917: AI Tools You Should Know

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk Matt Holt about Caddy, SSL, web servers, best practices, and more! LogRocket - Sponsor LogRocket lets you replay what users do on your site, helping you reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. It’s an exception tracker, a session re-player and a performance monitor. Get 14 days free at logrocket.com/syntax. Freshbooks - Sponsor Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Cloudinary - Sponsor Cloudinary is the best way to manage images and videos in the cloud. Edit and transform for any use case, from performance to personalization, using Cloudinary’s APIs, SDKs, widgets, and integrations. Guests Matt Holt Show Notes 02:08 - Who are you and what do you do? 03:22 - Why would you want to build a web server? 08:45 - How do SSL certs work? 14:03 - Why do you even need a web server? 23:03 - Is it better to have a web server serve your images? 20:31 - What is load balancing and why might you need it? 31:35 - Is server administration a lost art? 38:03 - What is a sidecar proxy? 38:50 - How do chron jobs work? 39:50 - Why is GO so fast? Why is it good? 46:32 - Should every website have an SSL certificate? Links Floss Weekly 364 Caddy Let’s Encrypt Certbot PM2 https://doesmysiteneedhttps.com Tello Drone ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Matt: LG Stick Vacuum Scott: Alen Pure BreatheSmart Air Purifier Wes: Tello EDU Shameless Plugs Matt: Matt Holt Sponsorships Scott: All Courses - Sign up for the year and save 25%! Wes: All Courses - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off! Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

31 Mar 20211h

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about a common problem you’ll encounter in your development career — the n+1 problem. Hasura - Sponsor With Hasura, you can get a fully managed, production-ready GraphQL API as a service to help you build modern apps faster. You can get started for free in 30 seconds, or if you want to try out the Standard tier for zero cost, use the code “TryHasura” at this link: hasura.info. We’ve also got an amazing selection of GraphQL tutorials at hasura.io/learn. Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what’s happening with your code, track errors and monitor performance with Sentry. Sentry’s Application Monitoring platform helps developers see performance issues, fix errors faster, and optimize their code health. Cut your time on error resolution from hours to minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners new to Sentry can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code TASTYTREAT during sign up. Show Notes 05:00 - What is the n+1 problem? The N+1 problem can happen in any language but is especially prevalent in GraphQL because it’s so easy to query relationships. 09:33 - The solution The solution to the n+1 problem is to batch the queries. As you loop over each podcast, keep an array of host IDs to lookup. Once you have looped over the podcasts, make a single query to the database with your large array of podcast host Ids. 11:11 - Should you care? Sometimes no: its often fine to do multiple DB Calls Facebook DataLoader Mercurious Many ORMs take care of this for you These then break it down into my appropriate SQL MongoDB Ruby: eager loading Laravel ORM does it Aggregation pipelines Prisma N+1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oMfBGEdwsc&vl=en Mongoose Populate Apollo Studio Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

