1 00:00:18,424 --> 00:00:22,234 Eddie: Welcome to day four of season one finale week. 2 00:00:23,464 --> 00:00:26,884 It's episode 43 of the web joy podcast. 3 00:00:27,214 --> 00:00:28,414 I'm your host Eddie. 4 00:00:28,804 --> 00:00:32,914 And in this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story. 5 00:00:33,424 --> 00:00:39,004 And what makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community. 6 00:00:39,394 --> 00:00:41,344 I hope you enjoy today's episode. 7 00:00:41,794 --> 00:00:46,414 A huge fan of spending as little time as possible typing with my chin. 8 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:52,280 Welcome to another episode of Web Joy. 9 00:00:52,310 --> 00:00:55,880 I'm excited to have Mike here talking today. 10 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:58,370 Mike, say hi to all of our listeners. 11 00:00:58,670 --> 00:00:59,570 Mike: Hello everyone. 12 00:00:59,570 --> 00:01:00,140 Hello, Eddie. 13 00:01:00,470 --> 00:01:01,400 Good to be on the podcast. 14 00:01:01,775 --> 00:01:01,955 Well, 15 00:01:01,955 --> 00:01:03,275 Eddie: we're, we're happy to have you. 16 00:01:03,875 --> 00:01:06,635 So for those who might not know who you are, go ahead and just 17 00:01:06,635 --> 00:01:07,835 give us short intro, right? 18 00:01:07,835 --> 00:01:10,175 Who you are, what you do, the general 19 00:01:10,175 --> 00:01:10,745 Mike: details. 20 00:01:11,045 --> 00:01:11,975 So I am Mike. 21 00:01:12,065 --> 00:01:17,015 I am the c t o and co-founder of a small startup in based 22 00:01:17,015 --> 00:01:18,215 out of Virginia called Motiva. 23 00:01:18,695 --> 00:01:20,105 And we are pretty niche. 24 00:01:20,105 --> 00:01:24,545 We do, we're a mental health startup and we connect pre-licensed 25 00:01:24,545 --> 00:01:26,165 therapists to supervisors. 26 00:01:26,195 --> 00:01:29,015 Uh, it's an important part of their, their licensure journey. 27 00:01:29,345 --> 00:01:31,865 And so we are essentially a marketplace that connects 28 00:01:31,865 --> 00:01:33,095 those two populations together. 29 00:01:33,155 --> 00:01:34,385 Just a tech company that does that. 30 00:01:34,415 --> 00:01:36,845 So that's what I do for work right now. 31 00:01:37,115 --> 00:01:38,855 Eddie: How did you get into all of this? 32 00:01:39,225 --> 00:01:42,645 Seems like you've, you're a, a fun, exciting part in the journey. 33 00:01:42,825 --> 00:01:45,735 That sounds really cool to be part of a mental health startup and everything. 34 00:01:45,735 --> 00:01:48,135 So how did you get interested in technology? 35 00:01:48,195 --> 00:01:49,815 What journey did that take you on? 36 00:01:49,905 --> 00:01:51,945 Um, how did you kind of end up where you are today? 37 00:01:52,185 --> 00:01:56,115 Mike: I, uh, have been doing this about 11 years, so I'm self-taught, 38 00:01:56,265 --> 00:01:58,575 started teaching myself back in 2009. 39 00:01:59,330 --> 00:02:05,030 And I learned back then I was like in on the med school track, very similar 40 00:02:05,030 --> 00:02:07,040 to Cat who, who you had on recently. 41 00:02:07,460 --> 00:02:11,570 And I was doing clinical research, uh, and I had done my whole pre-med 42 00:02:11,570 --> 00:02:15,740 thing and was getting ready to go to med school and then I decided I hated 43 00:02:15,740 --> 00:02:16,920 it, , I didn't wanna do any of that. 44 00:02:17,570 --> 00:02:20,420 And tried biotech for research for a little while. 45 00:02:20,450 --> 00:02:24,890 Uh, and then decided to like basically pivot, uh, entirely and. 46 00:02:25,070 --> 00:02:28,490 I started learning programming on my own back. 47 00:02:28,490 --> 00:02:30,410 Then there's like just books. 48 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:35,090 I bought a bunch of books and studied and just tried to figure it out on my own. 49 00:02:35,300 --> 00:02:38,660 Built a couple of small toy apps and then eventually landed a job at a 50 00:02:38,930 --> 00:02:43,520 small startup and kind of worked my way up to bigger startups and then, 51 00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:47,050 Wound up in Silicon Valley at some larger companies that you've, uh, 52 00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:52,240 probably heard of, like Yahoo, Google, Airbnb, and then coming back down for a 53 00:02:52,245 --> 00:02:54,490 landing, so to speak, in startup land. 54 00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:58,600 So yeah, that's kinda the arc of my, my journey is kind of getting 55 00:02:58,750 --> 00:03:02,500 going to bigger, bigger companies and then, uh, and then smaller, uh, just, 56 00:03:02,500 --> 00:03:03,820 we're a 21 person company right now. 57 00:03:04,205 --> 00:03:04,745 What was it 58 00:03:04,745 --> 00:03:09,455 Eddie: that kind of drew you back to startup and smaller companies and stuff? 