#5 – Kyle Mathews: Benefits of using a sync engine, personal local-first apps, ElectricSQL
Mar 13, 2024
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Kyle Matthews discusses the benefits of using a sync engine for building local-first apps, talks about his experiences in developing personal apps, and explores the challenges and advantages of adopting new technology in the app development space.
Utilizing a data syncing engine saves significant development time in building local-first apps.
Transitioning from manual data requests to declarative data declaration simplifies the syncing process, improving data handling and subscription updates.
Deep dives
Transition from Imperative to Declarative Data Handling
Moving from imperative requests to declarative data declaration allows for easier data handling and subscription updates, streamlining the data fetching process. This shift from manual data requests to declaring needed data for each page simplifies the syncing process, eliminating complexity in subscribing to updates.
Building Local First Apps and Benefits of Sync Engines
Kyle Matthews shares his experience with building Local First apps that utilize sync engines, highlighting the time-saving benefits of data syncing engines in development. By building small-scale Local First apps for personal use, developers like Kyle find that data syncing engines free up development time and enhance the development process.
Innovation in Modern Software Engineering Tools
Exploring the evolution of software development tools, Kyle discusses the importance of continuously improving tools to enhance software quality. Reflecting on the advancements in tools like React and GraphQL, he emphasizes the significant impact that tools have on creating high-quality software.
Challenges and Opportunities in Local First Approach
While embracing the Local First approach offers numerous benefits, Kyle also acknowledges challenges such as the learning curve and maturity of current tools. Despite potential obstacles in adopting new technologies, the promise of streamlining prototyping, easy transition to production, and scalability potential make the Local First approach a valuable consideration for app developers.
The guest of this episode is Kyle Matthews, who, in the past, founded Gatsby JS and is currently delving into local-first software. In the conversation, Kyle shares his experiences in building some small-scale local-first apps for his personal use and discusses how the utilization of a data syncing engine liberates significant development time.