DEV Community: GitNation

The whole community around Open Source is extremely valuable, says Veed.io’s Stefan Feješ

GitNation — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 07:53:30 +0000

Five years ago, open source was predicted to have a murky future. Fortunately, none of these prophecies came true: open source is not only thriving, it’s also commercially successful. The community is becoming ever more global, and projects are becoming more complex and interesting. That is why GitNation organizes an awards ceremony for the whole OSS scene – Open Source Awards.

We’ve talked to Stefan Feješ, a software engineer who created the 6th fastest growing open source project of 2018. Stefan was featured as a speaker at some of the most prominent conferences around the world, and he has also organized and hosted multiple editions of Open Source Awards.

Stefan, 5-7 years ago it was popular to predict the end of open source. There was an endless number of headlines like "Why open source is going to die" or "Why open source will never beat paid software".

Today we see the total opposite, with open source evolving and being in demand more than ever. What are the trends driving the development of modern open source today?

— I got into open source about five years ago when the whole "open source is going to die" era was over. The most significant buzz around open source back then was about creators not being able to do it for a living due to the nature of open source software (hint: it's free).

I think few factors contributed to the much healthier open source environment that we have today.

The dev community got larger; companies started supporting open source by involving their talent in open source projects (think about React.js) and investing financial resources to make it sustainable. We also saw hundreds of conferences that celebrated open source success and connected communities worldwide.

How can companies and customers benefit from open source?

— I think companies benefit quite a lot from open source. When we talk about big companies with their projects, such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others, the benefits are obvious. They can run massive projects with the help of others, build a community around their product (think about VSCode), or easily attract talent passionate about working with them.

Smaller companies with limited resources also rely on open source to get their project to market much faster. Shipping MVPs with all open source frameworks and libraries got much faster and easier than running a company in the old days.

On the other hand, the end customer doesn't care about the tech stack behind the software they are using - all they care is about “jobs to be done”. Still, open source pushes the boundaries of available technologies, which helps with overall speed, user experience, and user satisfaction. So I'd say that everyone in the ecosystem benefits from open source quite a lot.

Is it true that open source applications are less prone to bugs and other issues?

— I think it depends from project to project. Larger projects with the bigger community around them tend to be used by many companies out there, so naturally, since more eyes are looking for bugs, there are fewer bugs in such projects. In small projects built by a single maintainer, it's expected to see more bugs, but the beauty of open source is that you can quickly fix them yourself, help the maintainer, and not rely on a 3rd party to do it for you.

To not make the picture one-sided, let's talk about the disadvantages of open source.

The community benefits quite a lot from open source, but a specific group of people expects everything to be served to them for free without investing any effort. In case of a bug, missing documentation, or required feature, you'll sometimes see lots of toxicity among certain members - they want a solution to their problem and treat open source like the product they bought - not something that community made for everyone. This toxicity puts a lot of pressure on project creators who want to make sure everyone has a great experience with the software they created.

Luckily those are just minority and with an overall fantastic community the general situation is much brighter.

Open-source was once thought to be less secure than proprietary products. However, numerous independent studies have shown that it’s now, on average, safer than its proprietary counterpart. What do you think about that?

— Again it's hard to come up with a general comparison, but one clear benefit of open source software is that code is available to everyone. More eyes will look for security flaws in projects with many users, and more developers would fix such issues.

If you start working on an open source project, you immediately make friends with the people involved in it. You can learn from them and exchange ideas.

Do you consider the Open Source Awards a good way to show appreciation for the community?

— Since I got involved with open source, I met many amazing people from around the world working on the same projects. At one point, I even flew to few countries to speak at their conferences, attend meetups and get to know them better.

You'll rarely find somebody with the same interests who lives across the street, but there's a high chance that somebody out there is super passionate about the same tech stack, open source project, and technology behind it - and you're just a few clicks away from collaborating with them on such ideas! I think that's one huge advantage of the internet and open source software in general.

Can you tell us a bit more about why you think open source workers need their own awards?

— There has never been a dedicated place in the community to see top-growing projects with strong future potential. We have GitHub's trending page, but it does not receive much love, so we thought there is enough space to create something new to celebrate open source success and the community behind it. We want to make contributors feel appreciated for their work and kindly thank them for all the hours they put in to make open source an awesome opportunity to learn and grow!

What would you recommend the JavaScript developers attending the JSNation Live Conference 2021? What should they pay attention to?

I would say to all participants to have a great time, connect with new people, make new friends, discover some fantastic new open source projects, or get inspired to create new ones themselves.

There isn't anything specific about making a project more successful at Open Source Awards. There is a very diverse set of projects, each with a unique approach that was nominated by the community in the months before the event. Considering the number of nominations we have each year, it's safe to say that everyone who made it to the finals is a winner!

About GitNation

GitNation is a foundation contributing to the development of the technological landscape by organizing events which focus on the open source software. We organize meaningful and entertaining JavaScript conferences and meetups, connecting talented engineers, researchers, and core teams of important libraries and technologies.

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.

Is attending remote JavaScript workshops worth it?

GitNation — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 09:39:03 +0000

If there's something that can get us through the times of coronavirus crisis, it's knowledge. Now's the right time to stock up on it.

There might not be a chance to meet JavaScript experts in person for some time but that doesn't mean you can't get a deeper knowledge of JS and its libraries at remote workshops. But you might be wondering – are they worth it? What makes them useful or unique?

On June 11-23, JSNation Live will be bringing multiple sessions for both JS newbies and hardcore fans this year, and if you join our multi-day JavaScript bootcamp, you'll skill up with the help of the best consultants there are.

We guarantee that you'll be getting a modern training course. Our instructors are 100% ready for remote collaboration, and most of them have previous experience with holding remote sessions. On top of that, we only organize small-sized groups for maximum attention to individual needs, and the sessions focus on practical exercises, so you'll learn by doing. You'll also get extra homework that will be be reviewed by instructors after the course.

We believe that remote can even bring more value than an in-person event – by allowing you to engage with our trainers from the comfort of your home or office. Our team is always on hand to answer your questions, should you have any.

