920: How to Build MCP Servers

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about getting buy-in from your team when using new tools. 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 02:53 - Q: "I wrote a long message to our architect asking if I could install prettier into our component generator for new projects moving forward, and the response I got was: “Don’t auto-format, not all devs want that and prettier doesn’t always format the way I like, I don’t want to enforce that on devs.” This sucks because I know the codebase would benefit so much. Right now every time I visit a project so much of the code is not spaced out that it makes it hard to read quickly for me, lots of the React code is bunched up with no spacing - it’s a mess to read for me especially because I am very organized. If this was your situation where you know a new tool/standard is something that can help a lot but it’s shot down, do you just give up? I don’t know how to respond to this because I am the only dev who has ever proposed this at my company and I just started here. 05:03 - Lots to unpack here Some senior devs don’t like getting suggestions from other devs. There is a sense that these things change quickly and I bet there is some anxiety over that at play here. Senior devs know better than to slap new tools into the codebase because they have probably done it and regretted it. What if it broke your code. 08:20 - So what can you do? Ask for their thoughts on a tool instead of suggesting it - it seems you have done this already Show the dev that even though it looks weird, it’s better for readability. Look at existing guidelines and try to match the settings as close as possible (not always an option with prettier). Put together a solid argument for it, written down. Use it in a smaller project. Everyone is against prettier at first, but once they use it, they realize how amazing it is. Can you just Prettier the code yourself and then format it otherwise before you check it in? This depends on if you have existing formats. Links Prettier js-beautify 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

27 Apr 202017min

It’s another potluck! In this episode, Scott and Wes answer your questions about mobile first development, ES6 arrow functions, Deno.js, tips for refactoring your code, best e-commerce platforms 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. Show Notes 02:50 - Q: Wondering about your take on mobile first design and implementation? Do you throw the desktop styles or the mobile styles in media queries? Any opinions about that? I’m switching a lot between projects that do it differently, and it really makes my head melt. 08:24 - Q: What is the difference between the ES6 arrow functions and a normal function? When would you use a normal function instead of an arrow function or the other way around? 13:54 - Q: What are your opinions or experiences on developing 360/VR experiences on the web? There are a few frameworks out there for building such experiences, like A-Frame and React 360. I was wondering if you had any experience using such frameworks or building these types of things, and do you think that this could become a big thing for web development in the future? 19:02 - Q: How do you define senior developer? What is the difference between intermediate and senior developers? 21:37 - Q: I was curious knowing your opinions regarding json:api and its consumption in React. Is it still a good pick compared to GraphQL or normal rest/json? 27:30 - Q: What’s your take on Blitz.js and RedwoodJS? Would you use a framework like this to build a large & scalable web app? 30:54 - Q: What do you think of Deno.js reaching version 1.0? Is it really going to be a Node successor, or is that just marketing hype? 34:34 - Q: When you are looking to refactor code, do you have a process you like to follow? 41:35 - Q: Which technology stack would you choose in 2020 for an e-commerce website and why? 46:32 - Q: I’m confused about developing a website for a client. I feel like most, if not all, clients want to take administrative control at the end of the project to be able to handle things themselves. Does this mean the only option for client projects is WordPress? I got really excited about making a client’s site in Gatsby, but they would need to be a coder to be able to edit the content of the site or maintain it. Am I missing something here? 49:52 - Q: How do I use prop types to check a component when getting the props from context instead of passing them down? 51:51 - Q: Should I use the mongoDB or mongoose node module in my project? What are the differences? 55:48 - Q: Is it a bad practice if I mix up React Bootstrap and Material UI in one React project? Links gqless Prisma The Blitz.js Manifesto (A New Fullstack React Framework) Begin Shopify Snipcart Magento Sanity Gatsby Syntax 157: Hasty Treat - What is a Headless CMS? @dog_rates Wondery - Joe Exotic ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Jackbox Games - Murder Party Two Wes: Tiger King Shameless Plugs Scott: Custom React Hooks - Currently 50% off! - Use the coupon code ‘Syntax’ for an additional 10% off! 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

