A Vue at Michael Thiessen

Hey Everybody, welcome back to DejaVue.

It's your favorite Vue podcast. You just don't know it yet.

Exactly. And on the microphones, as, almost all the time here, I'm with my wonderful co host, Michael Thiesen. Michael, how are you today?

I'm doing pretty good. How about you?

Yeah. I'm, I'm fine too. Can't complain. And, well, we always say, okay, we're Michael and Alex and talk about our names, maybe sometimes roughly what we're doing, but we were wondering, okay. The audience out there, maybe especially people who don't follow us for a long time or maybe especially those people, they don't know what we're necessarily doing day to day and, well, not that much about us.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We're gonna take couple episodes to indulge in talking about ourselves, and, hopefully, it's interesting.

Oh, more than sure. I I

I'm interested to hear more about about you because I feel like we've been, you know, chatting every week, and I know, like, some snippets of of what you've done, but, like, not really a whole lot. And, I recall at VueConf Toronto, you were talking with someone about how you got into this, and I was overhearing part of the conversation. I was thinking, you know, this is interesting. I don't I don't know that much about you, and it feels weird that I don't. So I think this is a a good chance to fix that.

100%. I mean, it's also like that vice versa. Right? Like, we have some tiny tidbits here and there throughout the episodes, but now we're just, like, put all the puzzle pieces together and get, all of that in that. And, of course, as usual, if you have any questions, then drop them in the comments on social media.

Yeah. So right now, for the past almost three years now, I've been self employed. I've been doing content creation and stuff in the Vue and Nuxt ecosystem during that time. I guess the correct term might be influencer, although I hate that term. But I do all those sorts of things.

Interesting. I mean yeah. Lots of people probably knew you from all the amazing said blog post out there in general, the content. And you focused a lot on written content, of course, besides podcast and some streams and, of course, some recorded talks from conferences or online conferences. So why did you decide to use the writing medium like a blog post, first of all, and didn't go, like, I don't know, full into into video at first place or some kind of kind of forms of content?

Yeah. It's a really interesting question. And I started in at the end of twenty eighteen writing on a blog in, about Vue. And the reason I chose to write is because I was just more comfortable writing and being in front of the camera

Mhmm.

Was very difficult for me. And even just talking, maybe it sounds weird, although I'm I'm sure there are some of you that can relate in that conversation as a skill is something that's took me a while to figure out, and I'm still getting better at it. But also, like, not a conversation with friends and family. That's like a more natural setting where it's easy to, you know, chatting with people at a conference one on one. But, like, as soon as you get in front of the camera and you're like, okay.

I mean, that's how you learn. Right? It's like in practice. No nobody, like Exactly. Nobody was born of, like, hey. I stand in front of a camera. I can just do everything straight away. That's all, like, sure. Here here there is a bit of talent, but practice is outnumbering it anyway. I also think one one important part as someone who is creating videos regularly, right, is that a blog post, I I also did it around 2018, finally, as well, about, a bit of Vue and Nuxt still.

Yeah. I feel like I've I've been very bad at my whole writing and, like, contact creation process, which is something I'm trying to get better at, like, putting more stuff out more consistently, which is something that I've I've liked with this podcast that we have, like, a week weekly time where we get together and we hit record, and so then it's, like, we're always putting stuff out. But, generally, I have, like, a bunch of ideas. I kind of keep track of ideas, but oftentimes, I just sit down and I think of something. And I think lots of people struggle with, like, this whole blank page thing where you're like, where do you even start?

I also think it's really helpful to just imagine, okay, what's what do I actually wanna write about. Right? Like, just even if you scratch half of the bullet points afterwards or 99% just have one left, like, write down what you what comes to your mind, and then, in a way, see what sticks, see what how you connect things in a way. Mhmm. So you you had that blog as you said in 2018, and now you are, for a couple years, as you said already, basically full time freelance content creator, educator, influencer.

Yeah. It's a really difficult process. And I think for most people, the stories that I've heard at least, it it can be challenging to make that jump unless you are someone who has, like you know, you start working on a YouTube channel and it, like, blows up, then it's like, okay. You're raking in the money over here. It's easier to switch.

Was where where Adam Wathan was there. Right? He was also there?