59 00:03:09,455 --> 00:03:12,125 Once you kind of got up to the larger companies, what was it 60 00:03:12,130 --> 00:03:13,265 that kind of tugged you back 61 00:03:14,225 --> 00:03:18,035 Welcome to day four of season one finale week. 62 00:03:19,265 --> 00:03:22,685 It's episode 43 of the web joy podcast. 63 00:03:23,015 --> 00:03:24,215 I'm your host Eddie. 64 00:03:24,605 --> 00:03:28,715 And in this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story. 65 00:03:29,225 --> 00:03:34,805 And what makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community. 66 00:03:35,195 --> 00:03:37,145 I hope you enjoy today's episode. 67 00:03:37,595 --> 00:03:42,215 A huge fan of spending as little time as possible typing with my chin. 68 00:03:45,201 --> 00:03:45,561 down? 69 00:03:45,921 --> 00:03:49,461 Mike: I knew pretty early on in my big tech journey that I 70 00:03:49,461 --> 00:03:51,201 was gonna be back in startups. 71 00:03:51,231 --> 00:03:51,821 Uh, eventually. 72 00:03:52,566 --> 00:03:57,576 I just find the feeling of like creativity and ownership to just be so much stronger 73 00:03:57,576 --> 00:04:01,536 in startups and like kind of like the impact that you can have on, on pe. 74 00:04:01,566 --> 00:04:05,436 Like I just feel a lot more connected to my work when I'm in a smaller company. 75 00:04:05,856 --> 00:04:09,996 Just being able to own like a feature from end-to-end, like talking to 76 00:04:10,001 --> 00:04:13,686 the customer who I've impacted, or sometimes like a lot of the. 77 00:04:14,041 --> 00:04:17,581 At a company, the small, my customers are the employees, and 78 00:04:17,581 --> 00:04:19,141 I, I have a relationship with them. 79 00:04:19,381 --> 00:04:23,071 I get to see, you know, how my work has impacted their lives and how 80 00:04:23,071 --> 00:04:24,691 much it better it's made their jobs. 81 00:04:25,201 --> 00:04:26,791 I really like that feeling. 82 00:04:26,791 --> 00:04:30,511 I just, I didn't get that for many, many years when I was at these bigger company. 83 00:04:30,841 --> 00:04:34,621 I mean, I think like you reach people on a broader scale, but the trade off is, you 84 00:04:34,626 --> 00:04:35,881 know, everyone's just kind of a metric. 85 00:04:35,911 --> 00:04:37,111 They're a number and you're trying. 86 00:04:37,586 --> 00:04:40,976 You know, make those numbers go up, uh, or like whatever direction that you're trying 87 00:04:40,976 --> 00:04:44,516 to get them to go in, but you don't see the impact that the technology actually 88 00:04:44,516 --> 00:04:46,286 has on like an individual person's life. 89 00:04:46,586 --> 00:04:49,316 So I really like kind of feeling that in, in startup land. 90 00:04:49,656 --> 00:04:52,806 Eddie: Yeah, no, that, that makes complete sense at Glass Storm, not 91 00:04:52,806 --> 00:04:54,636 even in that, that big of a company. 92 00:04:54,636 --> 00:04:54,876 Right. 93 00:04:54,881 --> 00:04:59,256 But definitely like closer to Silicone Valley sizes than all 94 00:04:59,256 --> 00:05:02,706 the startups and small like design agencies I've worked for in the past. 95 00:05:02,711 --> 00:05:07,716 And definitely already kind of feeling that like at not even as big a c as 96 00:05:07,716 --> 00:05:09,336 some companies get, it's like, okay. 97 00:05:09,336 --> 00:05:11,376 Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts here. 98 00:05:11,376 --> 00:05:15,366 And like you said, it's much more, you're kind of zoomed out from everything. 99 00:05:15,371 --> 00:05:15,636 Right. 100 00:05:15,636 --> 00:05:15,846 And it. 101 00:05:16,441 --> 00:05:21,181 As you zoom out from a photo, all those individual pixels, like they blend 102 00:05:21,181 --> 00:05:24,271 together into a tapestry, but you're no longer looking at pixels, right? 103 00:05:24,271 --> 00:05:25,081 You're looking at mm-hmm. 104 00:05:25,326 --> 00:05:29,331 the pattern and the image that comes out of it, but it's like, well, If 105 00:05:29,331 --> 00:05:31,011 those pixels are people like that. 106 00:05:31,221 --> 00:05:34,221 Yeah, that's a huge, that's a huge thing to zoom out of, right? 107 00:05:34,221 --> 00:05:36,111 And like something that you kind of have to remind yourself like, 108 00:05:36,141 --> 00:05:37,581 oh no, these aren't just pixels. 109 00:05:37,586 --> 00:05:38,391 These aren't just numbers. 