22 Apr 20201h 2min

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes continue their discussion of website page speed — five more things that make your site slow! Sentry - Sponsor If you want to know what’s happening with your errors, track them with Sentry. Sentry is open-source error tracking that helps developers monitor and fix crashes in real time. Cut your time on error resolution from five hours to five minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code “tastytreat”. Show Notes 03:01 - Shipping too much JS Code splitting Webpack Bundle Analyzer Look at dependencies of libraries Use fewer libraries 06:38 - Not bundling code Build process 08:24 - Not compressing code Google Closure Compiler Gzip via your server serving assets Minify CSS + JS 11:45 - Loading JS asynchronously Where should I put tags in HTML markup? Solution: Lazy load JS as needed Solution: Show HTML first, load JS in the footer Solution: Use Async + Defer 16:42 - Missing indexes on DB What is a DB index? Where should you add them? MongoDB Compass Links Syntax 239: Hasty Treat - 5 Things That Make Your Site Slow Google PageSpped 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

20 Apr 202021min

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about emergency UI when building a website. During an emergency, you need to relay information to your website visitors as quickly and efficiently as possible. How do you do that? What do you need in place on your website? 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 errors, track them with Sentry. Sentry is open-source error tracking that helps developers monitor and fix crashes in real time. Cut your time on error resolution from five hours to five minutes. It works with any language and integrates with dozens of other services. Syntax listeners can get two months for free by visiting Sentry.io and using the coupon code “tastytreat”. Show Notes 5:40 - Banners and popups Interfere Static Dismissible Cookie/localstorage When that popup is updated, it should show again. Maybe use a hash of the content? Or length? Something that resets itself every time the content is updated. Private client-side-only PWAs are hard 14:35 - Good styling What happens if they add an image? Do they have access to the branded fonts and colors in their WYSIWYG? Can you revoke 100px red Times New Roman? 18:32 - Page alerts Yellow, green, red Alerts on existing pages 21:08 - New pages Is there a good template for new pages? Can they easily set the slug? whatever.com/covid19 Can they add it to the nav? 23:52 - Google’s “Hours of Operation” Is that easy to change? Meta tags: https://schema.org/OpeningHoursSpecification 25:43 - Other Own your audience! Email newsletter ready to rock Online pickup? Basic scheduling software https://www.cityhive.net/ https://snipcart.com/ Live streaming - have a YouTube account ready to go, even if empty 34:38 - Deployment Detail how to deploy everything It might have been years and the CSS will only compile on Node 6 and Gulp 3 Do any caches need clearing? Does the CSS need to be cache busted? Links 1Password Cloudflare ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Mellow Groovy Sounds YouTube Channel Mellow Grovvy AOR / West Coast Mix #4 Wes: Used projectors are cheap and can be a great deal Shameless Plugs Scott: All Courses - 50% everything! 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

15 Apr 202045min

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about five things that could potentially be making your website slow. 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 3:00 - TTFB Slow DNS lookup Server on the other side of the world Slow server processing Network speed back to the browser 6:21 - Requests Too many requests Too large Waterfalling your requests 9:44 - Assets are too large Images are the biggest bloat in a site Compress and optimize via build tool or ImageOptim Make smaller Picture fill for mobile 14:48 - Lazy loading lazy=“true” Intersection observer Preload slider images two ahead 18:03 - Not using a CDN What is a CDN? Cloudflare is free, others are very cheap - we used Cloudfront Netlify is free and comes with a CDN Links WordPress Webpack Gulp gatsby-image Cloudinary Cloudflare Cloudfront 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