Yeah. It's 2019. I'm not sure if he's at 2018. Bunch of people were at that one. And I remember looking at the Google Analytics app on my phone and being like, woah. I had 30 people come to my website today, like

Nice.

Just out of nothing, out of nowhere, 30 people came, and it was just like, that's insane. And so every month, I just I was focused on publishing an article every week, and that's all that I was doing. Just an hour before work, I would work on writing. Not every day I was able to do that.

Okay. Yeah.

And so that's that's the one that a fifth of all my Google traffic, which is kinda wild. And I wrote it, like, seven years ago. Anyway, you have a question like that, and there's, like, five different answers. One of them is the most correct answer, but then there are four things that are, like, sort of correct or useful in some other ways. Maybe some people have comments on there that are like, oh, yeah.

So, like, a more holistic view on a problem. So, like, hey. Here's the general way to do it, but there's some edge cases. And keep in mind that, oh, in this case, maybe you should try that first and yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. And, like, explaining why it works. And so it's just, like, basically a better version of the Stack Overflow thing. So that's Mhmm. I mean, some of the articles I wrote were other things that I just came up with, but that's the main thing. So, eventually, I got lots of traffic by doing this, and then I decided, well, okay. I've kinda figured this thing out. Now I need to start building an email list. So then I started to do that.

Difficult Balance, yeah. Yeah. And you did all that while still having a day job as a developer. Yeah. Then okay. Is that, like, roughly one one one and a half years after starting to write, then you thought, okay. We'll do the course.

The the course I created was called Clean Components. I asked my my email list. I gave I did a little survey to ask them, like, what kind of topic would you be interested in, and I came up with a few options that I was interested in myself. And this one was the most popular one, so I went with that. And it was sort of, like, inspired by the Clean Code book, which recently has gotten a bit more, a lot of hot takes on this one, lots of opinions on whether it's good or not.

I see.

Okay. Because my brain was, like, the whole time I'd be working on it, and and I was thinking, you know what? No one actually cares. Why would anyone ever want this? What am I like, who am I to say anything about this?

So classic imposter syndrome, basically. Yeah.

Yes. But, like, so intense that that it was like, I had to give myself, like, a full therapy session before I could get, like, even twenty minutes of work done on this thing, which is it's kind of crazy. And, you know, thankfully, I've you know, through doing this over and over again and seeing that people actually do enjoy what I put out, they do get value from it. That has gone away, and I don't feel that in the same in the same way anymore.

Yeah. Because you I mean, it also got the validation. People bought your courses more and more people. I mean, you have, like, I don't know, more than 10 k newsletter subscribers at the moment. I think even, like, at the moment. I think even, like, 11 or 12 or so. Don't know the exact number.

Yeah. Almost 14,000.

Almost 14. Yeah. See. That was a little bit outdated there. And and, I mean, people appreciate what what you do. Right? Be it, the the podcast, be it, all the pieces of information you share, be it paid courses or or free blog posts. So I think in a way that's, let's say, quote, unquote, easiest way to, like, let's say, defeat imposter syndrome that people are like, okay. Look. You get all these nice things, like, people coming up at conferences telling you, hey.

Yeah. It is.

Focused on a negative thing.

Skipped it somehow and just went to that last it's like the wildest thing. So

Which is also, like, in a way, it's confirmation bias of, like, if you have the imposter syndrome, people saying a lot of good things, it's something negative. Like, hey. Then something negative confirms my opinion that

Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. But I I think, yeah, it's it's super important to give feedback on all kinds of as long as it's constructive or positive. Ideally, like, if you have constructive criticism, I think it's super important to to grow from that. So please keep that coming, especially, I think, in a state where two of us are right now.

And I did hear some, there's some, like, psychological research that if you're a beginner at something, feedback is actually not helpful. It's only once you're, like, more experienced that feedback is actually helpful because you can actually incorporate it. And in the beginning, feedback can only hurt you, and I think that's probably true that, like, at the beginning, just like don't need to have comments on your website. You don't need to No. Do any of that.

I I think the key part of the beginning is what you already mentioned earlier on is consistency. And it doesn't mean you have to do it every week of the year. But if you miss out a week, nothing will happen. Yeah. Like, if you don't, like, push out some kind of content once in a week, nobody will think, oh my god, whatever, or, like, we'll forget you.

