961: Keeping Up With The Fast and Furious Web

Welcome to Syntax. In this episode, I'm going to be talking with Scott, all about keeping up with the fast and furious web because things are constantly changing. It's hard. It's hard out there. It's hard out there. Yeah, no kidding. So we're going to talk about...

tips for keeping up, like what should you be paying attention to, what should you not be paying attention to, those kinds of things. And before we get into it, shout out to JS Nation, because as you can see, we're in wonderful New York City. So big thanks to them for giving us the space. to talk about this. New Jersey City. Any keen viewer would know that if you can see the skyline, we're not in New York. Cool, let's get into it. It's so funny giving a non-technical...

talk at a conference i'm typically giving more technical talks and so i i think it was good i was i'm going to be doing the last talk of the day and i feel like everybody after seeing talks all day, might appreciate maybe a less throwing a thousand APIs or library announcements at you or something. So yeah, when I was developing this, this was actually like a talk.

i had given maybe like 10 years ago and maybe not that long ago maybe like eight years ago for the first time and so much has changed on the web but so much has changed in my career and my approach and i was thinking like would it be cool to like rethink, well, my phone just almost bit it, to rethink and re-approach some of those like ideas. So I took like a look at this, this idea of like,

Man, throughout my entire career, it's been having to learn things as fast as humanly possible and as deep as I can. So that way I can really. be able to express that in a way that people will understand. And so that was really the approach to it was like taking a look at my systems for learning, but not just my systems, because when I, the previous version of the talk was very much like, oh, here are the systems that I employ.

to learn things fast. And that was well received. But when I started diving into it, I realized that it's it's not just since I started making content that I've had to learn things fast. It's since I've started working on the web, since I started with table layouts and AngelFire based sites. So there's like a point in the talk when I'm just like listing all of the things that have changed. And honestly, it was exhausting to type out. and even like think about.

every little thing that's changed over the course of even like five years, six years, seven years and so on and so forth. And it was really like, okay, well, what hasn't changed too? So that's really the genesis of this talk. Yeah, I don't know. I think I've developed a lot of systems. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. So when I was an instructor of full stack, we always started off with learning how to learn. Because in this career...

You're constantly learning. You can't just learn how does JavaScript work and then just use that until you retire. You're constantly evolving. You're constantly having to... learn the latest APIs or learn the latest frameworks or the latest styles and ways of doing things. So maybe like what's your first tip or let's get into it. Yeah. Well, I think even before I say a tip, I think.

people often lament the frequency at which things change. They lament the next library. Now I got to learn this, the new frame. There's another new framework. Like I've seen all the comments. I've been on YouTube since 2012. So like I know what people think and say about all this stuff.

And I think that one of the key points is one, you don't have to learn everything that's new, but you should understand why things exist and know that. If it will benefit your users or not, because at the end of the day, the people using your applications are really what matters. So when you're approaching what to learn, take a surface level view of. is this thing going to improve my users lives in a meaningful way before taking that moment to really go deep on something.

Because again, at the end of the day, the user's experience is really what matters there. So like when I see comments about like, oh, another new JS framework, it's like, well, you don't have to use it. But also, what if this new idea unlocks a massive amount of new things for us? And I never want to like... dump on anybody's experience of like, having that attempt to build something that will change things massively for users. So that's tip number one, understand why things exist.

Before you want to dive into if I need to learn this. When you do want to dive in and learn something, I think one thing that I think often gets overlooked.

is this idea of learning styles. Learning styles, I don't know if you know this, is a controversial topic for some reason. It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. I was actually... This is a story that I haven't told necessarily before because I don't know if I'm bound by any sort of legal obligation. There was a company that was attempting to acquire Level Up Tutorials. And I was in an essentially like an interview with this company about whether or not they wanted to acquire us. And the guy.

i was like oh i'm about to go give this talk and i'm it's a it's a talking about how like i learn things uh differently than other people and he's like all right this is about like learning things fast or something okay and this was back when i first gave this talk and he was like oh that's really interesting

I also doing like a talk about like learning things I was like oh that's that's cool because this guy wasn't a tech person he was like a business guy yeah and I was like okay so like uh he's he's like So what's your talk about? He's like, well, it's about how learning styles don't exist. And I was like, oh, shoot. Yeah. I'm like, well, I think there's a hang up around that word or something. Right.