Reserve a spot

If you are a developer

Whether you're looking for skills to help you level up at work, get a promotion, or make yourself more competitive on the job market, our full-day and 3-hour workshops taught by the industry experts are tailored to get you there. Skyrocketing JavaScript frameworks will make you a developer in demand. Release full potential of JS to discover new exciting career opportunities.

If you are a business owner

Investing just 8 hours into your employees' development can result in unexpected performance improvement. Let's say, 10 of your engineers attend a full-day workshop. In the next year, they will put in approximately 20,000 hours of work for your company. If after the workshop their performance improves by only 1%, your organization in return will gain 200 hours of work. Impressive outcome after one training day only.

Reserve a spot

Schedule

Broken Promises (June 11-12)

Matteo Collina & James M Snell | 🕐 8 hours

This workshop will help developers do the right thing with Promises. Through a series of hands-on exercises and puzzles, developers will learn the ins and outs of developing with Promises in Node.js, learning everything they should do, and most importantly what they shouldn't do, in order to maximize the effectiveness of their code and avoid common performance pitfalls.

From Zero to Real-world GraphQL APIs (June 15)

Alex Lobera | 🕐 8 hours

GraphQL is an excellent technology to model the data of a system and expose it in a very flexible way. It enables product engineers to build faster at scale by composing data requirements on the client and efficiently querying APIs. However, this new paradigm also brings new concerns and potential issues on the server-side. In this training, you will learn how to effectively create GraphQL APIs leveraging GraphQL advantages and avoiding common pitfalls.

Angular for Architects: Component Patterns (June 16-17)

John Papa | 🕐 8 hours

How do you follow the best practices and set yourself up to successfully maintain your application? Are you meeting your business requirements and considering architectural patterns? How do you load your app efficiently, provide optimal user experience, guard client-side navigation, and debug your components? This workshop builds on your Angular foundations, adding expert tips and techniques helping you scale your apps and become more productive.

Modern React (June 16-17)

Max Stoiber | 🕐 8 hours

After some years of silence, React team had recently landed a number of new additions to its library enabling application developers to optimize their code both for better performance and maintainability. Max will guide you through emerging patterns and show you by example how you can start applying the new best practices in your production apps.

Mastering Modern Web Development in VueJS (June 16-17)

Vladimir Novick | 🕐 8 hours

In this hands-on workshop, you will learn everything you need to build production level VueJS apps. After attending this training, you will feel confident not only to safely navigate the world of VueJS development, but to develop your own production grade VueJS apps.

TypeScript Workshop (June 22-23)

Tejas Kumar | 🕐 8 hours

TypeScript is taking the web platform by storm, mainly because it is so syntactically similar to JavaScript, but comes with powerful scalability features that create more robust products. In this workshop, you will examine an existing JavaScript codebase, port it over to TypeScript, and refactor parts of it to see the value TypeScript can provide.

Reserve a spot

🎂 Celebrate the 5th anniversary of React Summit Amsterdam

GitNation — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 09:18:31 +0000

Take part in the biggest React event in the world

When we started organizing React.js meetups in Amsterdam in 2015, we had no idea how big the technology would eventually become but we were sure of one thing – we were huge fans, and we wanted to dedicate our time to helping React become widely adopted. Five years later, we can finally say: Mission accomplished!

Over a couple of years, as React Amsterdam conference became one of our community events, we were surprised and delighted to see React pick up so much interest from independent open source devs as well as major international companies, and we were happy to lend a hand to speed up the process.

Together with React, both our team and the GitNation Foundation have grown to create many more industry-leading conferences in major European cities, along with meetups catering to the local communities of software developers.

However, React Amsterdam, which has in the meantime become the biggest React.js and React Native conference in the world, still remains our primary focus, and we're excited to celebrate its 5th anniversary this year under the new name React Summit. And you're invited to join in on all the fun! 🎉

The birthday party will be major – the event will attract 1500+ attendees in 2020, and both before and after the conference we're going to organize parties where you'll get to network with hundreds of fellow developers and enjoy lots of JavaScript-powered art and audiovisual performances.

Previous React Amsterdam conferences have featured stellar speakers from Facebook, Amazon, GitHub, Microsoft, and other important players on the market, and these companies have been supporting us in pursuing our goal — to give Open Source a human face. And the great thing is that you can meet them in person at React Summit and pick their brains.

And of course, we'll be serving a birthday cake! 🎂

Wondering how to RSVP to the event?

Reserve a spot

JSNation Now Offers a Speaker Mentorship Program for Underrepresented Folks

GitNation — Fri, 10 Jan 2020 13:21:30 +0000

When it comes to web development careers, not everybody gets the same start.

Our aim for JSNation 2020 is not only to create a great lineup that includes people from diverse backgrounds, but also to provide an environment where they would feel welcome. We would like to help these JS developers overcome obstacles and injustices they face along their way to breaking through and becoming well-known professionals in the industry.

That's why we decided to start a speaker mentorship program catering specifically to people from groups that are underrepresented in tech. That includes but is not limited to:

women
people of color
LGBT+ folks
people with disabilities

We would like to increase the visibility of the JavaScript developers belonging to these groups, and we would like to publicly appreciate their skills and experiences.

The mentorship program offers an opportunity to be a part of the conference and consult one's submission with an established professional from the field of JavaScript development, who will be assigned to the speaker by our committee based on a submitted talk proposal.

6 individuals will be selected for the program, and each will get to have 3 sessions with the mentor: in the first one, the mentee will present the talk in its originally proposed form, and in the second one, the mentee and the mentor will go though the talk step by step and discuss details, so that the two of them can improve the presentation together. In the final session, the mentee will present the talk to the mentor once again in its final form. These sessions will be held online.

So, ready to submit your application? Before doing so, please consider what kind of talk format you would prefer based on the following available slots:

2 regular talks - 30 min, no Q&A
2 lightning talks - 5-7 min, no Q&A
2 pre-conference meetup talks - 20-30 min, Q&A possible and the Meetup is usually held 1 day before the conference

Apply for the mentorship program

The JS pros that have confirmed their mentoring so far include Dora Kalneus, Andrey Okonetchnikov, Narendra Shetty, Robert Haritonov, and Denis Radin. We're still looking for extra people to join the team of mentors, so should you be interested in helping us, ping us at hi@jsnation.com.

