863: 2024: A Year in Review

Wes and Scott talk with VC Dan Levine about how developers can raise venture capital, what investors look for in early-stage startups, the realities of bootstrapping vs. fundraising, and why great ideas often start as simple side projects. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:55 Dan’s background and career 03:10 Is it common for tech investors to come from a tech background? 04:40 How can developers raise money? 08:35 What investors look for 12:39 How much funding is enough? 15:41 Are founders working with multiple investors? 18:26 What can you use the money for? 22:49 How much influence do investors have in the business? 29:56 Brought to you by Sentry.io 29:56 How involved are VCs in the business? 34:22 How do you know a startup is in trouble—and what can you do about it? 38:56 How much of the company do investors own? 40:43 What’s the endgame for investors? 44:02 How do acqui-hires work? 46:29 Is the AI space a real opportunity or just hype? 53:22 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs Sick Picks Dan: Dandelion Chocolate Jules Pizza Shameless Plugs Dan: Linear Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

28 Touko 56min

CJ steps in for Scott and joins Wes to share his experience working with Nuxt, from routing and data fetching to the pros and cons of the framework. They break down the Nuxt ecosystem, directory structure, and how it handles server routes and modules. Show Notes 00:00 Syntax Meetup! 00:26 Welcome to Syntax 01:21 The deal with Nuxt. CJ’s Nuxt Course. 02:51 Why do you like Vue? 04:52 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 05:17 Routing with Nuxt. h3 - The Web Framework for Modern JavaScript Era. Nuxt Guides. 06:12 Built on Nitro. 06:49 The Nuxt Ecosystem. 07:52 API Route Support. 08:15 Nuxt Directory Structure. 09:09 Does Nuxt do too much for you? 11:15 Data fetching in a Nuxt app. 13:25 RPC, Form Actions, Server Actions? 15:00 Nuxt Server Folder Hastle. 15:57 useFetch Hook. CJ’s Nuxt Crash Course. 17:29 Core Modules and Community Modules? Nuxt Modules. shadcn-nuxt. @nuxt/ui. DaisyUI. Pinia. 21:17 Nuxt Hosting. Deploy. hub.nuxt. 23:59 Anything you don’t like? Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

26 Touko 27min

In this potluck episode of Syntax, Wes and CJ answer your questions about OpenAI’s $3B Windsurf acquisition, the evolving role of UI in an AI-driven world, why good design still matters, React vs. Svelte, and more! Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! Devs Night Out 02:35 OpenAI acquires Windsurf for $3B Windsurf Ep 870: Windsurf forked VS Code to compete with Cursor. Talking the future of AI + Coding 05:20 What is the future of UI now that AI is such a heavy hitter? 08:45 Handling spam submissions on websites Cloudflare Turnstile 14:18 Duplicating HTML for desktop and mobile websites? 17:03 Is it okay to use a JSON file for simple website data? 19:04 How to handle anonymous and duplicate users Better-Auth 21:55 Working with TypeScript Object.keys() and “any” vs “@ts-ignore” 25:51 Brought to you by Sentry.io 26:38 What is the difference between React and Svelte? 30:24 How should you name your readme file? 31:55 How do you find time to refactor code? 35:20 Best practices for testing responsiveness Polypane 39:19 Avoiding layout shift with progressive enhancement 46:56 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs Sick Picks CJ: Portable Chainsaw Wes: White Lotus Shameless Plugs CJ: Nuxt Wes: Full Stack App Build | Travel Log w/ Nuxt, Vue, Better Auth, Drizzle, Tailwind, DaisyUI, MapLibre Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