110 00:05:38,391 --> 00:05:42,081 Like these are people, and I can definitely see how it would be refreshing 111 00:05:42,086 --> 00:05:46,011 to step back out of that and into where you can actually see who you're impacting. 112 00:05:46,016 --> 00:05:46,446 So I love that. 113 00:05:46,736 --> 00:05:50,481 Mike: Nothing against people who kind of prefer having like, oh, I. 114 00:05:51,331 --> 00:05:53,281 You know, I wanna work on this product that like, you 115 00:05:53,286 --> 00:05:54,751 know, 10 million people use. 116 00:05:54,751 --> 00:05:57,151 You know, I think there's, oh yeah, there's something magical about 117 00:05:57,151 --> 00:06:00,361 that too, that you can do that in technology and you can like push it. 118 00:06:00,421 --> 00:06:03,631 Like probably you can't push a change like in the same day that impacts like 119 00:06:03,631 --> 00:06:06,361 10 million people probably need to go through like a lot of review to do that. 120 00:06:06,766 --> 00:06:09,706 But, uh, nothing against that and does it for some people. 121 00:06:09,706 --> 00:06:12,286 And, but for me it's like, that wasn't really it for me. 122 00:06:12,436 --> 00:06:12,886 Yeah. 123 00:06:12,916 --> 00:06:14,386 Eddie: Well, and I love that about tech, right? 124 00:06:14,386 --> 00:06:18,466 Like it literally spans so much that you can have people who are really 125 00:06:18,466 --> 00:06:22,276 passionate about, I'm gonna build this niche thing for five people, right? 126 00:06:22,276 --> 00:06:23,116 And then you have. 127 00:06:23,511 --> 00:06:26,061 People who are gonna work for a company and build something. 128 00:06:26,061 --> 00:06:28,671 And like you said, once it gets deployed and goes through all the 129 00:06:28,671 --> 00:06:32,481 systems, like it hits millions of people, maybe billions of people. 130 00:06:32,481 --> 00:06:38,061 And um, that's just cool that you can have the same skills and you can choose 131 00:06:38,271 --> 00:06:40,101 which of those areas you want to be in. 132 00:06:40,101 --> 00:06:40,401 Right. 133 00:06:40,406 --> 00:06:43,101 And find the sweet spot for what works for you. 134 00:06:43,221 --> 00:06:43,431 Yep. 135 00:06:43,641 --> 00:06:44,091 Totally. 136 00:06:44,451 --> 00:06:49,251 As every episode in this podcast, we kind of just say, Hey, what brings you joy? 137 00:06:49,251 --> 00:06:49,491 Right. 138 00:06:49,496 --> 00:06:52,071 What have you been up to lately that just kind of stuck out 139 00:06:52,071 --> 00:06:53,451 to you and gets you excited? 140 00:06:53,751 --> 00:06:56,541 Mike: My journey has been like primarily front end. 141 00:06:56,691 --> 00:07:00,351 I probably, you know, became a front end engineer, like I became what 142 00:07:00,351 --> 00:07:03,621 I would call a front end engineer around my, my second or third year 143 00:07:03,621 --> 00:07:05,541 into, into my, you know, career. 144 00:07:05,991 --> 00:07:10,461 And I, I'm like really struck by how much front end engineers care 145 00:07:10,461 --> 00:07:12,531 about the developer experience. 146 00:07:12,901 --> 00:07:15,631 And this is something that I still feel like, you know, front 147 00:07:16,011 --> 00:07:20,071 engineers get right More than other languages that I've used in the past. 148 00:07:20,611 --> 00:07:23,971 It's not that like backend engineers don't care at all about dev experience, 149 00:07:23,971 --> 00:07:27,901 but I feel like frontend engineers take it to like another level. 150 00:07:28,261 --> 00:07:29,851 And I think there's a trade off here. 151 00:07:29,851 --> 00:07:32,946 So I just want to caveat this, that like, It's really complicated to 152 00:07:32,946 --> 00:07:35,346 set up a lot of these like tool chains on front end engineering. 153 00:07:35,436 --> 00:07:38,256 People complain all the time about like, oh, what's mpm? 154 00:07:38,256 --> 00:07:38,796 What's brew? 155 00:07:38,796 --> 00:07:41,586 All these different like package managers that you need to like know. 156 00:07:41,826 --> 00:07:44,796 And so there's like a pretty big barrier to entry to like getting 157 00:07:44,796 --> 00:07:46,416 into like these like tool chains. 158 00:07:46,806 --> 00:07:50,766 A lot of people say, I used to just be able to like, Throw some H T M L 159 00:07:50,766 --> 00:07:54,456 in a file and like some JavaScript in a file and then some CSS in a file. 160 00:07:54,606 --> 00:07:57,546 And like, I didn't have any like these build systems, but these build 161 00:07:57,546 --> 00:08:01,296 systems add like a ton of value to my life, , and I understand why they exist. 