JSNation is getting an upgrade – We're moving to a bigger venue

GitNation — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 08:43:03 +0000

People expect a lot from JSNation events – engaging talks, great ideas, opportunities to network – and we need a proper space that would fit all that.

After originally selecting another venue, we decided to go for an upgrade in 2020 – we're happy to announce that we'll be using the Kromhouthal, a former manufacturing hall turned into a trendy event venue, which you might know from our sister conference React Summit Amsterdam.

Our main motivation for the change is to have both the General track and the Node.js track under one roof this time, which wasn't possible at the original venue, and of course we need to have enough space for all the great people coming to the conference – 1000+ attendees, to be precise.

The Kromhouthal used to be a factory where ship engines were produced, and we'd like to continue this tradition in our own special way – on June 5, the top software engineers are going to gather at this venue to discuss their favorite JavaScript libraries, engines, and up-to-date industry standards.

On top of its rich history, the Kromhouthal is at the heart of the creative and bustling North Amsterdam area, and the place is massive but also very Instagram-friendly with its rough industrial interior, casual atmosphere, and scenic surroundings. As React Summit has proven multiple times, the venue is a great fit for a major JavaScript conference, and we'll be happy to prove that to our audience.

The Kromhouthal was built across the IJ channel from Amsterdam Centraal, so even though it's not directly downtown, the location is still very central and easily reachable. Moreover, there will be ferries to and from the Centraal station transporting our attendees, so you better get ready for all the fun you're going to have in Amsterdam!

Sounds good? Reserve a Regular spot and enjoy JSNation as an attendee

POLYOP: The Limitations of JS and WebGL Force Us to Be More Creative

GitNation — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 08:01:51 +0000

Polyop, a London-based band formed in 2015, has developed its own unique and unprecedented visual-audio experience that fuses nature with the machine

Jack Driscoll and Alex Kempton, Polyop’s band members, leverage the power of JavaScript and WebGL to the new imaginary heights, blending technology with visionary prowess of fiction, folklore, and myth to create immersive textures and geometries that mimic the world we live in yet break, and they question the reality for the sake of discovering and entering the unknown. Polyop is going to do an audiovisual performance at React Day Berlin, December 6, 2019.

Hello, Polyop, and welcome to the interview for the upcoming conference React Day Berlin, organized by GitNation. Please, tell us about yourself. What background are you coming from?

Alex: As a kid I had a lot of fun making Flash animations of stick-men fighting each other. After spending hours labouring over these frame-by-frame pieces, I needed somewhere to put them all, so I had to learn how to make my own website. That eventually led to a career in front-end web development. It was only in 2014 that I actually started tinkering with the fun stuff, canvas and WebGL, which is how all of the Polyop visuals are made.

Jack: I started out DJing as a teen, and then learnt to make electronic music using software a little bit later. It was mostly making dance music to begin with, but I also hung around with some musicians who were in a post-punk band and they needed someone to play the keyboard. I have continued on that path since, performing and releasing music with various alias or bands.

I should also mention that there’s not just the two of us, Harry Orso and Finlay Macaulay joined us later as we started to expand the group for live performance, and they have been contributing to the music and ideas since. Also, Frank Holčík, an excellent electronic wind instrument player, will be joining us for the next string of shows too.

What do you do apart from playing music? Do you have day-time jobs or is music your only aspiration and means of existence?

Jack: I work part-time as a technician at a university helping out students with their projects in the sound studio. The rest of the days are spent co-managing our label Nudibranch Records, and doing audio mixing and production work for other producers.

Alex: As well as making visuals, I like drawing pictures (with or without the aid of my drawing robot), juggling, bouldering and looking for bugs. For money, I work as a freelancer on WebGL and React projects.

Who and what inspired you to pursue a career in music?

Jack: My first music role models were my dad and uncle who were musicians in a Ska band called the Potato 5 in the eighties, and would play me old cassette tapes of their music, and lots of ska, reggae and dance music. Their dad was also a musician, he played the violin and piano, so there’s a bit of nature & nurture going on. Despite that, I really struggled with learning instruments as a kid (mostly because of Dyspraxia and a short attention span), but listened to a lot of music, and became aware of dance music and DJ’s at about 8 or 9 years old.

Around the late 90’s, groups like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, etc. were in the charts, and DJ culture had become huge, and I found it fascinating that music could be made with gadgets and computers, without needing to learn instruments the traditional way.

When I was a bit older, I started to learn more about the London underground music scene, pirate radio stations, raves. I was drawn to the attitude of it all - DIY, creative ways of putting on parties in weird spaces, the culture of sampling and sharing sounds, the economy of techy people building and modding music machines, creatives making music on them, and DJ’s playing the music to enthusiastic ravers over home-built sound systems.

What kind of music do you play and why? What’s behind the name, Polyop?

Jack: The music incorporates a lot of interests; techno, disco, electro, breakbeat, psychedelic-jazzm and acid. I have seen the term ‘genre-fluid’ being used recently, I like that, and I think it’s a testament to the times, people are a lot more open to more variety in electronic music now, now that everything's been uploaded and catalogued online, older music is bubbling up to the surface, and inspiring new generations.

Alex: The name is just a misspelling of the juvenile form of a jellyfish, a "polyp". We like the name because of the "poly" part. It just sounds a bit geometric I guess!

What/who has most influenced the work? What themes are you trying to uncover in your show?

Jack: We’re definitely both inspired by 90’s video games, that great time before they worked out what they were doing with 3D games and everything started became overpolished. For example, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and the Rare games like PerfectDark – their graphics left a lot to the imagination, but actually, I think the games were more immersive as a result, they were their own world, based on myths, folklore, and fiction, rather than trying to mimic the real world.

