Robbie Wagner: could
Robbie Wagner: be
Robbie Wagner: like,
Robbie Wagner: if
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: want
Robbie Wagner: to
Robbie Wagner: get
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: magical skill,
Robbie Wagner: that’s fine.
Robbie Wagner: It doesn’t have
Robbie Wagner: to
Robbie Wagner: be
Robbie Wagner: like,
Robbie Wagner: anything
Robbie Wagner: that’s
Robbie Wagner: like,
Robbie Wagner: you
Robbie Wagner: know,
Robbie Wagner: you’ve
Robbie Wagner: been working
Robbie Wagner: towards.
Robbie Wagner: Just be
Robbie Wagner: like,
Robbie Wagner: oh,
Robbie Wagner: I
Robbie Wagner: want
Robbie Wagner: to
Robbie Wagner: be
Robbie Wagner: a
Robbie Wagner: singer
Shruti Kapoor: a,
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: know,
Shruti Kapoor: whatever.
Shruti Kapoor: You
Shruti Kapoor: can,
Shruti Kapoor: like
Shruti Kapoor: the sky’s
Robbie Wagner: limit.
Robbie Wagner: Like
Robbie Wagner: what
Robbie Wagner: would
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: do
Shruti Kapoor: if
Shruti Kapoor: you
Shruti Kapoor: weren’t a decorator? I’d be an interior
Shruti Kapoor: designer.
Robbie Wagner: Okay,
Robbie Wagner: nice. I working
Shruti Kapoor: I love decorating
Robbie Wagner: interior
Shruti Kapoor: design. That’s my jam.
Shruti Kapoor: Nice,
Shruti Kapoor: nice. That
Shruti Kapoor: sounds
Shruti Kapoor: fun.
Shruti Kapoor: Yeah.
Robbie Wagner: Yeah.
Shruti Kapoor: Cool.
Shruti Kapoor: Alright,
Shruti Kapoor: so
Shruti Kapoor: before
Shruti Kapoor: we end, uh, what would you
Shruti Kapoor: like to
Shruti Kapoor: plug?
Shruti Kapoor: Where
Shruti Kapoor: can
Shruti Kapoor: the
Shruti Kapoor: people
Shruti Kapoor: find you?
Shruti Kapoor: You can find me on YouTube
Shruti Kapoor: ATHI zero eight.
Shruti Kapoor: Speaking of use effects that we’ve been talking a lot, I actually have a video coming on
Shruti Kapoor: uh, 10 mistakes, actually. 16 Mistakes you’re Making in Use Effect and
Shruti Kapoor: it also
Shruti Kapoor: includes some React 19.2
Shruti Kapoor: use effect event
Shruti Kapoor: and how
Shruti Kapoor: to
Shruti Kapoor: use
Shruti Kapoor: that.
Shruti Kapoor: So I think, which
Shruti Kapoor: number
Shruti Kapoor: is gonna blow my mind?
Jason: my
Jason: mind?
Shruti Kapoor: Uh, number
Shruti Kapoor: 16.
Shruti Kapoor: So you have to follow, watch
Shruti Kapoor: the
Shruti Kapoor: whole video
Shruti Kapoor: because there’re not
Shruti Kapoor: gonna be
Shruti Kapoor: any chapters. no.
Shruti Kapoor: I think the coolest one is gonna be how you can move,
Shruti Kapoor: like you were
Shruti Kapoor: talking about, right? Like use effect. You add so many dependency and you’re like, why is it still re rendering? Right? So now React 19 two introduces use effect event,
Shruti Kapoor: which
Shruti Kapoor: actually
Shruti Kapoor: helps you
Shruti Kapoor: remove
Shruti Kapoor: any
Shruti Kapoor: non-reactive stuff out of use effect.
Shruti Kapoor: And so
Shruti Kapoor: that’s really
Shruti Kapoor: cool.
Shruti Kapoor: cool.
Jason: That’s
Shruti Kapoor: all
Shruti Kapoor: I’ve
Shruti Kapoor: ever
Shruti Kapoor: wanted.
Shruti Kapoor: Yes.
Shruti Kapoor: , So that’s
Shruti Kapoor: really
Shruti Kapoor: cool.
Shruti Kapoor: I’m excited about
Shruti Kapoor: that.
Shruti Kapoor: And
Shruti Kapoor: you can
Shruti Kapoor: find
Shruti Kapoor: that
Shruti Kapoor: on
Shruti Kapoor: YouTube.
Shruti Kapoor: Cool.
Robbie Wagner: All
Robbie Wagner: right. Thanks
Robbie Wagner: for
Robbie Wagner: joining
Robbie Wagner: us and
Shruti Kapoor: thanks
Shruti Kapoor: everyone for
Shruti Kapoor: listening.
Robbie Wagner: If
Robbie Wagner: you’d like
Robbie Wagner: to please subscribe,
Robbie Wagner: leave us some
Robbie Wagner: ratings.
Robbie Wagner: and reviews. We appreciate it and we will catch you next time.
Outro: You’ve been watching Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Recorded in front of a live studio audience. What the fuck are you talking about, Chuck? Enjoyed the show? Subscribe. You know, people don’t pay attention to these, right? Head to whiskey.fund for merchant to join our Discord server. I’m serious, it’s like 2% of people who actually click these links. And don’t forget to leave us a five star review and tell your friends about the show. All right, dude, I’m outta here. Still got it.