162 00:08:01,476 --> 00:08:06,276 So like my thing is just around developer productivity, I am like really a, a huge 163 00:08:06,281 --> 00:08:11,766 fan of just spending as little time as possible typing, like just trying to like 164 00:08:11,766 --> 00:08:17,346 type manually enter keystrokes in kind of like shortening the feedback loop between. 165 00:08:17,661 --> 00:08:21,951 Writing code and seeing it in your browser, automating a lot of like 166 00:08:21,951 --> 00:08:25,281 the things that are just really annoying about web development. 167 00:08:25,731 --> 00:08:29,151 I found that like so many of these things have improved so much over 168 00:08:29,151 --> 00:08:30,411 the course of the past decade. 169 00:08:30,771 --> 00:08:32,261 And just to give you a couple examples of this. 170 00:08:32,741 --> 00:08:36,611 I remember back in like 2013 or 2014, I started using this 171 00:08:36,616 --> 00:08:37,991 technology called Browser Sync. 172 00:08:38,531 --> 00:08:42,041 And back then browser Sync was like this revolutionary thing where I 173 00:08:42,041 --> 00:08:45,191 would just have two monitors and I would like edit code on one of the 174 00:08:45,196 --> 00:08:49,001 monitors and it would just update in my other monitor in the browser. 175 00:08:49,271 --> 00:08:52,841 Like I could just edit some CSS and it would just get injected into the browser. 176 00:08:53,051 --> 00:08:54,881 And nowadays it's like so boring, right? 177 00:08:54,881 --> 00:08:56,671 Like create, if you like spin up, create. 178 00:08:57,346 --> 00:09:01,246 It's like you get that out of the box, but back then it was like I had 179 00:09:01,246 --> 00:09:05,206 to, I used to have to just like write my code and then go into my browser 180 00:09:05,211 --> 00:09:09,166 and hit the refresh button and maybe it takes like five, 10 seconds, 181 00:09:09,171 --> 00:09:10,366 like, you know, that's really slow. 182 00:09:10,371 --> 00:09:13,786 But like, maybe it takes a couple seconds to refresh, but that's enough time for 183 00:09:13,786 --> 00:09:15,346 me to like lose my train of thought. 184 00:09:15,771 --> 00:09:20,391 And forget what I'm doing and just the kind of, just these like tight, these 185 00:09:20,391 --> 00:09:24,441 tighter feedback loops have really just improved my productivity over the years. 186 00:09:24,561 --> 00:09:26,571 Another example is just like prettier. 187 00:09:26,631 --> 00:09:30,411 There's this, uh, lint tool called Prettier that just formats 188 00:09:30,411 --> 00:09:33,891 your code, and I used to used to have to do that manually. 189 00:09:33,896 --> 00:09:36,141 It's just like it used to be such a pain in the butt. 190 00:09:36,471 --> 00:09:39,261 There's just so many things now that just, I don't even think about. 191 00:09:40,141 --> 00:09:43,291 I remember, like I had code reviews at Google where all we 192 00:09:43,291 --> 00:09:45,721 would do is just like knit syntax. 193 00:09:45,751 --> 00:09:47,881 Like, just like, oh, you forgot a space here. 194 00:09:47,881 --> 00:09:50,221 You, uh, you should have broken the line here. 195 00:09:50,551 --> 00:09:55,321 And I just, I don't spend any time doing any of that stupid stuff now because 196 00:09:55,381 --> 00:09:56,881 I have a computer that does it for me. 197 00:09:57,211 --> 00:10:01,081 So just, I've seen just the evolution of these tools and I take, you take 198 00:10:01,081 --> 00:10:02,611 them for granted now because so many. 199 00:10:02,896 --> 00:10:06,286 Spoiler plates and stuff come with them, but man, I I, I was around 200 00:10:06,286 --> 00:10:09,616 when they weren't there, they didn't exist, and it was so much more of a 201 00:10:09,616 --> 00:10:11,746 chore to do web development back then. 202 00:10:12,016 --> 00:10:12,616 Yeah, 203 00:10:12,646 --> 00:10:14,566 Eddie: no, I, I totally get that. 204 00:10:14,806 --> 00:10:16,516 I love a lot of those tools as well. 205 00:10:16,966 --> 00:10:22,366 And I actually, the last company I worked at was using really old codebase. 206 00:10:22,396 --> 00:10:26,016 It was not easy to work with because it had been j s. 207 00:10:26,841 --> 00:10:30,411 and then they, like, they weren't able to move to a complete S p a, 208 00:10:30,411 --> 00:10:36,231 so they were like mid transition from J S P to Angular s p a. 209 00:10:36,231 --> 00:10:41,091 And so essentially it was in this place where rather than actually 210 00:10:41,091 --> 00:10:43,851 loading up the whole thing, like you would load up a G S P page and 211 00:10:43,851 --> 00:10:46,461 some of those pages would activate. 212 00:10:46,721 --> 00:10:49,031 An Angular app inside the page. 213 00:10:49,031 --> 00:10:52,661 But if you navigated, you were doing a full page refresh, right? 