Alex: Interestingly, we’ve found that working with Javascript and WebGL has come with its own limitations (largely based around performance), which has forced us to be creative in ways we wouldn’t have tried otherwise. This has contributed to the show having a semi-retro style and has forced us to be more focused on the fundamentals, such as working with interesting textures and geometries to create weird characters and bizarre scenarios.

What are the most important ideas and concepts that you impart in your works?

Jack: The story revolves around a mysterious demi-god that wakes up from a deep sleep, and he has a run in with an alien clan called the Junkers. There’s a really powerful hallucinogenic substance (actually it’s the most powerful in the entire universe) and their leader, (who we have nicknamed him The Alchemist) is the only one who can manufacture it.

Why did you decide to accompany your music with visuals?

Alex: When we first started working together, we were just going to make a one-off "fun audiovisual web thingy" but somehow turned into a live band. It’s a nice symbiosis, the music is inspiring the visuals and that feeds back into the direction of the music. Having this process has really helped us form the strange world we’re trying to portray in the show.

What technologies do you use while creating visual accompaniments for your music tracks?

Alex: All of the visuals run in the open source app we're developing, Hedron. It's an Electron app, using React for the GUI and three.js for the visuals.

I started making visuals using JavaScript because that's what I knew best! The software was originally a bunch of separate pages running on a local PHP server (yep). I’d switch between Chrome tabs at parties when I wanted to change the effects! After a few more hacky iterations, I eventually felt the need to use something more sophisticated to create the GUI, and I chose React. I always intended to make Hedron open source, so working with libraries that are familiar to the rest of the world, rather than my own tangled system was important.

Using three.js has been really fun. The library is constantly improving and it’s exciting to be making use of new features that weren’t available to us a few years back. I often wonder if I should be using something more powerful such as Unity but the limitations also have their benefits, as it forces me to work in interesting ways.

Would you say your music offers a psychedelic experience?

Yes.

Which performances or recordings are you most proud of?

Alex: Probably the last gig we did, Null and Void at The Glove That Fits, in Hackney, London. It's a tiny little basement that we didn't expect to work well for the visuals but it actually turned out great. The energy from the crowd in that tiny space made for a very special experience for us!

Do you change your repertoire from season to season or do you have a set of tracks you play regularly?

Jack: This current show started as a storyboarding session two years ago, where we developed a narrative and some characters, and began to piece together acts and scenes. Once we had something we began thinking about what sort of music would work for each part. Every show is a barometer for the next, so the music has changed quite a bit over time, and it's dependent on the environment. Recently, the show has got faster, more ravey, more trippy, which reflects the spaces and parties with been playing in.

Do you plan to perform something special for React Day Berlin? What are you going to play?

Alex: Some of the alien characters have some new dance moves and we’ve generally been having fun with post-processing feedback stuff lately, to make the show as trippy and colourful as possible.

Jack: We’ve incorporated a new acid machine into the set-up this week, and Frank will be improvising on his EWI, so more improvised jazz synths and even more acid.

Reserve a spot at React Day Berlin

The interview was prepared with the assistance of Marina Vorontsova, a copywriter from Soshace.com. Soshace is a hiring platform for web developers: hire a developer or apply for a remote job.

About GitNation

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.

Devine Lu Linvega: I Have Been Living and Coding on a Sailboat Since 2016

GitNation — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 09:54:49 +0000

Devine Lu Linvega is a creative coder and builder of esoteric software, a vegan solar punk, polyglot, digital nomad, and a musician.

We talked to Devine Lu Linvega, who has been living and coding on a sailboat since 2016 by the misty coast of Japan and who has traveled almost twenty-nine thousand kilometers since then. In this interview with React Day Berlin, Devine shares their thoughts on music, nomadic lifestyle, and the goals they’ve been trying to accomplish with both code and creativity. Devine is going to do a livecoding performance at React Day Berlin, December 6, 2019.

Hello, Devine, and welcome to the interview with React Day Berlin. Please, introduce yourself.

My name is Devine and I build esoteric software. I was first interested in illustration and motion graphics, I later started writing music to complement these pictures, and finally, I began learning to implement interaction and turn these designs into games, websites, and tools.

What do you do apart from music?

I work at a small research studio aboard a sailboat, called Hundred Rabbits, where we do experiments in resilience and self-reliance using low-tech solutions. The ways in which I spend my time vary wildly from day to day, but I mostly focus on experimental research. My interests include alternative ways to store power and minimum viable solutions for technological tooling.

Who and what inspired you to make music?

I stumbled on the idea of writing my own music at a chiptune concert, I realized at that moment that I could write music with non-traditional and custom-made instruments. At the Gamma Festival in Montreal, Bubblyfish was the first performing chiptune act that I ever saw.

What kind of music do you make and why?

I tend to navigate the space between ambient and industrial music, I write starkly contrasted rhythmic music as I find it best to describe the environments visited in the songs. Most of the music I write as Aliceffekt is about a character's travels across the frigid scapes of this fictional world called the Neauismetica, on this foreign planet called Dinaisth.

On your Twitter profile picture, you have, what we believe, is a pictograph. Can you explain what it means and what it signifies for you?

I'm not entirely sure what it might have meant, but it appears to be a special rendition of the Japanese character for blue "青", found in the Shuowen Jiezi, the character dictionary written by Xu Shen, 100 CE. The Shuowen was the first character dictionary and was unique in that it offered explanations for character forms, this particular glyph has probably never been used outside of paleography.

While this character has no longer any meaning, I found it to be one of the most beautiful characters I had ever encountered. Additionally, the word "blue" has a special meaning in the stories from which my handle "neauoire" comes from.

What are the most important ideas and concepts that you impart in your music?

A lot of my work deal with foreignness and adaptiveness, some of the most romantic ideas that one will find in my work are that of explorers wandering the remains of a long extinguished civilization and trying to make sense of it.

What technologies do you use while creating visual accompaniments for your music tracks?

It varies, for livecoding shows especially, I don't have any visuals accompanying the show in order to put the coding at the forefront of the performance. Otherwise, I use audio-reactive tools like Ronin or Processing.

In web development, who are the people who have influenced your work the most?