13 Apr 202024min

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk about working from home. How do we do our best in these unprecedented times? Here are our tips for working from home and staying productive and sane! .TECH Domains - Sponsor If you need eyes on your project, you’ll need a domain, and .TECH is perfect for representing your brand. Find out if your .TECH domain is available at go.tech/syntax2020. Use the coupon code Syntax2020 and get 90% off 1- 5- and 10-year domain names. 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. Show Notes 2:39 - Your space You need a table Card table or dining room table Keyboard + monitor Don’t work from your bed or couch Headphones can get you in the zone (noise-canceling ftw) 16:36 - Routine Shower, shave, makeup Clear start and stop times - even if that means it’s 5am to 11am because you are splitting Taking breaks is important 25:24 - Focus TODO list - write a list of what you hope to do at the start of the day, check things off, feel good about yourself Eat That Frog - for the 100th time Don’t watch or check the news during work hours Block the terms related to the pandemic or politics on social media - you don’t need that info there DOOM Scrolling 30:11 - Self care Video games or relaxing things post work Exercise Kettlebells, spin bike, bodyweight workouts Stronger by Science has a great episode about this - https://www.strongerbyscience.com/podcast-episode-38/ Zoom Happy Hours Don’t overly rely on substances to get you through Get your VD (vitamin D) Don’t stress out yourself at night - don’t look up news before bed 43:20 - Managing kids and sharing time with your partner First of all, props to you all - this is really hard, mentally and physically This will vary greatly depending on your SO’s job, number and age of kids Our SOs have work and jobs of their own Watching young kids is hard work Give each other 30 min brakes Kids need routine - put something in place Some times Uncle Mickey needs to take over, and that’s ok Communication is key Schedule Examples: 6-12 and 12-6 4 hours each 2 hour trade off Focus time (calls, deep work) and half-focus time (emails, etc.) Have empathy with everyone: co-workers, SO, kids Check in on your peeps Keep an eye on your co-workers, even the extroverted ones Links Super Strong Neodymium Magnets Elgato Cam Link 4k Keychron K1 Eat That Frog! uses.tech Animal Crossing Love Is Blind Powerblocks Peloton Strange Brew Wes’ Twitter thread - How are you managing child care? Syntax Twitter thread - Send us your work from home tips! ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Scott: Oculus Quest Wes: Slumberpod Shameless Plugs Scott: All Courses - 50% off! 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

8 Apr 202054min

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about abstraction in general as well as javascript programming. 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 1:48 - What the heck is abstraction? I like to think of it as sweeping under the rug Vue and React devs should be very familiar with the concept 4:44 - When to abstract When things are getting too heavy Personal preference Some people have an arbitrary line limit 7:25 - When not to abstract When savings are minimal When it just adds a pointless layer 9:40 - Personal code abstractions vs public My personal focus is on API simplicity and baked-in smart defaults More specific Public APIs need to be more flexible or at least for some components Links React Vue Svelte Max MSP chakra UI 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

6 Apr 202017min

In this episode of Syntax, Scott and Wes talk with Dr. Courtney Tolinski about mental health and web development. 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. 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. Show Notes 3:20 - Depression Honestly just explaining depression would be great. Too many times I’ve heard “but you don’t look sad” As someone who struggles with depression, what are some things I can do to rekindle and things I enjoy like developing and hobbies? This would greatly benefit me for learning more dev related things outside of doing it for work. My depression is due to some other cause in personal life - two years into it. Coding has bought me little life back as this is the only thing I have to do. What can we do from an outsider's view to someone who might have depression? 12:23 - Anxiety Imposter Syndrome x 1000 How to deal with increased anxiety during these times? How to avoid anxiety and feel useless when working products that you don’t appeal to you? Wanted to ask the Dr about why do I feel that I have to work on 1000 projects that seem to never finish? 😣This is inducing a lot of anxiety sometimes. I am on depression medication. Sometimes, I feel scared that I am so slow and don’t feel accomplished enough like people working at FANG, etc, being a SE. How to deal with the anxiety caused by today’s events around the world and the need to isolate yourself from society even though we crave human interaction? 29:12 - Focus and job performance How to keep motivation and focus? I find myself enjoying work but having a hard time focusing on it. All the “distraction-free” apps don’t work because I can turn them off and I feel they literally have no power over me. Hardcore mode Pomodoro technique 35:10 - Motivation and remote work Bore-out Burnout How do you deal with loss of focus and happiness in web development (especially on remote jobs)? Working for yourself at home, you don’t get a chance to bounce ideas and encouragement from others in an office. What’re some good ways to compensate for that to ensure you maintain a positive mindset? Work on new things Find ways to try new things 40:38 - Stress Correctly identifying source of (negative?) stress. Not lashing out when under stress. How to avoid eating to cope with stress? Links Eat That Frog! - Brian Tracy Pomodoro technique Healthline How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 ××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Courtney: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind Scott: The Engineering Mindset YouTube Channel Wes: Toca Boca Shameless Plugs Scott: All Courses - Sign up for the year and save 50%! Wes: All Courses - Eveything is 50% off! 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

1 Apr 20201h 2min