29 Mar 202120min

It’s another Syntax Highlight. In this episode, Scott and Wes take a look at portfolios and websites and evaluate them from the perspective of a hiring manager. Sanity - Sponsor Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get a Sanity powered site up and running in minutes at sanity.io/create. Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on sanity.io/syntax. Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what’s happening with your code, track errors and monitor performance with Sentry. Sentry’s Application Monitoring platform helps developers see performance issues, fix errors faster, and optimize their code health. Cut your time on error resolution from hours to minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners new to Sentry can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code TASTYTREAT during sign up. Mux - Sponsor Mux Video is an API-first platform that makes it easy for any developer to build beautiful video. Powered by data and designed by video experts, your video will work perfectly on every device, every time. Mux Video handles storage, encoding, and delivery so you can focus on building your product. Live streaming is just as easy and Mux will scale with you as you grow, whether you’re serving a few dozen streams or a few million. Visit mux.com/syntax. Show Notes 04:50 - https://shaquilhansford.com/ Not optimized for desktop Lots of spacing issues overall Too many accordions - could be lists in multiple columns Social links could be in the footer Twitter is on point - iwantyoutohire.me Phone number on website is good 11:31 - https://www.benlammers.dev/ Gimmy dat yellow The design and polish is really good Data URI images can overload CPU Semantic headings, but HTML should use some work Four H1s on the page 20 H2s 40 H3s Main tag 20:28 - https://www.zubairaziz.com/ Lots of empty space Photo is key Not sure what to do when I land on the page Blog is nice, but two posts from May - add more or drop it Portfolio is just enough Nav animation should only happen on initial load 29:39 - https://codebyfil.dev/ This is a great example of something that is good, but needs a bit of polish Tone down the border radius Tone down the box shadow Border and drop shadow Images aren’t links Footer padding or space - contact is ridding the bottom Scott’s HTML breakdown Four H1s Six H2s Four H3s 18 H4s Five H5s 37:39 - https://www.johngeorgesample.com/ Clean but maybe too clean Nav is too distractingly too big Need active link indicator in main nav div div div div - take a look at those semantic HTML tags No H1 or H2 HTML needs work brother Use × instead of X Asterisk doesn’t work on mobile 46:52 - https://stordahl.dev/ Great images Nice typography Sign-up for newsletter is great Store = A+ Scott’s HTML breakdown Two H1s, one of which is just nice to meet you Zero H2s Articles should be articles No section 1px move on hover is nice - could use a transition Links Axe Accessibility Testing Gatsby Next.js https://feathericons.com/ Snipcart GeoGuessr ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Walkabout Mini Golf Wes: 60w Portable Charger Shameless Plugs Scott: Node Fundamentals Authentication - Sign up for the year and save 25%! Wes: Advanced React - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off! Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

24 Mar 20211h

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about GraphQL tooling, and specifically a couple tools we use that will change your experience with GraphQL. .TECH Domains - Sponsor .TECH is taking the tech industry by storm. A domain that shows the world what you are all about! If you’re looking for a domain name for your startup, portfolio, or your own project like we did with uses.tech, check out .tech Domains. Syntax listeners can snap their .TECH Domains at 80% off on five-year registration by visiting go.tech/syntaxistech and using the coupon code “syntax5”. LogRocket - Sponsor LogRocket lets you replay what users do on your site, helping you reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. It’s an exception tracker, a session re-player and a performance monitor. Get 14 days free at logrocket.com/syntax. Show Notes 03:38 - What is it? https://graphql-code-generator.com/ Code generation for GraphQL APIs 04:34 - What can it do? Generate React hooks for any of the major player Apollo client (urql) Types for the full stack — resolvers, mutations 07:49 - How we use it Generate a schema file to keep client and server in sync in mono repo Creates all React Hooks Generates all types for both resolvers, and anything client-side Links React Query Apollo Typescript Cypress https://periqles.herokuapp.com/ https://the-guild.dev/ Swagger Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