I cannot think of anyone, but my approach aligns most with people who do without frameworks and write highly specific code.

Do you have any side projects apart from music? Can you, please explain the meaning and purpose of this wiki.xxiivv.com?

This type of website is often referred to as a memex, kind of archive and mirror of everything that I do, and everything that I learn. It's a living document that outlines where I've been, and a tool that advises where I am going.

You say that you live “aboard a sailboat, somewhere by the misty coast of Japan.” Is this a metaphor or do you really live on a sailboat? Why traveling is good for humanity?

I have indeed lived on a sailboat since 2016, the sailboat is called Pino. I found that traveling was a good catalyst for learning new languages, for developing an interest in foreign cultures and ultimately for building empathy, curiosity, and creativity, traits that we will need to foster, as a species, if we want to survive the years to come.

What are your short and long term goals? What’s behind your lifestyle, which you refer to as “vegan and solar punk.” Why does digital nomadism appeal to you?

My goals are:

See as much of the world as possible.
Learn as many languages as possible.
Facilitate the creation and acceleration of arts & sciences.
Minimize pain and suffering.

As for the nomadic life, I think it's a way to inject some impermanence in my life.

Why did you decide to journal your adventures? How does journaling help you in your daily life?

I find it a lot easier to make decisions when I had some information to back my choices. To learn more about journaling, I recommend reading what Marcus Aurelius has to say about it in Meditations.

Why do you want to learn Russian and Japanese, two seemingly unrelated languages both historically and culturally?

Learning languages that are as far removed as possible makes it easier to fill in the gaps afterward, for example, learning Russian taught me the Greek alphabet, but it also allowed me to understand some words in languages that exist within the triangle of Latin, Germanic and Slavic languages.

Back to music, which performances or recordings are you most proud of and why?

The Blip festival shows in Tokyo for the Ehrivevnv album. I think at the time, I had finally found my sound. It was "most" Aliceffekt.

Do you change your repertoire from season to season or do you have a set of tracks you play regularly?

I tend to write music for specific events that occur in the Neauismetica, and when I perform live, I pick moments that best fit with the other performers.

Do you have a favorite venue to perform? If yes, then what is it and why do you like?

I really like playing at the SAT in Montreal, or Koenji High in Tokyo.

Do you plan to perform something special for any of the React Day Berlin? What are you going to play?

I was thinking about Livecoding, so it would appeal to the crowd.

Reserve a spot at React Day Berlin

The interview was prepared with the assistance of Marina Vorontsova, a copywriter from Soshace.com. Soshace is a hiring platform for web developers: hire a developer or apply for a remote job.

About GitNation

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.

Elizabet Oliveira: As a Musician, I Made My Sites Myself. Web Development Was My Calling

GitNation — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 08:34:15 +0000

We talked to Elizabet Oliveira, a Senior Product Designer at Elastic, a lover of Open Source, an author of React Kawaii, and a passionate coder.

Elizabet Oliveira, previously a successful musician (she was the first solo hip-hop artist signing with a major label), has discovered her other calling. In this interview with React Advanced, she explains why she thinks coding and design are something she was always meant to do, shares her story about abandoning the music industry and getting her first OSS award. Elizabet gives a talk at React Day Berlin, December 6, 2019.

Hello Elizabet, and welcome to the interview with React Day Berlin! Where and what did you study?

I have a bachelor in Tourism. A course in Events management. Then I did some small development courses like mobile development. I also have a bachelor in Design and a Certificate in Data Visualization. I like to study! Design and coding -- because I like to create my own ideas. I don’t like to wait… I’m very impatient.

Can you, please, at least briefly, describe your previous work experience culminating in your current position, being a Senior Product Designer at Elastic?

I worked as a musician and in the music events industry. Then I worked as a WordPress developer. When the market evolved, I ended up working as a front-end developer. After a while, I realized that I liked to design things on my own, and I started working as a front-end developer/designer.

Soon I moved to Dublin and joined a Design team as a UI developer. In Dublin, I started working a lot with data and analytics. In my last job before joining Elastic, I was Senior UX Designer, but I was building a very complex product. I was doing the design, front-end, and backend. I ended up working with ElasticSearch and Kibana (Elastic products), and it made my life so much easier. At some point I wanted to move back to Lisbon and Elastic was searching for a Senior Product Designer, a very specific type of designer, one who’s keen on open source and likes to build UI with React. I felt that the job was made for me and I applied.

Now you’re working remotely. Do you think freelancing is for you? What challenges do you face on a daily basis while working remotely?

I’m not actually a freelancer. I just work for Elastic but remotely. I worked remotely before, so I knew the challenge was to have a discipline. I’m not a morning person, and I have to force myself to wake up not that late and leave my house! Ultimately, I want to join a coworking space.

What are your favorite technologies?

I love React, framer motion, figma, styled components.

What OSS projects have you contributed to or created?

I created a project called React Kawaii. I work on a daily basis for Kibana and Elastic UI, both are open source projects. Sometimes I contribute to other projects as well.

Do you have any new projects in the works?

I have a music / tech-related project that I want to release soon.

Why did you decide to abandon your music career?

When I became popular, I was not prepared for fame. No one prepares you for that. I signed with Universal Music, and suddenly, I was the first female rapper signing with a major label. My music was played on television, PlayStation, and so on. I started receiving a lot of criticism: that I was not a real rapper, that I was too skinny, or I was this and that. I also started having haters releasing rap tracks aimed against me. In hip-hop, they call these “beefs”. I never answered one. So I guess people labeled me as weak.

Labels, managers, and the music industry don’t teach you how to deal with this. I became depressed. I was living “at night,” drank too much. Then the economic crisis hit Portugal, and I started having fewer and fewer shows. I was also managing events on the side, and they, too, became unprofitable. My musician friends all had the same problems. The older musicians kept renting rooms without having anything of their own. And I didn’t want that to myself.

Deep down I knew there was still time for me to pursue a different path. At one of the events, my colleague mentioned that she thought I was really skilled at making websites. I never thought of that. But then, I realized that throughout my music career, I kept making sites and posters myself. Maybe that was my calling? I stayed at home for a while compiling my portfolio, which I later sent to a company. And days later, they hired me.