214 00:10:52,751 --> 00:10:55,451 And then you'd get angular and maybe there were some different things 215 00:10:55,451 --> 00:10:58,661 you could do while on that page that wouldn't cause a page refresh. 216 00:10:58,661 --> 00:11:02,291 But the build thing was crazy cuz we were still having to bundle 217 00:11:02,291 --> 00:11:07,421 it back up into being injected in these different J S P pages. 218 00:11:07,751 --> 00:11:11,201 So we did not have a lot of that tooling when I started there. 219 00:11:11,231 --> 00:11:11,441 Yeah. 220 00:11:11,681 --> 00:11:13,091 And thankfully we. 221 00:11:13,356 --> 00:11:16,446 We made a lot of progress in the years I was there and so when I was leaving we 222 00:11:16,446 --> 00:11:21,006 finally were able to start using Prettier and we were doing, we got up to Angular 223 00:11:21,006 --> 00:11:25,716 11 and it was actually exporting like a true s p a, aside from like a couple 224 00:11:25,721 --> 00:11:30,246 pages that were still, so we were able to actually do like live refreshing stuff. 225 00:11:30,546 --> 00:11:30,816 Yeah. 226 00:11:30,816 --> 00:11:35,301 Then now being at Glass, You know, using much more modern tooling starting to 227 00:11:35,301 --> 00:11:40,311 migrate into next, which obviously does all the things like Yeah, really nicely. 228 00:11:40,341 --> 00:11:44,841 So a lot of those tools have been out for a little while, but in certain companies, 229 00:11:44,841 --> 00:11:46,881 like you still don't have access to that. 230 00:11:46,881 --> 00:11:50,181 And then when you suddenly do, you're like, oh, this is amazing. 231 00:11:51,001 --> 00:11:54,631 Mike: I started with Java and uh, I did JSPs for a little bit. 232 00:11:54,751 --> 00:11:59,371 Um, I'm not even like comparing to JSPs , uh, I'm comparing to like, 233 00:11:59,371 --> 00:12:02,911 yeah, just, uh, I was using PHP at the time, which is we weren't at 234 00:12:02,911 --> 00:12:04,831 enterprise at, at my first company. 235 00:12:05,191 --> 00:12:05,491 Yeah. 236 00:12:05,521 --> 00:12:09,121 Jsp, like, I can't, I can't imagine like trying to combine those two things. 237 00:12:09,121 --> 00:12:10,891 I'm glad you, I'm glad you got outta that. 238 00:12:11,071 --> 00:12:11,701 It was painful. 239 00:12:12,316 --> 00:12:13,021 . Yeah, for sure. 240 00:12:13,021 --> 00:12:15,241 Yeah, and I, I think, you know, you mentioned next Js. 241 00:12:15,591 --> 00:12:17,931 I think like s Spas are no longer cool. 242 00:12:18,321 --> 00:12:21,381 Which I get like, I think like that's, I understand like, you know, I think 243 00:12:21,561 --> 00:12:25,341 it's a flawed paradigm for a lot of different use cases, like an Sspa 244 00:12:25,341 --> 00:12:27,561 blog Makes no sense in many ways. 245 00:12:27,651 --> 00:12:27,711 Yeah. 246 00:12:28,011 --> 00:12:31,461 But I still think that like, you know, the developer tooling around 247 00:12:31,671 --> 00:12:36,741 React is so amazing that like, I, it, it's like very painful for me to 248 00:12:36,741 --> 00:12:40,791 not have it, even when I'm trying to like develop like a multi-pay app. 249 00:12:41,121 --> 00:12:41,331 Yeah. 250 00:12:41,331 --> 00:12:44,151 Just like, you know, tools like Next JS and Remix are, are out. 251 00:12:44,736 --> 00:12:48,726 Which is, you know, like I get that like we've kind of come from full circle on 252 00:12:48,726 --> 00:12:52,776 like we used to do multi-page apps and then we did single page apps and now 253 00:12:52,776 --> 00:12:54,576 we're like coming back to multi-page apps. 254 00:12:54,816 --> 00:12:58,746 But now I get to keep all the tooling that I used to like, kind of bring me joy 255 00:12:58,776 --> 00:13:00,696 when I was, you know, doing development. 256 00:13:00,996 --> 00:13:04,866 And I can still move super quickly in the developer experience and I 257 00:13:04,866 --> 00:13:06,456 get, you know, like performance. 258 00:13:06,576 --> 00:13:10,376 But you know, the trade off, like I said at the beginning is, A very 259 00:13:10,376 --> 00:13:13,616 overcomplicated build chain that like, you know, I, I totally get that. 260 00:13:13,616 --> 00:13:16,736 There's like downsides to it, but for someone who's like seasoned 261 00:13:16,736 --> 00:13:19,466 as like really comfortable with these like tool chains, I love it. 262 00:13:19,616 --> 00:13:20,036 I can't get 263 00:13:20,036 --> 00:13:20,486 Eddie: enough of it. 264 00:13:20,606 --> 00:13:21,476 Yeah, totally. 