Yeah. A few years ago, I specifically took a few months. I forget how long it was. Maybe one or two months or three months where I just didn't send anything on my newsletter because I kinda wanted to prove to myself that I didn't need to send stuff every week, and I did that and nothing happened. And it's like, no one said, oh, where where is your emails?

Yeah. Like, oh, I missed him.

Moved on with their lives. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. People have so much else going on in their lives. Like, it's it. That's true. So

No. And it's it's very funny. I also heard it in another podcast funny where someone, was basically saying, like, oh, yeah. Always doing over hours. And he he basically did the same what you did with, like, a policy. He said, like, okay. You know what? For a month, I'll just leave the office always at six no matter what. 6PM, and I'm gone or five or whatever. And nothing happened.

That's a that's also I think I I approach work and my working hours maybe differently than some people do. A number of years ago, I read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport. And maybe it wasn't that book specifically, but there's some ideas around there of, like, okay. Like, their studies, how good they are, I don't know, but of people in office. And if you look at how much time they actually spend being productive, it's, like, two to three hours a day out of, like, their eight hour time at the office.

work wise. Yeah. Like, meetings are still work, but, of course, you don't get, like, actual features features shipped there.

Yeah. Exactly. And, yeah, of course, like, meetings and communicating with your teammates and, like, having good relationships with them, that's all important stuff. And so, basically, I started to think more about my work in terms of, like, the actual focused time I spend doing stuff. And I got to a point where I could do, like, maybe three or four in a day on top of, like, meetings and, you know, all the other stuff with yeah.

Interesting. But then, like, your let's say what does, like, an average day look like? If you said, like, you have these, like, three, four core focus hyper laser focus hours of, like, okay. I'll I'll do proper qualitative work there. No phone, no social media, no, I don't know, emails and whatnot.

Yeah. Yeah. So these days, the schedule's roughly, like, wake up around seven ish. And then right now, we have it set up that I'm doing breakfast with my daughter. So I'll get that ready for her and breakfast for myself. And then try to fit in time to also take my dog for a walk in the morning because she needs that.

One more thing. Yeah.

And and also I need, like, to get outside and a little bit of sunlight in the morning and stuff like that. So then maybe I get to work around 08:30 or nine depending on how smoothly things go. And then from 08:30 to noon is basically my time to get work done. And then on Tuesdays, me and you will record our podcast from, like, 10:10 to noon. I definitely consider that part of, like, the focus time because, you know, I'm not checking things or getting distracted.

That's true.

So I usually I usually do, like, email and, you know, if I gotta do some customer support or do some taxes or, like, other, like, random little tasks that don't require, like, a lot of concentration but still needs to get done, Those are the things that I'll do in the afternoon then.

Interesting. Yeah. But it sounds I mean, kind of like a normal, quote, unquote, work day of, like, okay. You have you have your focus hours. You have things to do. Obviously, you fill your afternoon with, like, more, let's say, casual, quote, unquote tasks, which are also still important. I mean,

you have

to run a business after all. Now Yeah. One one thing that just came to my mind about the the previous part where we talked about your transition. I mean, it kinda goes into that now when you're like, okay. How is your day looking as a full time content creator?

Yeah. So it's, it's difficult. I'll just say that again because it's I spent probably, I don't know, like, two or three years leading up to that. Just always constantly thinking about, okay. How could I make this jump?

Mhmm. Yeah. For a reason.

So building that up and also building up my email list and seeing, like, okay. My course launches and things like that are doing better. And I think that if I continue to do this, then there's a good chance that I'll be able to make it work. And then there's, you know, backup plans like, oh, I could do freelancing or writing articles for other blogs or, you know, stuff like

that. Nice. So, yeah, basically, okay, having some savings and then at a feeling where, like, okay, there's enough people on the list is just like let's say projection rule of thumb wise that could work out, basically.

It was really like a feelings based kind of thing. I think I was really trying to figure out, like, is there a way that I can know that this is gonna work? And maybe maybe that's part of my personality as well of, like, you know, I

We lose money.