Why do you describe yourself as “not an artist”?

When I describe myself as “not an artist,” I refer to a music show business artist. I think design and coding can be art. But I don’t like to be in the spotlight.

Do you have any other hobbies besides music?

I guess all my hobbies are related to music. I like to play the guitar. Sometimes I produce instrumentals. Sometimes I record raps and share with close friends. I help some friends producing music and doing lyrics.

Are you excited about the upcoming conference in Berlin? What are you going to talk about and what are your expectations from the event?

Yes, I am definitely excited. I’m going to talk about exploring audio with SVGs and React. I have one rap in English that I would love to perform. I expect to meet a lot of new people, inspire others, and get inspired myself.

Reserve a spot at React Day Berlin

The interview was prepared with the assistance of Marina Vorontsova, a copywriter from Soshace.com. Soshace is a hiring platform for web developers: hire a developer or apply for a remote job.

About GitNation

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.

React Amsterdam Conference is now React Summit

GitNation — Tue, 15 Oct 2019 08:05:29 +0000

React Amsterdam has been around for what seems like ages. In 2015, we began with organizing small local Meetups right when React was originally published, and we were dedicated to pioneering the technology. As time went on, we put together our first conference in 2016, and we decided to use the original name of these Meetups to highlight the conf's community character.

However, it's been almost 5 years since we first started, and just like the amount of work we put in our events, the React Amsterdam crowd itself has grown significantly. It has grown so much, in fact, that we've become the biggest React conference in the world.

That's why in order to celebrate our 5th anniversary next year, we decided it's time for a change, or rather, an improvement. Our name needs to grow with us, and since React Amsterdam became the #1 offline platform for React developers, we want to serve the community better and more openly.

So… say hello to React Summit!

We would like to present the event specifically as a summit because our audience is composed of core contributors, OSS authors, and many community leaders, and they gather for almost a week-long festival in Amsterdam. React Summit is and will be the place where you can meet the most people you follow online as a React dev.

We also came up with our new identity to avoid confusion with our future local activities, but no worries, the Amsterdam scene is here to stay and we'll do our best to include it in our global ambitions.

As for React Summit 2020, the great content, the international pros, the abundant networking opportunities, and all the entertainment of React Amsterdam are going to stay. We are definitely going to keep Kromhouthal, our beloved Amsterdam venue, for our 2020 edition, and you can expect the full experience with React ferries and amazing afterparties you've grown to love.

Sounds good?

We hope we get to see you at React Summit on April 15-18, 2020!

About GitNation

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.

Olga Petrova: I Can’t Wait to Meet More Passionate Developers at React Advanced

GitNation — Wed, 09 Oct 2019 09:36:30 +0000

We talked to Olga Petrova, a Sales Engineer and Developer Advocate at Sencha, a public speaker who’s passionate about JavaScript and React

Olga Petrova has been in the web development business for 15 years. Originally from Russia, she moved to Germany and now works for Sencha, a company producing a JavaScript framework Ext JS and component libraries for React and Angular. In this interview, she talks about her role as a Sales Engineer, the biggest challenges she faced while working with React at Sencha, and recommends a few books for passionate developers. Olga gives a talk at React Advanced in London, Oct 25.

Hello Olga, and welcome to the interview with React Advanced! Please, introduce yourself.

Hi! First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me to speak at React Advanced. I have been working as a web developer for 14 years. I started working as a desktop developer about 15 years ago when I was still at the university, and shortly after, I have switched to web development. At that time, the web just began to look as “the right way to go” for enterprises. And I was passionate about building large enterprise web apps.

Can you, please briefly describe your previous work experience culminating in your current position?

I am currently working as a sales engineer and developer advocate at Sencha, a company producing a JavaScript framework Ext JS and component libraries for React and Angular. Before joining Sencha, I had been working with Ext JS for 9 years and developed a lot of extensions and custom UI components for it.

How did you emigrate from Russia?

I developed several UI components for a company from Germany while working remotely from my home town. After that, they have asked me to move to Munich and work for them full time.

What do you currently do at Sencha?

I am working with Sencha customers, present Sencha’s products, run demos, trainings, workshops, webinars, develop POC and sample applications, make video courses, everything that customers might need to successfully learn and use our libraries. On the other hand, I collect customer’s requirements, suggestions, ideas and forward them to product managers and engineering teams.

What’s your favorite technology stack and why? What has been your biggest challenge with React so far?

React is definitely my second favorite library after Ext JS :) When React team has introduced Fiber, that was the biggest challenge for us because we needed to completely re-write the core of ExtReact - our component library for React.

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Who are your role models and mentors?

I have never thought about this. But when I just started working as a software developer I liked to read books from Martin Fowler.

What are your favorite industry websites, books, or blogs?

I can definitely recommend Design Patterns by Gang of Four, Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture and Refactoring by Martin Fowler.

How would you finish the sentence: Successful female developers should ... ?

Write a clean code :)

Do you have any hobbies? What are they?

Yes, I like rock climbing, hiking, snowboarding, and sailing.

Are you excited about the upcoming conference in London? What are you going to talk about and what are your expectations from the event?

Sure, I am going to talk about “Visual feature engineering for Machine Learning with React”. I think it will be an awesome opportunity to meet a lot of passionate developers.

Reserve a spot at React Advanced Conference in London, Oct 25.*

The interview was prepared with the assistance of Marina Vorontsova, a copywriter from Soshace.com. Soshace is a hiring platform for web developers: hire a developer or apply for a remote job.

About GitNation

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.