265 00:13:21,566 --> 00:13:27,716 I think one benefit to next and remix and stuff is I do feel like in some 266 00:13:27,716 --> 00:13:33,166 ways, The big barrier to entry is having to figure out how all these things 267 00:13:33,166 --> 00:13:37,126 work together, and I do feel like if someone spins up next or remix, it's 268 00:13:37,126 --> 00:13:41,296 so much easier now to just dive in and have all this stuff for free rather 269 00:13:41,296 --> 00:13:46,246 than having to like learn 10 different tools that all need to work together. 270 00:13:46,721 --> 00:13:48,281 And I, I totally agree. 271 00:13:48,286 --> 00:13:57,291 Like I started using P H P back in 2005 or something, and having P H P versus 272 00:13:57,941 --> 00:14:00,731 remix with React, like that's just a 273 00:14:00,731 --> 00:14:01,271 Mike: dream. 274 00:14:01,421 --> 00:14:01,841 Totally. 275 00:14:01,871 --> 00:14:05,351 I think this was like a big problem too when I was learning React back 276 00:14:05,351 --> 00:14:08,531 before we had these like kind of frameworks to kind of like tie a 277 00:14:08,531 --> 00:14:10,241 bunch of different concepts together. 278 00:14:10,636 --> 00:14:14,836 Had to cobble together my own router had to cobble together my own form 279 00:14:14,836 --> 00:14:18,256 library and with remix, you just get everything out of the box. 280 00:14:18,376 --> 00:14:19,276 Some people don't like that. 281 00:14:19,276 --> 00:14:22,666 Some people are like, oh, I want to use form or my own form 282 00:14:22,666 --> 00:14:24,466 library, and I'm like, who cares? 283 00:14:24,466 --> 00:14:25,066 I don't care. 284 00:14:25,066 --> 00:14:26,656 Like I just, I wanna be productive. 285 00:14:26,656 --> 00:14:27,961 I wanna work on like the business logic. 286 00:14:28,846 --> 00:14:29,056 Yeah. 287 00:14:29,056 --> 00:14:32,056 There's so many frameworks that like kind of make these decisions for me. 288 00:14:32,231 --> 00:14:34,211 That I can make these decisions. 289 00:14:34,271 --> 00:14:37,241 I don't want to, like, I just, I, I think it's like a waste of time. 290 00:14:37,511 --> 00:14:40,451 And so I get these frameworks that like, have put a lot of thought into 291 00:14:40,451 --> 00:14:44,411 it, have a lot of people like kind of battle testing it for me and god 292 00:14:44,416 --> 00:14:46,751 bless, uh, open source contributors. 293 00:14:46,751 --> 00:14:49,661 I've just, everyone gets a benefit so much from it these 294 00:14:49,661 --> 00:14:49,961 Eddie: days. 295 00:14:50,201 --> 00:14:51,251 Yeah, absolutely. 296 00:14:51,551 --> 00:14:55,451 Without open source contributors, like we'd be in such a. 297 00:14:56,121 --> 00:14:56,931 A worse place. 298 00:14:56,931 --> 00:15:01,161 I mean, definitely all this stuff coming together just is, is nice. 299 00:15:01,161 --> 00:15:05,271 And like you said, I think I never really got into Ruby and thus 300 00:15:05,271 --> 00:15:06,891 never got into Ruby on Rails. 301 00:15:06,891 --> 00:15:11,001 But one thing I always liked and appreciated about Ruby on Rails was how 302 00:15:11,001 --> 00:15:15,501 it was opinionated and you could just sit down and spin it up and it just, the whole 303 00:15:15,501 --> 00:15:17,871 cyst ecosystem was made to work together. 304 00:15:17,871 --> 00:15:18,981 And I. 305 00:15:19,461 --> 00:15:23,361 Next and remix and Right, like we're kind of starting to get that Yes. 306 00:15:23,366 --> 00:15:26,361 Where we get some opinionated frameworks that do everything for 307 00:15:26,361 --> 00:15:29,511 us and it's like, yes, you can kind of decouple this stuff, right? 308 00:15:29,511 --> 00:15:32,721 Someone wants to spin up, react, and they just wanna cobble 309 00:15:32,721 --> 00:15:34,071 together 10 different things. 310 00:15:34,071 --> 00:15:34,551 That's great. 311 00:15:34,551 --> 00:15:36,221 Like you do you, but. 312 00:15:36,926 --> 00:15:38,846 If someone just wants to spin up a project. 313 00:15:38,996 --> 00:15:44,126 I was doing a hackathon back in May and I was like, well, when am I going? 314 00:15:44,216 --> 00:15:47,846 You know, used to do this hackathon, it was an internal Glassdoor hackathon and I 315 00:15:47,851 --> 00:15:50,036 was like, oh, let me just spin up remix. 316 00:15:50,036 --> 00:15:52,826 I've been wanting to do something with remix and like it was so easy 317 00:15:52,826 --> 00:15:55,976 to spin up and like start building this thing in remix and like, I'd 318 00:15:55,976 --> 00:15:59,726 never used remix before, but in this like three day hackathon I was. 319 00:16:00,291 --> 00:16:03,081 Able to spin it up and make like a huge amount of progress 320 00:16:03,081 --> 00:16:04,521 for never using it before. 