Yeah. And if I could talk a bit about it, because I have a bit of an education background, like working as a full-stacked instructor, we had instructional organizers, people helping us come up with curriculum and how to teach it. And I think the idea of learning styles... itself that every person has a specific way

that they like to learn. That's a myth because we all learn in different ways. I think the right way to talk about it would be like, sure, I identify more with visual learning versus like actual like hands on. And these are the different types of learning. styles like are you a hands-on learner are you a visual learner do you need to hear it first but

In my mind, everyone can learn from every one of those things and should be learning from every one of those things. I think that's one of the main issues with learning styles is you don't want to just focus in on one of those areas because you actually, even if you do gravitate towards visual learning...

Hands-on is still great for everyone, regardless of if you like it or if you think it's effective. I think basically changing modalities really helps solidify concepts because just taking it in one way isn't going to be... The way that you learn that thing, you have to get it hands on. You have to hear about it. You have to talk about it. So I think that's the main myth is like we're not just one. Everyone is kind of.

You might have some preferences, but everyone can learn from all learning styles. Yeah, and I'll have some pushback on some of that. But I do think that you are right on many of those aspects. I didn't realize before getting into this that that was such a loaded word.

in terms of the way people perceive that. But let me tell you, so you've met my wife, Dr. Talinsky. When we first started dating, she was in grad school to become... psychologist, and she had to perform X amount of tests. And so she did literally every psychological test known to man.

to me in our first year of dating. So she knew what she was getting into. Wow. Did you know it was happening, or was it like a slide? Oh, no, yes. These are very involved tests. They're very involved tests. She gave them to my friends. She was diagnosing people. Not like literally, but like practicing. Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that we discovered through my psychological exams with my wife is that I have no IQ.

My IQ is invalidated by my results of the test because I did really well in some areas and very poorly in others. Some of that is defined by like my learning disability, whether that's dyslexia or whatever. But my brain does not process written word the same way it processes audio. Right.

I always got on YouTube a lot of comments when I first started that video is really... bad for learning i can't learn on video people should read blogs they should read documentation they should read the code they shouldn't watch on like i would publish videos and people would show up in my videos just to be like why are you teaching programming on youtube and like

In 2025, we know how stupid of a comment that is. For me, I never understood that because I need to hear somebody talk it through with me. Honestly, if it was somebody reading the documentation in a nice way, like I consume that better. And I do actually, when I read blog posts, I select and do text to speech because otherwise I am not like. physically able to really comprehend it as well i see so i i do think our brains

do function differently. Now, I do agree that like, having hands on having the different types of ways that you can learn things are all helpful to have that wide breadth for everyone. But in the same regard, like if you plop down a book in front of me and tell me to read this book, or if you give me an audio book, I'm going to walk away with two very...

different understandings of that material yeah uh and so like yeah learning styles as a as a word is like loaded in that like it consumes a lot of different intentions other than like oh uh people have learning disabilities or yeah yeah yeah and i think my main takeaway is like everyone should

try and learn from multiple things, even if you have preferences, because you will take other things away from it. And the idea of watching YouTube videos, that's just step one. After you watch the YouTube video, you have to actually go out and

try the thing that you just learned. You didn't actually learn it just by watching the video, which is hard to say because we make a lot of videos. We make a lot of videos, but getting your hands dirty, number two, very much an important part of the process. I try to get my hands dirty as fast as possible.

even before I fully understand what the heck it is. So we just interviewed Evo Plaza about TypeGPU. And the number one thing I loved about TypeGPU is that they have a massive amount of interactive docs. get in there. I can change some values. I can see how it affects visually this thing that's being outputted. And that to me is so much richer of a learning experience than just like, all right, now I got an NPM. Let's get started. Exactly. And then maybe the thing.