Kurt Kemple: I Get the Most Joy out of Helping Other Devs Be Successful

GitNation — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 12:13:16 +0000

We talked to Kurt Kemple, a Senior Developer Advocate at AWS, co-host of Fullstack Health podcast, and a passionate GraphQL enthusiast

Kurt Kemple has been through a lot: he didn’t finish any school, became a teenage drug addict, and soon found himself incarcerated. But it’s exactly in prison, where Kurt discovered programming and realized it was something he always wanted to do. Web development saved Kurt’s life: he started a family, got a job, and deep-dived into React and React Native. Before joining AWS, he’d built out the UI team at Major League Soccer, and now works at developer relations helping other devs succeed in their careers. In this interview with React Day Berlin, Kurt talks about his hardships and passions, as well as reiterates the importance of spreading mental health awareness in the developer community. Kurt gives a talk at React Day Berlin, December 6, 2019.

Hello Kurt, and welcome to the interview with React Day Berlin! Please, share your story. Why programming?

I discovered coding when I was in prison – as part of a 4-week intro to web development class – and I self-taught from then on. I instantly fell in love with it and knew it was what I wanted to do for a living. As far as why mobile and web development, I was really drawn to building things for the web because of the feedback loop. I loved being able to make changes in my text editor and seeing it update in the browser or on the device near instantly. I’ve always been a builder.

Can you, please, at least briefly, describe your previous work experience culminating in your current position working at Developer Relations in AWS?

I started out almost 9 years ago doing mobile development for the web when it wasn’t really being done yet, using jQuery mobile and other custom frameworks to build small microsites. I remember a time when media queries weren’t supported. I then moved on to doing e-commerce and larger content sites for an agency. After doing that for about a year, I decided I wanted to work on a product. I then hopped around a bit before landing at Major League Soccer where I dove deep into React, React Native, and GraphQL. After my tenure there, I was into GatsbyJS for a bit, but the timing was off, and I didn’t stick around long. That’s when I ended up at AWS.

What do you do now? What does the position of a DevRel manager imply?

I’m not actually a manager at AWS either, just a senior dev advocate. I’d love to tell you what that is like though! A lot of what people think that being a dev advocate is about traveling around, giving talks, and writing blog posts, or making tutorial videos. The truth is, that’s one of the least important parts of my job. I spend a lot of time listening to developers and gathering feedback about the products I advocate for and bring that info back to the product teams to make sure we’re building what customers (developers) really need.

What’s your favorite technology stack? What’s behind your passion for GraphQL?

I honestly don’t have a favorite stack! I tend to just use the tool I feel I can do the best work with! In most cases, that is currently React / React Native but could change at any time. I don’t really consider GraphQL as part of a stack since it’s actually a spec and not a particular language or framework, but I would love to tell you why I’m so passionate about it. GraphQL provides an abstraction that is both beneficial to the clients and the backend services backing them. From the client perspective, the DSL (domain-specific language) that GraphQL provides makes it very easy to reason about what data is available and how to get it. It also does the work of aggregating data sources and removes that cognitive load from the developer.

From the backend perspective, with GraphQL, you get a lot of nice features that you normally have to build into your API yourself. Things like filtering, related entities included in response, limiting returned data, aggregation of data sources, granular authentication and authorization, the list goes on.

What’s your involvement in Open Source? What projects have you contributed to or created?

I contribute to open source when possible, it gets pretty hard with two small kids and a full-time job though. Most of my contributions come in the form of PRs to existing projects. I have a few OSS projects of my own too.

kkemple / graphql-auth

🔒 GraphQL authentication and authorization middleware

GraphQL Auth

🔒 Authentication and authorization middleware for GraphQL.

graphql-auth is a very simple middleware that easily integrates with any GraphQL server that follows the GraphQL API for resolvers.

Getting Started

How It Works

graphql-auth exports a single function (middleware) withAuth. This function takes two parameters, the first is scope (if any) for authorization, and the second is the callback to call when auth checking is complete. Let's look at an example:

import withAuth from 'graphql-auth';
const resolvers = {
  Query: {
    users: withAuth(['users:view'], (root, args, context) => { ... }),
    ...
  }
}

The way this works is withAuth looks for a special auth property on the context of the resolver. It expects the auth property to have two properties of its own:

isAuthenticated to tell if the user is logged in
scope scope…

View on GitHub

kkemple / react-native-sideswipe

Simple React Native carousel with sensible defaults

Sideswipe

A simple, cross-platform React Native swipeable carousel with sensible defaults

Looking for maintainers!!

DM me on Twitter!

Why Another Carousel?

Most solutions I found were very focused on mobile and adopt a paging pattern which limits what you can do on tablet and when you want the child to page when its smaller than the viewport.

On top of that most solutions were either one-size-fits-all or not really polished.

What Makes Your Solution So Special?

Nothing. It's just a tiny simple carousel with a pretty flexible API. If you need more check out another solution, if you need less you might not need a carousel because this whole thing is ~200 lines. 😎

API

`<Carousel />`

Carousel component used to render carousel items via renderItem prop.

type CarouselProps = {
  // applied to the content container within FlatList
  // |------------ [ style ]--------------------------|
  // | |---------- [ flatListStyle ]

…

View on GitHub

Describe a few projects you’re most proud of…

I don’t have many that I’m really proud of. I don’t really get joy from creating them. I get the most joy out of helping other devs be successful. Mentoring and teaching are my real passions and the thing I’m most proud of in my career in tech is building out the UI team at Major League Soccer.

Do you have any new projects in the works?

I’ve been working on a React Native app to help developer advocates track and manage their events. It’s called Avocado, and I’ll be releasing it next week!

What do you blog about on Medium?

I’ve actually left Medium due to the paywall and now post to Dev.to. I mainly talk about technology like serverless, React, React Native, and GraphQL (and AWS of course), but I also write about my issues with drug addiction, depression, and mental health.

Why do you feel or describe yourself as an impostor while being a successful full stack developer? Do you have any advice to others on how to combat the syndrome?

I don’t feel like an impostor any more! It wasn’t really tech related either, but more about having to alter my past due to my previous incarceration. However, with that said, I definitely did suffer from impostor syndrome in the first few years of my career. My biggest piece of advice is to remember what while there will be people who know more than you about certain subjects, 1) it’s normal because they’ve done it for YEARS, so you will get there too, 2) it’s highly unlikely that they are like that about every subject. You start to see people have specializations that they are super knowledgeable about, but in other areas, they aren’t nearly as knowledgeable.