Produce and and do this. And so it's like, okay. Is this worth all the time and money that we're putting into it beyond just, like, talking to cool people? And so we have to kind of just go with our gut at some point and hope that it works and and and go from there. And that's part of why we needed the the cash because it's like, if you have if you have some money in the bank account, then it's okay.

Yeah. Like, in a couple months or so. It's like one, two months, like, okay. Then at least the Yeah. The cash flow is is going again. Yeah. No. It makes sense. Yeah. But, yeah, as you mentioned, like, you have always uncertainty.

Yeah. It it took me a while to find my way into software development. So I think there's, like, a lot of stories of people who are, like, coding at age of three and, you know, maybe not that young, but, like, it was like, okay. Okay. It's pretty obvious that this is what you're gonna do with your life.

Oh.

So this is like this is like a local university, so it's not, like, you know, ultra competitive or anything.

It's not Harvard. Sure. But still, I mean, they probably had some open slots, but, I don't know how it works in in Canada. Like, in Germany, for example, you had to, like, have at least a certain, result in your final exams and all that. So it's, it's depending on what you wanna study, you know, not that's not that easy as well.

Yeah. So I was lucky my grades were good enough. The whole process is kind of hazy because it just happened so fast, I think.

It's also been a little bit. It wasn't like last year, so yeah.

Yeah. True. And so I started in business. When I was in grade 12, I got super excited about business and like, I'm gonna start a business. I'm gonna the next startup, that's gonna be me. And so then I started this and like two weeks in, I was like, okay, Business is not for me. I hate this. And I don't know how other universities do this, obviously, but so I had to take, like, economics, and I also had to take I think it was calculus, but it was calculus for business.

Mhmm.

So it was like a different version of calculus. It was they had a couple other math courses that were, like, for business. And there was something about it that I just I didn't like. Some of the other courses I had to take were just I don't know. It just didn't work for me.

I mean, it you got in touch with it very early and somehow like a boomerang and came back.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

I'm still curious if if you have some links for your produced recorded music, be it rock or EDM also for listeners.

If this is I could probably find some stuff.

Yeah. Put it on. We have we put it in the show notes. I I I will not forget about it about it. I'll ping you. So okay. Then you you started a computer science degree, and I guess you learned what's in university, Java?

Yeah. So it's, like, part computer science, part software engineering because there weren't enough people to do, like, two separate degrees. So they were they're kinda, like, combined.

What what are the difference will, like, be in between computer science and software engineering in in your university?

So for some context, where I live now is in Waterloo, and the University of Waterloo has two separate degrees. One is computer science, which is a subdiscipline in mathematics, and then there's software engineering, which is a sub, I think of engineering. Yeah. So software engineering is, like, focused on, okay, how do you actually build stuff with software? Let's talk about databases and, you know, web development and all this sort of stuff.

I'm off of science too. So

Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't feel like a science.

Discussion for another time,

I guess. It's it's mathematics. And what took me a few years to realize is that it's not actually so much about as it is about information. So I would describe computer science more as, like, the mathematics of information. So you can talk about cryptography, and you can say mathematically, how much information is in this string or this this sequence of bits and bytes.

Like, the entropy of information yeah.

Exactly. And so then you can say, oh, well, if we encrypt it, we can do things. We can play with this entropy to, like, make it secure or less secure. And then other things like analyzing algorithms and sorting and stuff like that, which if you learn some computer science, you realize that sorting algorithms work outside of computers. You can sort anything with these algorithms and, like, one thing

There's this video of a dance for a sorting algorithm. Not sure if you've seen it, like Oh. When I went to university with host, like, yeah. They shown that sorting algorithm as a as, like, a more, like, traditional dance. It was a lot of fun.

The bubble sort dance.

I think it wasn't bubble sort. That would be fun, though, but I'll link it. I'll I'll finally link it.

Yeah. That's interesting. There are a lot of things that I think about, like one thing I remember learning about was, like, this trade off with algorithms where we trade off between time and space. And so one example I often tell people about is, like, oh, when you go to a parking lot, if the parking lot is, like, basically full, so they've, like, minimized the amount of space you need, then that one spot that's left, it's gonna take you a really long time to find it. So you're optimizing for space at the expense of time.

That's nice analogy. Yeah. I like that. And then you did your computer science slash software engineering degree then?

Yeah.