doesn't work. And then you're like, all right, I'm done. The interactive example is like in the world of education, it's like this idea of play. Like it helps a lot with kids because like when they're playing, they're actually learning. But when we can go in and change a value and see it immediately reflected in the demo. that's huge for us because like that that connects the dots like okay now when I'm writing my own

code with this library. That's what that value is for versus just telling somebody what that value is for. Wes and I recorded an episode about like Strudel and some of these other things. It's for like making music in the browser with chain methods.

awesome and wes knows nothing about audio and he was in there and just like messing with values and being like oh i made a hi-hat like like he has no idea what he's doing there and he was able to get something like real out there very quickly by by playing around with it that is like my number one hack for if you have the focus time to to get your hands dirty and play that like makes such a huge impact on things that that's always been a big thing for me is

Especially when I'm learning something to teach someone else, I will start working on this and start getting into the code without reading. docks without like just glancing at things. And then when I hit little hiccups, those are the hiccups that people who don't read the documentation deeply beforehand are going to hit. And people miss stuff all the time.

especially if they're there, they're looking at the docs, they're going to miss little things, they're going to hit a bug. And if you can get out in front of that and learn where all of the edges are ahead of time, you'll know, obviously, you hit edges. you find the answer. You hit edges, you find the answer.

And that can get you, that's obviously not the most optimized way or anything like that. But it's a good way to understand how to get yourself out of trouble kind of constantly. Another tip I have for people who are looking to learn things.

sitting down, you're like, I'm going to build another to do app. We hear all the time on here about like people being stuck in tutorial hell, pick a project that is something you actually want in your life. And push through that. One of my favorite things to say is like, if you're building in, let's say I want to learn zero sync, like local data syncing software.

And you're like, I'm going to build a to do list because that makes sense. And then you hit an edge and maybe you can't figure it out. A lot of percentage of people at that point, depending on how hard of an edge that is of like. oh shoot, I'm stuck, aren't going to have the desire to push through that. And like that pushing through an edge there is like where so much good learning happens every single time.

And so because of that, like, one of the things I always suggest is really pushing that project to be something that you want. I say, like, let passion drive the learning. if I'm building an app for my mom and it's not working and I've already like dedicated that energy to be like, my mom needs this app. Like I am going to push through that and I'm going to get so much further done, especially if you like really.

Definitely. I completely agree. I mean, that's where a lot of my learning has happened as well as like, I want something to exist or I want to solve a problem. So... I have to learn a new library or like learn a new thing to try and make it work. But all the edges that I hit along the way, like you're talking about the edges, like...

That's where the learning happens. It's always where the learning happens. It's like when you run into an error or a mistake, you are going to internalize more why something went wrong and how you fixed it versus things just working great. All the time. Yeah, I completely agree. Like in doing things that you're interested in, like you're saying, you can move.

move past certain blockers a lot just because you're addicted to that problem. Yeah, you're right. There's a problem you're trying to solve. Learning technology is not a problem that you want to solve ever. It's like, oh, I kind of want to learn how to do this thing. But it's also like woodworking or something like that. I want to build a workbench for my basement. If that's something I really want to have, I'm going to learn the tools and techniques I need. But if I'm just like...

oh, I think I might learn woodworking. Let me just carve up some wood and hammer it together. Like, what's the point there? So that definitely pushes through. Something I can always suggest to people too is like, we live in such a time where like all these libraries are hyper-focused on. library-specific information, but the core fundamentals of stuff cannot be overstated. How important it is to learn browser APIs, to learn CSS.

deeply to learn, uh, JavaScript as it is JavaScript and not some library implementation of it to learn these things deeply. But not only that, like big concepts when you're learning. Right now, a lot of people are learning. There's a thousand AI buzzwords and stuff like that. And some people are going to spend their time learning this specific platform's specific way of doing things. Your time would be way better served learning what all of...

the big concepts are. I always say it's like learning the stuff that you can take with you because whether or not you agree with this or not, React is not always going to be the thing. And some people disagree with that. But it might not always be the thing. Just like Angular at one point was the thing. Just like Backbone was the one. And React is obviously different than Backbone and Angular. But in terms of...

