Potluck — Corn Shucking × Self-Hosting Images × WordPress × Getting Scammed × Portfolios
Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats
Balancing Work, Family, and Tech Skills
This chapter addresses the struggle of achieving work-life balance amidst debugging challenges and the need for flexible workplaces. It also highlights the importance of creating a personal portfolio using advanced technologies to effectively showcase one's skills in the job market.
It’s another Potluck! In this episode, Scott and Wes answer your questions about corn shucking, self-hosting images, WordPress, getting scammed, portfolios, more!
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Show Notes02:55 - Hey guys, I love the podcast! This is a silly question and possibly the least important potluck question you’ll ever get. When you get a new Apple device like an iPhone, Apple Watch, or Macbook Pro… do you keep the box? Why or why not?
06:56 - Hey guys! Awesome podcast! Could you go over the advantages and disadvantages of using local images vs external images service (e.g. Cloudinary) for displaying images on a web app?
11:26 - Heyyyy Scott and Wes! 40-year-old lady here looking to make a career change. It’s taken me a year plus, but after building several tutorial React apps, I finally built a fullstack JavaScript app of my own, with lots of rad Postgres database stuff, a bunch of secure Node/Express API endpoints, role-based access control, fancy Oauth, and of course the latest React tech (context, hooks, etc). I’m pretty proud of it. I even managed to configure Nginx and deploy it to AWS. The only problem is…it looks like crap. My portfolio site itself is pretty darn slick, since I used a gorgeous Gatsby template that required only a bit of tweaking. But the site I architected and worked so hard to bring to life? It looks like an 8-bit game for toddlers, a responsive yet Bootstrapy game. My question: does this matter? I would hope that this project shows off my backend skills, but I’m afraid they’ll judge a book by its cover. (I guess a second question would be: how do you show off your backend skills? I have a README in my repo, but will they actually read it? Or, can you be a fullstack React developer with no design skills?) I am very, VERY ready to apply to jobs (emotionally and financially), but I am terrified of making a fool of myself and worried I’ll never get hired. I am completely self-taught and have just been plugging away at this on my own for the duration of the pandemic, so I send a massive thank you to you guys for the sense of community that your show provides! Props to Wyze sprinkler controllers!
16:14 - Scott, I just finished your “SvelteKit” course and now I’m working on “Building Svelte Components”. I have some questions regarding testing. I was listening to an interview with Rich Harris on Svelte Radio and it’s my understanding that the framework is trying not to be opinionated as far as testing. What are you doing as far as testing with SvelteKit? Do you have any recommended packages/plugins/libraries? I’ve only ever written unit tests with Jest in Vue. I’m loving Svelte, but I really want to work on writing tests as well. Basically, everything/anything you’ve got on testing with SvelteKit would be much appreciated. I’ve been listening to the show since forever, you guys are both awesome, shout out to Wes too, you’ve both taught me so much! Thank you, peace, love, and happiness <3
20:25 - Hi Wes and Scott, I am weak when it comes to dev ops. I would like to confidently set up and deploy my applications on AWS and manage dev/prod environments. Any course recommendations to learn how to do this and how it all works so I really understand? If you don’t personally, can you tweet this out so other developers can share their thoughts?
22:30 - You both have praised MDX in the past but why would you use it? I understand that it lets you put JSX in your Markdown, but that seems counter to the purpose of using Markdown files for content. Markdown is a portable format for static content and independent of any front-end framework. That makes it a good choice for writing posts and rendering them in any site. Once you inject a React component into it, doesn’t that eliminate the portability and the static nature of Markdown? At that point, why not just have a dynamic website where you have complete control of how content is rendered? What are your thoughts?
27:14 - Hey Scott and Wes! I, like you both, am a developer with young kids (I have 3 boys age 6 and under). Needless to say, my house has a lot of energy in it. My job is quite flexible, which I appreciate, because it gives me some freedom to structure my day in a way that helps out my family. My question for you both is this: as a web developer with a spouse and young kids working from home, how do you both maintain a healthy work-life balance (avoid working too much, find time for yourselves, family time, etc.) Thanks so much!
33:46 - Should I write a portfolio site using just the three fundamentals (HTML, CSS, JS) or should I write them in something I am comfortable with such as Angular/React? Unsure if using a framework for a portfolio site is a good idea.
36:38 - How do you handle hosting when using WordPress as a headless CMS with something like Gatsby? WordPress needs good PHP hosting, while Gatsby needs good CI integration.
38:52 - How frequently do you use div tags, versus trying to find a ‘better’ tag? Love the pod btw.
40:48 - This is less of a question and more of a heads up for other listeners. Beware of scam job opportunities. I recently encountered a scam where they used a website that seemed like a very normal and reasonable job board for a major company. I went through the whole process until they asked for personal info, and I asked for verification of their person. They couldn’t provide it so I left. But they had profiles matching the actual employees at the company. They had emails. They had an HR department and employees. They had a very legitimate operation going on. Make sure to take a second and verify with the company before giving away personal information or depositing any of their money into your account.
47:38 - What percentage of North Americans keep their mobile device longer than three years? Five years? Eight years? I am a freelancer and I want to put a clause in my contract of what age of device my app will support, but I can’t seem to find this information. Just more general answers like “most people expect a phone to last two-three years.”
Links- https://kit.svelte.dev/
- https://www.cypress.io/
- https://www.svelteradio.com/
- https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/
- https://caddyserver.com/
- https://daringfireball.net/
- Scott: LuLaRich
- Wes: Flame Bulb
- Scott: Web Components For Beginners - Sign up for the year and save 25%!
- Wes: Beginner JavaScript Course - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off!
- Scott’s Instagram
- LevelUpTutorials Instagram
- Wes’ Instagram
- Wes’ Twitter
- Wes’ Facebook
- Scott’s Twitter
- Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets
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