So you have both, or how the how did that work?

Well, it's officially a computer science degree, but they threw in, like, some software engineering stuff. So, like, I learned some programming different programming languages and, like, databases Mhmm. And other object oriented programming with Ruby, stuff like that.

Oh, you had Ruby in university? That's nice. That's great. Yeah. And, which other languages did you touch on? Do you had, like, Haskell or, like, Lisp or any

So we did c

Mhmm.

So we could learn about pointers and that kind of stuff. We did one class that was focused more on, like, the CPU and how that works. So then we did some assembly for that. And then we did Ruby for object oriented programming, and most of the other coursework was Java. So we could, like, learn how to build stuff with databases and things like that.

Yeah.

I did one course on programming languages, which covered lisp. And Yeah. I forget there was there were a few different other, like, weird kind of obscure things.

Like, prolog where, like, it's like a reasoning based or, like

We did yeah. I did prolog in an AI course. Really? Interesting. Yeah. It was very interesting. So yeah. I mean, we're gonna link to all these things in the show notes. Thank you. There's so many interesting programming languages out there that are, like, challenged the way that you think about how to how to solve problems and stuff. But, yeah, very interesting.

Lisp, for example, of, like, putting Haskell in there, like, the functional programming, like, true functional programming Yeah. It's it really blew my mind when I did the first time. Definitely. Yeah. So okay. You you learned different languages, and you always had, like, in a way, it was more about the mathematical, like, say, academic part as well besides the soft engineering bits and pieces. And then, I guess, you graduated at some point.

Yeah. So in in the university I went to, we had this, they call it a co op program, which is, basically, you do in the second half, you do a couple internships at different companies. So you by the time you graduate, you've had, I don't know, it is, like, about a year of actual experience. What happened to me is that on my first one, I ended up moving from Winnipeg, which is or near Winnipeg, which is, like, the dead center of Canada, and I moved out to Waterloo, which is right near Toronto. And Waterloo is, like, the tech hub of Canada, mostly because Research in Motion or BlackBerry was here first, and then they, you know, laid off a bunch of people who went to start other startups, etcetera.

So that's a good point. Like, what happened between what is that sad history you mentioned? Like, you you probably got a job somewhere. Did, like, one of the the co ops out there? Or they were just like, okay. Hey. I'm done. Have some experience. Give me work. How did that work?

Yeah. So I went around trying to find a job. Once I graduated, I didn't attend my, like, final ceremony because I would have to fly back and forth. So I didn't actually get my degree until, like, a year later. So I was always just like, I think I graduated, but I'm not, like, a % sure.

I don't have a paper saying it. So yeah. Yeah. Mhmm.

Yeah. So something got messed up in the mail. So eventually, I I got it. But, yeah, I I remember going to a networking session for, like, startups and stuff like that. And as I was walking in, this one guy was like, oh, hey, Michael.

Fun. Yeah. So you didn't And cybersecurity then.

Well, my job was effectively taking spreadsheets and turning them into web apps with, like, authentication on them.

I see. Okay. So you basically made the groundwork so the cybersecurity researchers could do that work even more efficient.

Yeah. Basically. Nice.

Okay. And so you basically stayed with web development the whole time. Yep. Yep. How did that come? Like, why did you decide to go for web development? Was that, like, also related to what you were shown when you were eight years old with, like, hey. You can just, like, put the HTML thing out there and go for it, or, like, it just enjoy Rails so much.

Yeah. I don't I don't actually know. I started, yeah, with that HTML file, and I remember in high school trying to check out this, like, new jQuery thing. I didn't get very far with it, but I I do remember look going to their website and and looking around. I don't know why JavaScript. I don't know. I just that's that's where I ended up.

A fair point. Okay. And then you I guess you continued using well, of course, technologies and then still Ruby on Rails, like Ruby or

Yeah. So my first job was in it was twenty fifteen, ten years ago, and React had just come out. And so we were we were starting to use React for that. And I remember the very first apps that we made were, like, three React components, and they were just giant, messy things because we hadn't yet figured out. I think even, like, the community hadn't yet figured out how to do it in a good way.