where it exists in the industry in terms of the size and magnitude there. But like learning the things that you can take with you from thing to thing and debugging those core issues. those core concepts will always serve you well no matter what. And on top of that, like I said, just debugging in general. And you mentioned it before, like pushing through those edges is where you pick up so much stuff, but it's also where you learn the skills.

to debug um half the time when we're trying to solve a bug it's just trying to figure out what the heck the bug even is um just trying to and so if you can reduce your time defining what the bug is your chances are of finding how to fix it is endlessly faster. Definitely. Use Sentry, by the way. Sentry.io forward slash syntax. Sign up for...

Use the coupon code TASTYTREAT, and you'll get two months for free. Yeah, Randy, if you could, a plane flying by with a sentry. Yeah, just tell Randy to do some motion graphics here, animated in a plane. I want to touch on...

like basically like seeing through the noise or like trying to identify which of these things you're trying to learn do have staying power or like like what you're saying or like cut through the noise. I think that that's one of the hardest parts is. Yeah. determining what should I actually learn and hold on to and not buy into the hype, but at least have something that I can carry with me past the hype. Yeah. Speaking about buying into the hype.

I have a slide that says resist dogma. Influencers are lying to you for clicks. Let me tell you, there are so... Many times that I get an email from some company wanting to push their thing and offer some money for me to push it, and we don't. except sponsorship on Sentry. Perfect timing on Syntax, but we are owned by Sentry, right? And so because of that, I get to say no to all those things, which is great. But it's also very interesting. to see

Other folks talk about the same thing you were just pitched without disclosing it's an advertisement. And I can see it. Like you are not being honest with this. And it is kind of. of shocking sometimes and then i'll see those people's opinions then being echoed by people on reddit or people on twitter like verbatim right uh and then it's like

oh man, that marketing campaign really worked. They really hit on that. Yeah, marketing in the world of dev these days is absolutely crazy. And it's kind of evolved over the past five years or so, but that's another thing that we kind of have to learn and realize what's happening.

happening is like when are you being advertised to and when is something being hyped up versus when is this like an actual staying technology that's like foundational and is going to be used for years to come yeah um that's that's another thing that we have to work on and be aware of. I think something a good test for that is if somebody is saying like

This is the only way to do things, and it's like a paid product. If it's a paid product, then they're like, this is it. This changes everything, that kind of approach. I'm going to show Svelte all day long, but there's no financial anything involved in that, right? There's no...

I mean, there's nowhere to, yeah, like, what could we possibly do? We like the framework. Yeah, we like the framework. And same thing with, like, Vue, right? I'm going to say nice things about it all day long. But, yeah, it is something to be aware of, that people who are saying... use this, never use this, you only use this, or this is the only way to do things. If somebody says this is the only way to do things, they might not be saying it for financial gain, but they're saying for you.

your clicks, because it's not true. So resist that like dogma of this is the the cult of this particular library or framework. They're all tools for your users, the users at the end of the day, they matter. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Cool. Any other tips for us?

Yeah, AI. We haven't said the words AI. I know CJ, we got to say AI for the clicks. No, CJ has had a lot of great videos about AI and development. The thing I will say is that AI can... be useful for learning, but used intentionally for learning. Summarize this. I read this paragraph eight times and I don't understand what it's saying.

Summarize it. Explain it to me like I'm five. Here's a bunch of code. I have no idea what it's doing. But the things that are important is like, don't trust it. It lies to you. Yes. Do not trust it. It will tell you all kinds of stuff. But also, like, you can use it to aid.

in your learning, whether that is more advanced text to speech, whether that is a back and forth, whether that is using it to compare things that if you're giving it this bit of information and this bit of information, compare these two things. Get that information, then validate. But don't.

If you're trying to learn a topic, I'm trying to learn React.js. Don't go to your AI tool and say, write this React function for me. You're not going to learn shit that way. You're not going to learn anything. You still like not to say that you shouldn't use AI tools or whatever. CJ might say that, but like not to say that you shouldn't use those tools. But if you're trying to learn something, it's the equivalent of like letting your mom do it for you.