321 00:16:04,521 --> 00:16:05,061 So that was 322 00:16:05,061 --> 00:16:05,631 Mike: super fun. 323 00:16:05,841 --> 00:16:09,021 I totally agree with the, the Ruby on Rails discussion too. 324 00:16:09,261 --> 00:16:12,771 I used Ruby on Rails for a while and even though mostly a front 325 00:16:12,771 --> 00:16:15,771 end engineer, I still used Ruby whenever I was like starting a 326 00:16:15,771 --> 00:16:18,081 side thing because it's so easy. 327 00:16:18,171 --> 00:16:19,841 It was just so, like Rails and eight mm-hmm. 328 00:16:19,941 --> 00:16:21,471 and you're, you're off and running. 329 00:16:21,666 --> 00:16:24,426 And you don't have to side on like a directory structure. 330 00:16:24,431 --> 00:16:25,716 You don't need to decide on anything. 331 00:16:25,716 --> 00:16:30,306 You just follow the convention and you are just writing business logic and so much 332 00:16:30,306 --> 00:16:32,016 of the stupid stuff is extracted away. 333 00:16:32,376 --> 00:16:35,736 Like I felt like for the longest time, that just wasn't true, 334 00:16:35,766 --> 00:16:36,706 that that wasn't possible. 335 00:16:37,011 --> 00:16:38,391 In the front end ecosystem. 336 00:16:38,811 --> 00:16:40,941 It was like, just pick all the dependencies and make sure 337 00:16:40,941 --> 00:16:42,141 they work well together too. 338 00:16:42,141 --> 00:16:46,461 You know, like I remember the thing that almost made me abandon React was 339 00:16:46,461 --> 00:16:50,271 I was like using a, I was trying to like integrate like Redux and Redux 340 00:16:50,276 --> 00:16:54,291 form into React and then like I was running into problems with Redux 341 00:16:54,296 --> 00:16:56,471 form saying, oh, if you want to. 342 00:16:56,966 --> 00:16:58,856 There's a critical bug in React. 343 00:16:58,856 --> 00:17:00,986 You have to upgrade to this version of this like release 344 00:17:00,991 --> 00:17:02,786 candidate and react to fix it. 345 00:17:03,026 --> 00:17:05,726 And so it's not even just like picking the dependencies, it's also 346 00:17:05,726 --> 00:17:08,846 making sure that you are on the right version of dependencies, such as 347 00:17:08,846 --> 00:17:10,346 they Oh, that they all work together. 348 00:17:10,556 --> 00:17:12,596 Where the remix is just like they've already done that. 349 00:17:12,596 --> 00:17:14,666 They've already like tested it and make sure it all works. 350 00:17:14,966 --> 00:17:15,686 Yeah, like that. 351 00:17:15,776 --> 00:17:17,996 It's not that a hundred thousand different, like front end 352 00:17:17,996 --> 00:17:19,226 engineers need to figure that all. 353 00:17:19,646 --> 00:17:21,836 It's just the core team needs to figure it out and then everyone 354 00:17:21,836 --> 00:17:22,826 else gets the benefit from it. 355 00:17:22,976 --> 00:17:23,846 Eddie: No, that's awesome. 356 00:17:23,846 --> 00:17:28,046 Yeah, we ran into a lot of that at my last company, like when we, we got stuck 357 00:17:28,046 --> 00:17:33,866 at Angular four, I believe, because Angular five used Webpac five, I believe. 358 00:17:34,016 --> 00:17:34,676 Oh no, nevermind. 359 00:17:34,676 --> 00:17:37,646 They used the Angular C L I, which we had chosen not to use, 360 00:17:38,036 --> 00:17:39,706 but then we waited long enough. 361 00:17:40,236 --> 00:17:43,296 Angular 10 came out I think, and that used Webpac five. 362 00:17:43,716 --> 00:17:46,656 So then it's like we had to like figure out, okay, we have to be 363 00:17:46,656 --> 00:17:50,016 able to transition over and we have to be able to support Webpac five. 364 00:17:50,016 --> 00:17:53,736 So then we're like, do our dependencies support Webpac five and like there was 365 00:17:53,736 --> 00:17:57,606 all this math to make sure that we could go from Webpac four to Webpac five. 366 00:17:57,666 --> 00:17:58,776 Yeah, it's a lot of drama. 367 00:17:59,191 --> 00:18:02,821 So, yeah, I, I like other people making those choices for us. 368 00:18:03,721 --> 00:18:03,931 . Mike: Yeah. 369 00:18:03,961 --> 00:18:07,681 I think anyone who hasn't like, gone through version upgrade or like, been 370 00:18:07,686 --> 00:18:12,181 not been, been able to upgrade to some version of a library, because some 371 00:18:12,271 --> 00:18:16,681 other version of a library that you also depend on doesn't support that version. 372 00:18:17,166 --> 00:18:20,556 Just do that a couple times and you'll like really support frameworks 373 00:18:20,556 --> 00:18:21,606 that cobble everything together. 374 00:18:22,476 --> 00:18:24,186 . Yeah, exactly. 