So you you got in touch with React then, but, obviously, you're not using React anymore. So what what made the switch from React to you? When did you get in touch with Vue? And

Yeah. So I wanted to work in a company where instead of building, like, internal tools where, you know, let's face it, for an internal tool, the UI doesn't really matter. As long as it's usable, that's what what counts. And I wanted to do something a bit more than that. So I ended up getting a job at a startup that was a product company where the UI really matters.

like, cabling the same problems and then, like, hey. This guy's the solution. Oh, wait.

Yeah. And then they look at the top and be like, wait. And that's you. So Yeah. That's that was fun.

Sweet. And, yeah, then as you said, for real, the rest is is history, so to say. Yeah. Amazing. And I wonder maybe, like, in in a very, like, short, summary, how did you come up with public speaking, like, to do that?

So I started in 2018. I gave a lightning talk at VueConf Toronto.

At the very first.

Yeah. It was this weird thing on writing components, but only using slots and scope slots and, like, not using the script tag

Oh, I see.

As much as possible. So it was like this weird, like, experimental kind of I don't know where I got the idea for this, but I just started to try it. Yeah. Anyways, I I gave that talk, and people loved it. I enjoyed doing it. And then the next year, I was able to give, like, a full length talk at the at the conference, and then I've been giving a talk there almost every year since when they've had the in person ones.

Sweet. Yeah. I mean, it's also, like, great to have a a conference that's right in your in your backyard as, as you said previously.

For sure.

So that's really helpful. Nice.

Sure.

Some very quick questions.

Oh, man. If I switch now, I think I might start a bakery and do, like, sourdough. Like yeah. That's what I would do.

That's cool. One day, I wanna try a sourdough bread or some kind of pastry, of of you. I I wanna I would love that.

I don't do as much music now. I sort of like, I have an acoustic guitar in the living room. I kind of pick it up every once in a while and just kind of mess around with that. But I would say I don't know. I like to read mostly, like, nonfiction, all sorts of different things like that. And lately, I've I haven't had that much time for hobbies between work and, and family stuff, but, yeah, baking and reading.

That's good. That's nice. Yeah. I I haven't I haven't read a proper book in a while, like, also that time and so many things around.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. It's a tough one.

This isn't a quick fire one.

It's not. It is not. Maybe it's a slower quick fire. Yep.

I'm gonna say maybe because it's trending, maybe maybe not. But I've been very interested in AI for the last, you know, two and a bit years since, Chat GPT. So maybe what I would wanna work on is something AI related. I think it would be fun. I know Daniel Roe has also been doing some AI stuff. Mhmm. So maybe some sort of, like, something at the intersection of Nuxt and AI. I think that might be interesting.

Cool. Yeah. That's a nice pick. Fun. Who knows? Maybe there's there's something happening. I know, like, the one project, I think it was called Unsight where he's, like, classifying, all the issues. That's at least open source. And I think he uses doesn't use AI. He uses, I think, some kind of a clustering algorithm, but, yeah, maybe something like that. Could be fun.

Mhmm.

And then the last last thing, Michael, where can people follow you?

Oh, you can follow me on x on Blue Sky. I have my website, michael n thiessen dot com, and you can Google Michael Vue, and I think you'll probably find me. There's also Michael Hoffman. So

Shout out. Yeah.

Shout out shout out to you, Michael. And, yeah, that's that's it, I think. You can sign up for my newsletter. I send out weekly things, weekly tips and, like, articles and other stuff. And one thing we didn't mention in this is that I'm also the instructor for Mastering Nuxt

That's true.

Is getting a big refresh and overhaul. Like, as we speak, it's gonna be I'm working on it right now. So don't know yet the timeline for that, but, yeah, sometime soon.

Mastering Muxt for you. Looking forward to that.

Yeah, it's nice to just answer questions and not have to, like, think about the next question to ask and That's that's true.

And I mean, I hope we'll have you back on, obviously.

I hope to come back sometime soon. Yeah.

We'll we'll make it happen. If you have any questions left, Michael will answer all of them in the comments or on social media, except as we said, no matter what's made names, no no pins or anything. But, yeah, we all know what's your favorite free framework is, so that's not a question there. And, I would say if you haven't seen the last episodes, like, before that, definitely check it out. Really good ones out there about, like, predictions, 2024, '20 '20 '5, even better ones out there before.