Why do you think it’s important to talk about mental health in the developer community?

Mental health is a part of the health spectrum like any other. It seems weird to be able to talk about diet, fitness, stress management, work/life balance, but when it comes to diseases or issues of the mind most people react negatively to it. A lot of that is cultural, and, historically speaking, having a mental illness was seen as very negative. But we don’t look at people negatively for having cancer or diabetes, and it should be the same with issues of the brain.

Why did you decide to make your own podcast Fullstack Health?

I saw a hole that needed to be filled and so I’m trying to fill it with my co-host Amberley Romo. Fullstack Health is about the intersection of health and technology and it covers all aspects of health, from mental and physical to spiritual. We often see a focus on a particular aspect of health but the truth is, if you focus on one and leave the rest, you’re probably not as well as you can be.

What would you consider to be the three most significant accomplishments in your life?

Overcoming drug addiction
Turning my life around post-incarceration
Starting a family

Do you have any hobbies? What are they?

I have a few! The two that come to mind are CrossFit and longboarding. CrossFit is a style of fitness that tests you across a wide range of time and modality domains. This really means how well your body can perform at many different intensities and for many different time domains while doing many different types of movements. Things like Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, plyometrics, and endurance training. The goal is to be able to perform adequately no matter what is thrown at you. I picked it up after I started to get tired while playing with my kids. I want to be able to be active with them for as long as possible.

My other hobby is longboarding. I just love the feeling of cruising down the street carving and feeling the breeze. I’ve skated since I was a kid but lost the taste for the more technical aspects of skateboarding.

Are you excited about the upcoming conference in Berlin? What are you going to talk about and what are your expectations from the event?

Yeah! Can. Not. Wait. I’m excited to be talking about how serverless technologies are pushing mobile and web development forward and making it possible to build production-ready apps without having to be an expert in things like DevOps. I’ll be showcasing that app, Avocado, I mentioned earlier and walking the audience through how I was able to take it from idea to app store in 4 weeks!

Reserve a spot at React Day Berlin

The interview was prepared with the assistance of Marina Vorontsova, a copywriter from Soshace.com. Soshace is a hiring platform for web developers: hire a developer or apply for a remote job.

About GitNation

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.

Nik Graf: How to Learn Something New? Plan to Teach It!

GitNation — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 06:52:24 +0000

We talked to Nik Graf, a freelance web developer passionate about GraphQL and ReasonML, a co-creator of DraftJS Plugins, and an organizer of the very first ReasonConf in Vienna.

Nik Graf is a freelancer living in Vienna, an avid open-source contributor, teacher of several web development courses on egghead.io, and an organizer of ReasonConf, the latest edition of which takes place this October in the US. In this interview with React Advanced, Nik shares his passion for GraphQL and ReasonML and opines on the challenges of organizing web development conferences and meetups. Nik gives a talk and teaches a workshop at React Advanced in London, Oct 24-25.

Hello Nik, and welcome to the interview with React Advanced! How did you end up in web development?

I wanted to become an industrial designer and study it at the university of applied arts but didn’t finish my application on time. Back then I thought a semester of computer science wouldn’t do any harm. Once I built my first program I was hooked and decided to go with computer science.

What do you do now and what interesting projects do you have in the works?

I’m a freelancer/consultant helping various teams with a strong focus on React and GraphQL. In addition to that, I organize ReasonConf and co-founded the Reason Association.

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Describe the conferences/meetups you’re organizing. Why did you decide to organize events around React and ReasonML?

I’ve been organizing the ReactVienna meetup for over three years. This was always a lot of fun, and we have a good mix of locals and international speakers. I never wanted to create a React conference as there are already plenty in Europe, but doing the very first Reason conference and getting a lot of great minds to Vienna was intriguing enough to do it.

What’s your involvement in open source?

In the past, I have worked on various software like Belle, DraftJS Plugins, Polished, Serverless, Reason Docs, and many others. Recently I have been focusing more on producing video lessons and spent less time contributing to open-source projects.

What’s behind your passion for ReasonML and OCaml? Why not TypeScript or any other statically typed language?

What I enjoy most when using Reason is that a lot of my code is fully typed without writing any type just by leveraging type inference. It’s less work, but still having all the benefits of full type coverage. That said, I think TypeScript or even Flow is a totally valid choice. Which one is the best option really depends on your team, the requirements, and where you want to go.

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Do you think React as a technology is deemed to supersede Vue and Angular?

I don’t know. I haven’t used Angular in years and never really used Vue beyond a simple example.

In your opinion, what’s the most challenging part of organizing web development conferences?

For me, it’s just the fact that there are always some unknowns you can’t prepare for, and because everything is happening live with hundreds of people in the room, you have to make good decisions on the spot.

You have produced plenty of video courses on Egghead.io. What do you enjoy about teaching?

To me teaching is one of the best ways to deeply explore a topic. It forces me to really go deep to find the best examples and explanations to transfer the knowledge.

Also in my day-to-day, I enjoy pair programming with less-experienced engineers, because it forces you to constantly explain concepts you already might have taken for granted. And the best part of it is when someone new to the field comes up with a fantastic idea you couldn't even think of.

Do you have any hobbies? What are they?

I enjoy being in the mountains. So every winter I try to do as much skiing as possible.

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Are you excited about the upcoming conference in London? What are you going to talk about and what are your expectations from the event?

When I'm not about to release something new, I usually struggle to find a topic I'm happy to talk about. My goal is to talk about something most people yet haven't heard or thought of.

For React Advanced I chose to talk about designing GraphQL schemas. GraphQL is becoming quite popular and but there are many gotchas you learn maintaining a GraphQL schema over time.

Reserve a spot at React Advanced Conference

The interview was prepared with the assistance of Marina Vorontsova, a copywriter from Soshace.com. Soshace is a hiring platform for web developers: hire a developer or apply for a remote job.

About GitNation

Besides offering single conference tickets, the organization also sells a GitNation Multipass providing discounted access to multiple remote JavaScript conferences and workshops.