375 00:18:24,696 --> 00:18:29,256 Eddie: Well, every episode we always kind of say, Hey, like is there 376 00:18:29,256 --> 00:18:30,456 anything you've been working on? 377 00:18:30,461 --> 00:18:33,396 Anything that you wanna share with the listeners that they might 378 00:18:33,426 --> 00:18:35,076 find helpful or wanna check out? 379 00:18:35,376 --> 00:18:37,296 So I just wanted to ask if there was anything you were 380 00:18:37,296 --> 00:18:38,376 working on that you wanted to. 381 00:18:38,771 --> 00:18:42,821 Mike: Not so much right now, Eddie, but I do want to get back into writing. 382 00:18:43,031 --> 00:18:46,211 I'm actually like, this is my first, uh, public commitment 383 00:18:46,211 --> 00:18:47,921 to to putting out a series. 384 00:18:47,926 --> 00:18:50,471 I wanna, I wanna write a series called What New Web 385 00:18:50,471 --> 00:18:52,511 Developers Should Know About X. 386 00:18:52,811 --> 00:18:58,331 So I'm, I'm gonna be covering topics like, kind of like the 2 0 1 version of topics. 387 00:18:58,721 --> 00:19:03,341 What new web developers need to know about like form validation or security. 388 00:19:03,416 --> 00:19:07,766 Or http or like thinking through all these like different topics 389 00:19:07,766 --> 00:19:10,256 that like, you know, you're probably not gonna get at a bootcamp. 390 00:19:10,616 --> 00:19:13,586 But, uh, I wanna start kind of thinking about those and like 391 00:19:13,586 --> 00:19:14,846 kind of teaching those topics. 392 00:19:15,116 --> 00:19:18,446 So I will be writing at my website, uh, Mike chen.io. 393 00:19:19,116 --> 00:19:23,496 And so I will probably be trying to put out a newsletter or something 394 00:19:23,496 --> 00:19:25,086 like that, uh, in the near future. 395 00:19:25,266 --> 00:19:25,566 Yeah. 396 00:19:25,566 --> 00:19:26,766 I'm saying this right now. 397 00:19:26,856 --> 00:19:28,206 I haven't started d doing it. 398 00:19:28,476 --> 00:19:31,356 I'm saying this right now on this podcast because, uh, so 399 00:19:31,356 --> 00:19:32,676 I'll be embarrassed if I don't do 400 00:19:32,676 --> 00:19:32,796 Eddie: it. 401 00:19:33,126 --> 00:19:35,916 I love that accountability by putting it on the public. 402 00:19:35,916 --> 00:19:36,876 Yes, for sure. 403 00:19:36,906 --> 00:19:37,266 Nice. 404 00:19:37,296 --> 00:19:37,716 All right. 405 00:19:37,716 --> 00:19:42,251 Well then if you're listening to this, and you heard this either, Mike got it 406 00:19:42,251 --> 00:19:47,231 out there and so I didn't cut it out or B Mike still didn't get it out there, but I 407 00:19:47,231 --> 00:19:51,131 wanted him be embarrassed and accountable anyway, so you should check the show 408 00:19:51,131 --> 00:19:55,001 notes and see if there's any links to that stuff and see if he actually completed it. 409 00:19:55,601 --> 00:19:56,141 Sounds good. 410 00:19:56,496 --> 00:19:58,446 Well Mike, thank you for joining us today. 411 00:19:58,476 --> 00:20:01,566 It's been a pleasure just chatting, getting to know you and your journey. 412 00:20:01,926 --> 00:20:06,246 Hearing and chatting about some developer productivity stuff. 413 00:20:06,636 --> 00:20:08,226 Really a good thing to take joy in 414 00:20:09,066 --> 00:20:09,486 . Mike: Agreed. 415 00:20:09,491 --> 00:20:09,726 Yeah. 416 00:20:09,786 --> 00:20:11,046 Thank you so much for having me, Eddie. 417 00:20:11,136 --> 00:20:11,916 Absolutely. 418 00:20:13,285 --> 00:20:16,165 Eddie: Thank you for joining us for episode 43. 419 00:20:16,555 --> 00:20:21,205 A huge fan of spending as little time as possible typing with my Jen. 420 00:20:21,685 --> 00:20:25,075 You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, 421 00:20:25,075 --> 00:20:28,495 as well as a link to Mike's website and social media accounts. 422 00:20:29,005 --> 00:20:30,235 All in the show notes. 423 00:20:30,655 --> 00:20:32,065 If you enjoyed this episode. 424 00:20:32,575 --> 00:20:33,265 Come on help. 425 00:20:33,265 --> 00:20:34,795 Some others discover it as well. 426 00:20:35,155 --> 00:20:38,515 Give us a shout out on your favorite social media platform. 427 00:20:38,965 --> 00:20:40,195 Doesn't matter to us. 428 00:20:40,735 --> 00:20:43,675 And tag a friend or coworker that you think would enjoy it. 429 00:20:44,575 --> 00:20:48,835 Don't forget to follow us wherever you hanging out online or subscribe 430 00:20:48,835 --> 00:20:50,665 to our newsletter to stay up to date. 431 00:20:51,295 --> 00:20:53,455 Thank you for joining us for season one. 432 00:20:53,875 --> 00:20:57,385 If you have three minutes, please take our short listener survey. 433 00:20:57,595 --> 00:20:59,815 You can find the link right in the show notes. 434 00:21:00,145 --> 00:21:02,575 It'll be invaluable while we plan out season two. 435 00:21:03,445 --> 00:21:06,295 Thank you for listening and have a great day.