Or hiring somebody to go do your learning. Right, yeah. What are you gaining out of that? I think the little bit of pushback I have is... Yes, AI is good for learning, especially because it takes a lot of work to figure out how to search the web and how to find the answer that you want. And so AI gives us that instant gratification of like, oh, it just tells me what the thing is.

the pushback I have is that process of searching the web, finding the answer yourself is something you'll need even when you don't have AI. And before we had AI, that's basically all we could do. We became really good web searchers, right? And that's kind of a skill that's...

going away with AI because you can just ask it a question and instantly see an answer. But like Scott said, you need to verify it and validate it. So my only advice to you is start to work that into your workflow. Maybe take half the day and use web search instead of AI.

to work on that skill because you're going to reach a point in your learning and in the things that you're doing where AI can't help you or it doesn't have an answer or the answer is wrong and you're going to have to figure it out yourself. But if you haven't practiced actually searching and...

figuring it out yourself, you're not going to be able to. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, like, I mean, we were talking about type GPU a minute ago, and they're excellent examples and stuff in their docs. Let's say there's some new CSS API, and you can copy and paste the entire mdn page for that api paste it into chat gpt and say give me a demo with this maybe that spits out an example working example and then now you have like yes we just said get your hands dirty write it from scratch but

If you want to just see something in action and then tweak it, modify it, explore it, and then go and write it for yourself, you can have a better idea or at least, again, you're exploring like in real demos in that way if that doesn't exist. Yeah, you know, MDN, right? That's instead of Google, just go to MDN. Sure. Right. Yeah. Just start searching for APIs and browsing through them. Definitely. So with that, let's get into SickPix.

I'll go first. And analog watches are my sick pick. Oh, nice. So, I mean, I haven't called attention to it, but I've kind of addressed like the 90s of sorts. But first of all, I got this watch, which has a calculator on it. That's sick. You got two watches on. Two watches on. That's a very, that's more of like an 80s thing to do, like two hats, two watches. But surprisingly, being able to tell that, like, I don't even wear a smartwatch, but being able to tell what time it is, is pretty great.

Having a watch is awesome. Yeah, nothing too crazy. And I have two watches because this has Denver time and this has New York time. Okay. But I'm not going to wear two watches into the future. Maybe just one. Yeah. The first agency I worked on had like a wall full of clocks. Oh, yeah. Because of where each of their – because they had just a couple of remote workers, which is ahead of their time for –

2011? Yeah. I always thought that was the coolest thing in the world. I was like, I'm going to get a bunch of clocks on my wall. Definitely. Yeah, I'm going to sick pick. Man, I don't know if it can be stated or not because dbrand is like pretty... uh popular but this is my first dbrand skin okay um not sponsored um and i gotta say it was really nice the skin was nice it applied nice uh i hated all the colors for the new iphone so i was like i'm gonna

put a skin on this thing. And then also this is the, the deep brain ghost case, which also is very nice. I was actually, you know, I don't know if it's something about that brand is always like kind of turned me off a little bit, even though I think they are funny. But as somebody who's had a lot of phone cases in general and stuff, I got to say.

I'm impressed with all the stuff, and the process was really good to install it all. So it's kind of like a vinyl stick kind of thing? Like there's adhesive? Yeah, this is a vinyl sticker, and it's thick, and you do it with a hairdryer. And you get it all on there.

i don't have a i don't have the steadiest of hands i'm a clumsy ass dude and i was able to get this thing on with like zero issues so um perfectly aligned install instructions were great um there was a good video and then i even have like a glass a glass screen protector on here which i never have and that install was great no bubbles nice and easy so they really like perfected the whole onboarding of this stuff so uh yeah i i'm sure dbrand is like

Needs no help here. But I was impressed and I've never bought their stuff. Nice. Not sponsored. Yeah. Cool. That's all we got for you. Thank you everybody for tuning in and go out there and learn. We'll catch you in the next one. Peace.