HTML All The Things - Web Development, AI, and Developer Careers

The WordPress drama between WPEngine and Matt Mullenweg has been quite the stir up for primarily WordPress, but also the open source community in general. Not to mention, all the WPEngine customers that are effectively collateral damage having their websites adversely affected, sometimes without even realizing what's happening. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the WordPress drama and touched on how it could affect open source projects moving forward. Is WordPress in the right? Is WPEngine? You decide...

Disclaimer/Correction: A section of this episode states a misinterpretation of the GPL license. We've published a correction in the show notes under the "Disclaimer & Correction" section.

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/open-source-is-dead

Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

 

Side projects are often done as a for-fun and potentially for-profit outlet for web developers looking to break free from client projects where they have little control. Unfortunately, just like client projects, side projects can easily spiral out of scope to the point of developer exhaustion. In this episode, Matt and Mike explore how scope creep can derail personal projects, offering practical strategies to prevent it. They discuss defining a solid MVP, niching down to maintain focus, and prioritizing features using methods like the MoSCoW framework. By setting clear boundaries and establishing achievable milestones, developers can avoid common pitfalls and keep their side projects on track.

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/side-projects-the-eternal-loop-of-never-ending-features

Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

In this episode Matt and MIke, continue their deep dive into the toughest concepts in web development. The guys tackle topics like mastering responsive design, ensuring web accessibility (a11y) for all users, and the complexities of server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), and client-side rendering (CSR). They also explore the challenges of event-driven architectures, managing project dependencies efficiently, and setting up smooth CI/CD pipelines. Whether you're building scalable web applications or just want to level up your dev game, this episode has actionable insights to help you through some of web development's most intricate concepts.

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-toughest-concepts-in-web-development-part-2

Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 40% off your subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD40  Code: HTMLPOD40) This offer is only available for the first 10 people that use the link and code!!

Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Web development is not easy! Websites need to work on multiple devices, respect SEO best practices, and must deliver everything from blogs through complex design programs. These demanding sees web developers navigating not only demanding topics, but ones that are also difficult to engineer, implement, and maintain. In this episode, Matt and Mike start a discussion the toughest concepts in web development. In this first of two parts series, the duo discussed: Asynchronous programming & promises, state management, security concerns (ie XSS CSRF, SQL Injection), performance optimization, scalability & architecture, and cross-browser compatibility.

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-toughest-concepts-in-web-development-part-1

Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Matt and Mike had a great conversation with Shashi Lo this week! Shashi is a senior software engineer at Microsoft and founder of Gridiron Survivor - an open source NFL Survivor pool SaaS application that’s designed to help the junior developers working on it further their skills and knowledge through real-world experience. Unlike self-taught personal projects, Shashi walks us through how his mentees on the Gridiron Survivor project are guided through corporate standards such as writing clean code and covering all the bases with proper testing - concepts that may seem superfluous on small portfolio project, but are a must-have in a corporate setting.

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/mentoring-developers-with-shashi-lo

Companion Article: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/blog-posts/bridging-the-skills-gap-empowering-junior-developers-through-apprenticeship-programs

 

While trying to solve a coding problem this week, Matt found himself buried in a collection of solutions offered by ChatGPT and Google search results. Some of the solutions were completely new to him and so he got to thinking about how "safe" it would be to implement them. Not from a security perspective, as there wasn't any private data involved in this particular case, but his concern was more for the page UX itself. How efficient were the solutions he was about to implement, would it slow the web page down? Were these new topics even being used in the correct context and being implemented appropriately? In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed how to think through problems like this in terms of project architecture, website performance, and troubleshooting/research time spent.

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/is-your-code-too-complex-troubleshooting-fixing-and-implementing-solutions

Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 20% off one-time purchases and subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Code: HTMLPOD20)

Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

There is a lot of tech out there! It seems every day someone is coming out with a new way to edit images, use AI, build websites, assist developers, and the list goes on and on. This week, Matt and Mike decided to zoom in and discuss some of the tech that they enjoy using at the moment including Svelte/SvelteKit, TailwindCSS, Supermaven, and much more! The technologies that web developers change all the time - and not always obvious things like frameworks and plugins, but also more logistical elements of the job like where to host, compress images, etc. What are you using in your projects?

 

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/tech-we-love-as-web-developers-sveltekit-vercel-supermaven-and-more

 

Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio

Scope creep is a very dangerous thing that can endanger a team's productivity and mental health. It involves taking the original scope of a project, and slowly but surely, adding more and more tasks to it. Often times scope creep is not done nefariously, as those that request tasks from developers are ignorant of the technical complexities of their requests. Unfortunately, there are those that will add to a project's scope willingly to take advantage of their employees, or there may be some mismanagement within the company that leads to additional work in a short period of time. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the who, what, where, when, and why of pushing back against customer requests in order to keep projects in-scope. They discussed the importance of pushing back sometimes, when to push back, and whether it's appropriate to push back when acting as a freelance contractor.

Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/saying-no-to-scope-creep-how-web-devs-can-push-back

Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode, enjoy 20% off one-time purchases and subscription using our link and code (Link: https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20 Code: HTMLPOD20)

Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers via this link: https://www.wix.com/studio