Episode 79: Did You Enjoy the Vue, Ash?

10/25/21 • 69 min

This Episode is sponsored by Cloudflare Workers

Join us today as we talk to Ash Ryan Arnwine (developer experience leader for DataStax) about Getting Started Guides. Ash takes us through his experience with Vue, and how the guides in Vue 1 were the North Star for him when he was working with Adobe Creative Cloud. We discuss the challenges in migrating from different versions, and the downsides to Getting Started videos in place of text. Find out how keeping Ash's four-year-old daughter from sleeping is the highest praise the Vue team has received, and what each of the team feels is better: prescriptive or flexible guides. From picking the correct level to pitch your instructions at, to the different types of people defined as “developers”, you don’t want to miss out on this information-packed episode!

Key Points From This Episode:

Welcome to Ash Ryan Arnwine, developer experience leader for DataStax and previously, Adobe Creative Cloud.
Ash’s introduction to Vue and why it became the North Star for thinking about writing documentation.
What makes the path from getting started to building an app clear.
Finding the balance between prescriptive and “sprinkling in some HTML” in Vue.
How Vue has a background framework beyond the beginner’s instructions.
The importance of being able to access the full app code on GitHub.
Picking the level of developer that your Getting Started Guide caters to (sometimes the middle-ground is the worst place to be).
Why you need to maintain your Getting Started Guide.
How to highlight important information that people might skip when reading the Getting Started Guide.
The challenges of migrating from Vue 2 to Vue 3, and communicating it to users.
Why it’s crucial to make a roadmap of where the app is going.
How Vue’s completely honest self-appraisal won Ash over.
Why videos are less appealing than documents about Getting Started.
The naming conventions for Vue.
Creating a community to talk about “software things” in different places.
How to contact Ash.
Discover this week’s picks from each of the team!

Tweetables:

“For a long time, I think Vue sort of became, in some ways, a North star for me personally, when thinking about documentation, and how do you orient somebody into a completely new technology.” — @ashryan_io [0:02:12]

“One thing that I've learned over time with just in leading developer relations and developer experience is that oftentimes, it's the sample code that turns into the most popular resource.” — @ashryan_io [0:25:41]

“Oftentimes, I think that the imperative is just like help people get started, help people get started, and we don't get a chance to step back and think, 'Okay, who are the people? What are they getting started doing?” — @ashryan_io [0:29:59]

“Developers are not a monolith.” — @ashryan_io [0:33:44]

"I think that when pondering developer experience, broadly, one of the things that is important to get to and be able to offer, but often isn't there at the very beginning is some sort of insight into the future, in terms of where things are going.” — @ashryan_io [0:46:19]

“Today, there's like so many awesome resources to learn. It's almost too much, right?” — @ashryan_io [0:55:34]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

This Episode is sponsored by Cloudflare Workers

Key Points From This Episode:

Welcome to Ash Ryan Arnwine, developer experience leader for DataStax and previously, Adobe Creative Cloud.
Ash’s introduction to Vue and why it became the North Star for thinking about writing documentation.
What makes the path from getting started to building an app clear.
Finding the balance between prescriptive and “sprinkling in some HTML” in Vue.
How Vue has a background framework beyond the beginner’s instructions.
The importance of being able to access the full app code on GitHub.
Picking the level of developer that your Getting Started Guide caters to (sometimes the middle-ground is the worst place to be).
Why you need to maintain your Getting Started Guide.
How to highlight important information that people might skip when reading the Getting Started Guide.
The challenges of migrating from Vue 2 to Vue 3, and communicating it to users.
Why it’s crucial to make a roadmap of where the app is going.
How Vue’s completely honest self-appraisal won Ash over.
Why videos are less appealing than documents about Getting Started.
The naming conventions for Vue.
Creating a community to talk about “software things” in different places.
How to contact Ash.
Discover this week’s picks from each of the team!

Tweetables:

“Developers are not a monolith.” — @ashryan_io [0:33:44]

“Today, there's like so many awesome resources to learn. It's almost too much, right?” — @ashryan_io [0:55:34]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Previous Episode

Episode 78: setTimeout(newEpisode)

This episode is sponsored by Clouflare Pages!

This week, The Enjoy the Vue panel digs into the topic of asynchronous event loops: how it can save you time, but also how it can trip you up. Asynchronous update queues are an efficient way for platforms like Vue to save time and energy by recognizing a group of similar commands and doing a batch run at the same point in time. We get into event loops, how the term ‘next tick’ came about, and how synchronous stacking can cause a Stack Overflow Error. You’ll also hear some of our favorite terminal commands, including a special tidbit on how to say ‘please’ to your computer! Lastly, we share our picks of the week that will add joy, intrigue, and deliciousness to your life, so make sure you tune in to hear it all!