21 Touko 51min

Scott and Wes are joined by Erich Gamma, creator of VS Code, and Kai Maetzel, Copilot Lead, to share some big news about the future of VS Code and Copilot. They discuss what it means for developers, how AI is shaping the future of coding, and why staying open to the community is key. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 01:00 The inception of VS Code. 02:49 VS Code adoption. 04:31 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 04:55 Syntax Denver Meetup! 05:19 The big announcement. 06:25 The current state of Copilot and VS Code. 08:31 The challenges with LLMs running outside of the codebase. 09:31 How to make a business case for AI. 10:47 The maturing of the AI landscape. 13:01 The limitations of extensions. 14:06 Open source vs closed source. 14:49 Copilot’s context is public. 19:23 Is context language-specific? 21:23 How does this affect paid Copilot features? 23:27 Secrets of Copilot’s server-side. 28:36 What will be open and what will not? 29:03 Is Copilot’s UI influenced by VS Code forks? 31:31 Maintaining VS Code identity in forks. 33:07 What does open-sourcing GitHub Copilot mean for Cursor and Windsurf? 38:42 Were you surprised to see VS Code forks? 40:03 Are other extensions able to tap into the AI offerings? 43:20 There’s work to be done. 44:13 The timeline. 45:39 Simulation Tests (S Tests). 48:07 How to test LLMs. 49:10 The future of software development with AI. 52:47 What’s your favorite model? Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

19 Touko 57min

Wes talks with Peter Pistorius about RedwoodSDK, a new React framework built natively for Cloudflare. They dive into real-time React, server components, zero-cost infrastructure, and why RedwoodSDK empowers developers to ship faster with fewer tradeoffs and more control. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:52 What is RedwoodSDK? 04:49 Choosing openness over abstraction 08:46 More setup, more control 12:20 Why RedwoodSDK only runs on Cloudflare 14:25 What the database setup looks like 16:15 Durable Objects explained – Ep 879: Fullstack Cloudflare 18:14 Middleware and request flow 23:14 No built-in client-side router? 24:07 Integrating routers with defineApp 26:04 React Server Components and real-time updates 29:53 What happened to RedwoodJS? 31:14 Why do opinionated frameworks struggle to catch on? 34:35 The problem with Lambdas 36:16 Cloudflare’s JavaScript runtime compatibility 40:04 Brought to you by Sentry.io 41:44 The vision behind RedwoodSDK Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

14 Touko 46min

Scott and Wes break down the latest in JavaScript news, including new async patterns in Svelte, React Server Component tooling with Parcel, and Redwood’s push into Cloudflare with its new SDK. They also cover what’s new in Storybook 9 Beta, from visual testing to a sleeker, lighter build. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 02:50 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 03:37 Syntax Meetup! 04:09 React View Transitions. 08:58 addTransitionType. 11:18 Activity API. Offscreen Renamed to Activity. 14:22 Maintaining state in search queries. 16:29 Asynchronous Svelte. Playground. 19:04 Svelte Boundary. 25:13 Parcel RSC. 27:15 Redwood SDK. 30:55 Storybook 9 Beta. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

12 Touko 38min

7 Touko 57min

Scott and Wes sit down with Cassie Evans of GSAP to talk all things animation—from SVGs and scroll timelines to GSAP’s new rebrand and exciting features. They also dig into performance, plugins, and what makes GSAP such a powerful tool for web developers. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:59 What is GSAP? Cassie Codes. 01:53 GSAP Rebranding. 04:44 GSAP under the hood. 05:29 The big announcement! 07:19 GSAP Showcase. 11:01 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 11:26 Why is GSAP easier for animations? GSAP Docs. 12:38 Animating with SVGs. 13:33 The love of SVG. 14:55 GSAP is performant. 16:06 Gotchas to watch out for. 18:12 Does GSAP work with canvas? 19:02 What GSAP projects are you most proud of? 20:30 Does it play nice with web frameworks? GSAP with React. 22:32 What are you excited about in CSS right now? Scroll Timeline. 24:27 Will any of these make their way into GSAP? 26:31 Timelines. 29:24 Building animations with timelines. 34:55 What are the best GSAP plugins? Split Text spanran-wrap. Physics 2D Plugin. 38:44 GSAP docs and philosophy. 39:50 Scrubbing animations by frame. 41:09 GSAP Video Exporter. 41:45 Animating with JavaScript. 45:19 JavaScript in unconventional applications. 47:56 Is there anything missing in web tech? 50:53 What about AI in GSAP? 52:40 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs. Sick Picks Cassie: Eyesy Video Synthesis. Shameless Plugs Cassie: Smashing Conf. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

5 Touko 57min