22 Mar 202119min

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about building your own authentication — diving deep into JWT, sessions, tokens, cookies, local storage, CSRF, and how it all works! Prismic - Sponsor Prismic is a Headless CMS that makes it easy to build website pages as a set of components. Break pages into sections of components using React, Vue, or whatever you like. Make corresponding Slices in Prismic. Start building pages dynamically in minutes. Get started at prismic.io/syntax. LogRocket - Sponsor LogRocket lets you replay what users do on your site, helping you reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. It’s an exception tracker, a session re-player and a performance monitor. Get 14 days free at logrocket.com/syntax. Hasura - Sponsor With Hasura, you can get a fully managed, production-ready GraphQL API as a service to help you build modern apps faster. You can get started for free in 30 seconds, or if you want to try out the Standard tier for zero cost, use the code “TryHasura” at this link: hasura.info. We’ve also got an amazing selection of GraphQL tutorials at hasura.io/learn. Show Notes 01:51 - Overview Level Up uses a JWT & secure cookie-based authentication and tracks sessions via a db table. Accounts.js 05:13 - JWT Base 64 encoded (not encrypted) token that contains data. We have both accessTokens and refreshTokens. JWT has three parts: Header What kind of algo was used Payload Data about the user Email Username UserID refreshToken, authToken, sessionId Signature This ensures that no one monkeyed with the above parts. If you change your email in the payload, the signature is not invalid, because in order to generate the signature, it uses the header and payload as part of it. accessToken A short lived JWT that contains the sessionToken, userId and expires after 90min. refreshToken A long lived JWT that contains just the sessionToken and doesn’t expire. JWT can be decoded and read, but you have to encode them with your secret. JWT can be stored anywhere, there are two main places: 20:26 - Cookies We use httpOnly, secure cookies to store the accessToken and the refreshToken. The accessToken is a session cookie and is removed whenever the browser is closed. The refreshToken is valid for 100 days but is also re-created and revalidated for 100 more days each time the accessToken is generated. Because these are httpOnly cookies, they cannot be accessed by JavaScript in the client and can only be set and removed on the server. Note: Safari has stricter rules than others for same domain cookies (e.g. localhost won’t work). 34:26 - Sessions Sessions are when a user logs in on a device. If you open a phone and log in and a computer and log in, those will create two different sessions. A session contains information about the user’s connection (like their IP) but it also contains the userId which allows us to create new accessTokens from a valid session. Sessions can be valid or invalid. This allows us to log anyone out by setting their session to valid: false. Sessions also have sessionToken which are generated on authentication or create account. 38:10 - CORS Cross-origin-resource-sharing Can be super tricky to get working cross-domain You usually have to actually visit the website for the cookie to be set, even with lax cors 46:06 - CSRF 48:47 - Authentication process bcrypt.js 52:13 - Helper Packages NextAuth.js is super easy Passport.js auth0 Links Caddy Fastify ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: reMarkable 2 Wes: Opration Odessa Shameless Plugs Scott: Node Fundamentals Authentication - Sign up for the year and save 25%! Wes: Advanced React - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off! Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

17 Mar 20211h

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about environment variables — what they are, where you should keep them, and more! Sanity - Sponsor Sanity.io is a real-time headless CMS with a fully customizable Content Studio built in React. Get a Sanity powered site up and running in minutes at sanity.io/create. Get an awesome supercharged free developer plan on sanity.io/syntax. Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what’s happening with your code, track errors and monitor performance with Sentry. Sentry’s Application Monitoring platform helps developers see performance issues, fix errors faster, and optimize their code health. Cut your time on error resolution from hours to minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners new to Sentry can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code TASTYTREAT during sign up. Show Notes 03:54 - What are they? API Keys Secrets Database URLs NODE_ENV 06:16 - Type of env variables Plain text Encrypted Frontend Backend .env files .env is a good package for all langs .env.local Framework env variables System env variables Host-provided variables 16:20 - Where should you keep them? 1Password 1Password CLI 17:34 - Other gotchas Netlify Limit is 4096 Netlify needs a clear cache before it works THING=yo node index.js cross-env NODE_OPTIONS="–inspect" Require before run Links Digital Ocean App Platform Render Vercel Netlify Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

15 Mar 202123min

It’s another potluck! In this episode, Scott and Wes answer your questions about VSCode, Vercel vs Netlify, staying up to date with dev concepts, models and mutations, websites vs seb apps, adaptive vs responsive design, and more! Freshbooks - Sponsor Get a 30 day free trial of Freshbooks at freshbooks.com/syntax and put SYNTAX in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what’s happening with your code, track errors and monitor performance with Sentry. Sentry’s Application Monitoring platform helps developers see performance issues, fix errors faster, and optimize their code health. Cut your time on error resolution from hours to minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners new to Sentry can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code TASTYTREAT during sign up. Vonage - Sponsor Vonage is a Cloud Communications platform that allows developers to integrate voice, video and messaging into their applications using their communication APIs. Whether you’re wanting to build video calls into your app, create a Facebook bot, or build applications on top of programmable phone numbers, you’ll have all the tools you need. Use promo code SYNTAX10 for €10 of free credit when signing up at vonage.dev/syntax. Show Notes 02:10 - Sometimes in VSCode when intellisense tells us the TypeScript type of a variable, it just gives the name of the type rather than how the type is defined. This is annoying for objects as I want to know what fields it contains! How do you handle this? Is there some VSCode magic to make it show the full type definition or is there some way to bring up the definition in the .d.ts file? 04:55 - What techniques do you guys use to keep different tech stack requirements fresh between projects? 10:35 - How do you feel about Vercel vs. Netlify? Pros/cons? Thanks! 18:32 - Should a model name be singular or plural? 22:57 - I’ve just listened to the CSS Typography and Systems Hasty Treat, and realized that we often try to apply website design to web apps (me at least). Can you elaborate on the differences in designing for a website and for a web app? 25:46 - What’s the difference between adaptive and responsive design? 32:40 - Multi-vendor platforms? Have you done it before? A partner and I, are planning to build a peer-2-peer platform (similar to Etsy and Amazon, where users can register as a merchant or a buyer). What is the easiest way to make payment transactions (Stripe or PayPal)? Do you know any frameworks that will make my life easier? 36:16 - Is there a golden rule for mutations? I’ve been using GraphQL for last couple of months, and everything is great as long as I’m just fetching data. When I need to write mutations, the story gets murky. Looking around internet, there are not too many best practices to be found - most of the articles and blogs focus on data fetching. 42:19 - What do you think about the future of Svelte? I know they are replacing Sapper with SvelteKit, which uses Snowpack. What direction do you think Svelte will go in? 45:32 - How can I get back into a habit of learning new things and stop heavily relying on video tutorials all the time? I really struggle to sit down and read for long periods of time. Also have you guys came across the Genesis framework, and if so, could you recommend any learning material? Thanks. 48:54 - My team uses handlebars templates for generating newsletters. The content is coming from a CMS for generating final HTML. I’m fairly new to handlebars and mustache syntax, so instead of learning handlebars I’m thinking about using React to generate the html on server side. I see some great potential here as the entire team is well-versed with React. What is your opinion about this? Links VSCode Peek Definition Obsidian Render Adam Wathan Gumroad Braintree MJML https://github.com/unlayer/react-email-editor Redwings shoes ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Tosowoong Enyme Powder Wash Wes: Carhartt Gloves Shameless Plugs Scott: Testing with Cypress - Sign up for the year and save 25%! Wes: Advanced React Course - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for $10 off! Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

10 Mar 202158min

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes are doing an AMA — answering questions about self-employment, time-management, course creation, Clubhouse, and more! Prismic - Sponsor Prismic is a Headless CMS that makes it easy to build website pages as a set of components. Break pages into sections of components using React, Vue, or whatever you like. Make corresponding Slices in Prismic. Start building pages dynamically in minutes. Get started at prismic.io/syntax. LogRocket - Sponsor LogRocket lets you replay what users do on your site, helping you reproduce bugs and fix issues faster. It’s an exception tracker, a session re-player and a performance monitor. Get 14 days free at logrocket.com/syntax. Show Notes 03:41 - What do you miss about NOT being self-employed? What are some UNEXPECTED perks of being self-employed? 05:47 - Hypothetically, what would a LinkedIn recruiter need to say to pull you away from your current development work, and possibly even the podcast? 09:08 - What percentage of your time do you guys spend doing work for clients vs your own courses/projects? 10:04 - Do you still do most of your work yourself, or do you outsource some parts of it? (work can be anything related to your business, not just making the courses) 12:48 - Could you all talk about protected/private routes in Next.js? I’m coming from create react app type routing. 16:07 - What would be doing for a living if not a developer? 17:50 - What do you think about Clubhouse? Are you guys planning to talk over there some time? 24:18 - Vue or React? Which do you think will be the top? And should developers learn both? Links https://twitter.com/aaronendsley/status/1361375032342110210 Svelte Tweet us your tasty treats! Scott’s Instagram LevelUpTutorials Instagram Wes’ Instagram Wes’ Twitter Wes’ Facebook Scott’s Twitter Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets

8 Mar 202127min