Key Points From This Episode:

Introducing today’s topic: asynchronous event loop in JavaScript.
An asynchronous update queue and why Vue uses one.
Why an asynchronous update queue is so efficient.
How an asynchronous update queue can also sometimes cause problems.
Where the term ‘next tick’ originated and how it is applied today.
A breakdown of event loops and stack heaps.
Tessa shares her understanding of blocking.
Why a blocking operation is synchronous.
Alex explains what the heap is and how items transition to the stack.
Recursive functions and the stack overflow error message.
The team shares their favorite terminal commands.
Hear our picks for the week, which include gourmet sour gummies, intriguing portraits, and a fascinating new board game!

Tweetables:

“When you make a change to your data in Vue, it doesn't happen right away because that would potentially be inefficient. What it does is it groups all the changes together and then batch runs through them at a set point in time. That's the queue that they all get added to.” — @EnjoyTheVueCast [0:02:04]

“Basically, it's like doing your math without showing the work. That's what Vue does. Teachers love it.” — @EnjoytheVueCast [0:03:20?]

“My understanding is that blocking doesn't mean it never happens. It's just like I'm going to save all of these user interactions until the next time that the queue is free. Then, I'm going to jam all of them in there. You're going to get all 500 clicks in one second.” — @EnjoytheVueCast [0:18:25]

“There is this nebulous event that may or may not happen. When it happens, that click, that event doesn't necessarily fire immediately. It gets put on the end of the event queue, the event loop queue.” — @EnjoytheVueCast [0:19:16]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

repl.it
Back to the Vueture: Stuck in the Event Loop, tessa (VueConf US 2019) * What the heck is the event loop anyway?, Philip Roberts (JSConf EU)
Olivia Beaumont
Obscurio (Boardgame)
The Legend of ZeldaTM: Skyward Sword HD, Nintendo Switch
Candy Kittens
Web Exclusive Gourmies Bundle, Candy Kittens

Next Episode

Episode 80: Opting into the Composition API with Oscar Spencer

With the release of Vue 3, developers now have access to the Composition API, a new way to write Vue components. This API allows features to be grouped together logically, rather than having to organize single-file components by function. Using the Composition API can lead to more readable code, and gives developers more flexibility and scalability when developing their applications, which signals a bright future for Vue. At least, this is what today’s guest believes! Today, we speak with Oscar Spencer, developer at Tidelift and co-author of the Grain programming language, about Vue’s Composition API and why he believes it represents great things for Vue. We touch on Options API, our opinions of a template-first approach, and why Composition API is infinitely better than Mixins, as well as how JavaScript can prepare developers for Options API and what to watch out for when you first start working with Composition API in Vue. All this plus this week’s picks and so much more when you tune in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

An introduction to today’s guest, Oscar Spencer.
The panel shares what sound their Slack makes when they receive a new message.
Oscar shares his personal passion for the Vue Composition API.
Why he believes that Vue’s bright future includes the options API too.
Why Composition API represents great things for the future of Vue.
The panel discusses commit messages, interactive rebasing, and squashing.
What Oscar means when he says that the Composition API makes Vue more scalable.
Oscar and the panel weigh in on taking a template-first approach
Discover Oscar’s situational approach to composables when reusing business logic.
Composition API versus Mixins and why Oscar believes Composition API is superior.
Whether Options API or Composition API is easier to teach to a beginner developer.
How JavaScript prepares developers for Options API, which Oscar describes as ‘cozy’.
Oscar on how to know when to use Composition API versus Options API.
Why you would choose Composition API over simply using JavaScript: reactivity.
The panel shares some of the longest Vue components they have worked on.
Render functions in Vue and Oscar’s perspective on React versus Vue.
What to look out for if you’re new to Composition API; not understanding Vue’s reactivity.
Why the coolest thing Oscar has done in Vue is write a backend using the reactivity API.
This week’s picks: Only Murders in the Building, The Artful Escape, Dyson Sphere Program, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, and more!

Tweetables:

“When I look at the Composition API, I see a very bright future for Vue.” — @oscar_spen [0:02:22]

“The Composition API just gets rid of a whole host of issues that you have with Mixins. In fact, Mixins were my only complaint in Vue 2.” — @oscar_spen [0:24:05]

“Don’t be too scared of the [Composition API]. It was definitely designed with composition in mind. It was designed for you to have your composables consuming composables and not blowing up the world – [while] being fairly easy to follow as well.” — @oscar_spen [0:27:34]

“Regular JavaScript modules only get you so far because, fundamentally, what these regular JavaScript modules are missing is the reactivity. What the Composition API is letting us do is compose things that are reactive.” — @oscar_spen [0:41:44]

“By far the biggest gotcha with the Composition API is not understanding Vue's reactivity. That’s going to be the biggest gotcha that you can possibly run into. I highly recommend, instead of trying to wing it, just go look at a tutorial.” — @oscar_spen [0:57:02]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: