916: I Got Fired, What Should I Focus On?  ## Metadata - Author: [[Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats]] - Full Title: 916: I Got Fired, What Should I Focus On? - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a9d8edfd-3be1-4bc2-8ad7-ca5a5f848dfe ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Maintain Popular NPM Packages** - To maintain a popular NPM package, reduce reliance on external dependencies to enhance stability. - Clearly indicate in your README that you seek maintainers to attract help and share responsibilities. Transcript: Wes Bos It's going to happen. Let's get into the first question here from Niccolo Fidelli. Hey, I created an NPM package last year that's surprisingly taken off. It's now getting around 60,000 weekly downloads. That's a lot of downloads. I'm looking for advice on what to do next, especially because I'd like to share ownership to ensure its continued maintenance. As I'm concerned, I might not always have the time for it myself. What do you recommend? Scott Tolinski Yeah, for sure. Just cash out, brother. Wes Bos Yeah, throw some ads in the command line on install all that stuff. Yeah, I don't you know, this one to me is one thing that I haven't done personally, but I do think there are some good practices in general, especially for maintenance long term. The thing you need to think about with maintenance long term is that hopefully your package doesn't require a bunch of versions of several different mini libraries because things Are always going to be evolving, especially like front end frameworks and stuff like that. Because in that case, yeah, you're going to have to keep it maintained. One thing I think that some packages have done really well lately is that they've stopped relying on a bunch of external packages for things that may change their versions, that may Update, that may go out of just out of sync in general. So like really relying on less external dependencies to me feels like a good move for maintainability in the long run. Also, make it be known that you're looking for maintainers. You know, there's people out there. Yeah, pop it in the readme and put it somewhere. Put it just at the dang top of the readme so that like people might see it. You never know who's out there looking to get experience doing that kind of stuff. But reach out to people that way where they are, whether it's on NPM, where they're going to be seeing it or on GitHub, whatever. Scott Tolinski Just make sure that that's visible that you're looking for help maintaining this thing anytime i've had a either a package or i have several like github repos that are not packages but They're they're github repos of i have one for burner email addresses i have another one for the uses.tech website i got i don't know maybe four or five of those. And generally what happens is somebody that either is interested in the project or somebody that relies on that package for their job is going to sort of like latch on and start submitting Issues, maybe submitting pull requests. And those are generally good people. They have a little bit of skin in the game. They need to make sure that this package that they're relying on is well used. So reach out to those people. Throw it in the Read Me that you're looking for maintainers because it's generally a good idea to have more than one set of eyes on something that starts to get a little bit big. Wes Bos And also, like, maybe set up some things to accept donations because, yeah, you might not want to be maintaining this full time or whatever but if you get enough donations then uh hey Scott Tolinski That kind of makes the pain a little bit less uh crazy on that one i think more people need to do that it's just throw a little donation on there and even if you're getting i don't know 50 100 Bucks a month of donations maybe maybe that's even high but you get a couple hundred bucks a year that's still significant and like that stuff can pay for like a laptop or whatever and You don't necessarily feel like you're you're getting burned when you're like oh i just work on this thing that i i love to do and it actually starts you get a couple little benefits from It here and there yeah word ryan says hey wes and Scott, the most irrelevant question for Scott. I'm traveling to Denver at the end of July for Laracon. Yeah, we heard a lot of people are heading out to Denver for Laracon. Any recommendations of what to see or do when I'm in town? Wes Bos Denver has a lot of low key good restaurants. And what I mean by low key is that like, you don't necessarily think of Denver and food, especially we were talking about this at the meetup sushi, man, there's a lot of great sushi in Denver, Whether that's sushi den or Uchi, there's some like kind of higher end places. If you're looking for a few dollar signs, man, just look up any of the top restaurants in Denver because the fancy stuff is fantastic. If you're looking for like a good middle ground place to eat, Linger is a really cool restaurant. It's not like the cheapest place, but it's also not some place you have to go get dressed up to go to. And it's a really, really interesting kind of like blend of various regional world foods and stuff like that. It's fantastic. They do a great job there. And while you're at Linger, right next door to it is the best ice cream place in Denver. You can get yourself some ice cream at Little Man Ice Cream. There is always a line there. The first time we came to Denver was in October. And we got Little Man one day because it was recommended to us. And then it was like, we were headed to the airport, like in the car, going to the airport. And my wife was like, can we stop at Little Man on the way there? Which was not on the way, mind you. It was out of the way and we had to go wait in the line for it. And so that's a great place to go. It's fantastic. If you do have means of transportation, I would highly recommend going out to Red Rocks, not for a concert or anything, but it's just, people might not know this, but it's just open during The day. And Red Rocks, the park and amphitheater is like the coolest dang thing. And you can just show up there anytime. Go through. Scott Tolinski It's like a mountain amphitheater, right? Like you can see concerts there and it's just like out in the mountains. Yeah. Wes Bos It's so cool because it is a ([Time 0:04:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/94a06ed6-d9dc-4764-8dcb-e82bde0f3b24)) - **Balance Learning with Life** - Balance learning new frameworks by integrating upskilling into your daily work or side projects. - Focus on starting and finishing projects to build skills and avoid endless tutorial loops. Transcript: Scott Tolinski Point next question we have here from dan long time lurker thanks for all your work thank Dan. I'm a designer and self-taught developer from New Zealand. I've been lucky enough to have been working in a marketing digital agency space for the last nine years. I have predominantly been working on WordPress, designing and building bespoke websites for clients using PHP, JS, CSS, etc. Though I have been trying to upscale myself in frameworks like React View, etc. The reason for this is both job security as well as a way to broaden opportunities. I am a family man. So anytime that I do have outside a family and work, it's generally late at night. So my progression in learning is frustratingly slow. And I often find myself having to go back and restart what I have already covered and I feel like I'm never getting anywhere and I'm guilty of getting stuck in tutorial heel probably meant Tutorial hell there sorry for the long word question is but my question is if you're in my position how would you tackle this have you guys had to do this yourself yeah this is a very common Problem in our industry or problem that people have is that the industry moves so fast. And if you cannot skill up during your day job, you kind of are in the spot where you work on the same tech stack all day long and you never increase your skills. And then if you get canned, I think we even have a question like this later on today, then you're, oh man, my skill set is kind of out of luck. So your approach here is, first of all, try and eek these things into your day job. If your day job is constantly standing still, then the company you work for is probably going to be in trouble as well at some point. And they certainly need to be trying new stuff. Not to say you should try absolutely everything new, but you should constantly be looking at what is the latest and greatest? What are these things that can help us build better, faster things, right? If you, for whatever reason, you simply cannot do that because the tech stack of whatever app you're working on is pretty set in stone, then you're going to need some sort of either side Project or little things that you can do. And being able to start and finish and just dust your hands off of a project, I think is the way forward. A lot of people say like, have like a little passion project where you're working on it for like eight years or whatever. And a lot of people like that. But for me, it's like, I got to like, I'm going to start something, I'm going to build something that I want. And I'm going to learn a whole bunch along the way. And then I'm going to be done that thing. You might want to come back to it at another point and update it. But being able to simply go through the entire motion from start to finish ([Time 0:11:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a45e874a-0e64-4c35-a81d-a70a72796961)) - **Pro Streaming Gear Setup** - Invest in a high-quality camera, like the Sony FX3, for excellent video quality. - Use professional lighting setups with softboxes and RGB lights to achieve studio-like visual effects. Transcript: Wes Bos The setup yeah so my my setup one first and foremost nice camera is going to do a lot. I've always liked Sony cameras because of their low-light performance. So before we joined Century, I was using an a7 III, and that was a really great camera, even though it's a picture camera. But if you're looking for like a dual-purpose camera, the a7 series cameras are just a really great for this type of thing i am currently using a sony fx3 which is a cinema camera because We primarily do video we're doing a lot of video on here and i use it for more than just my webcam here but this is like it's a netflix approved cinema camera and uh and it's like four grand Scott Tolinski If It's crazy to have that. Yeah. Yeah. Wes Bos As your webcam. Wes is using the same camera as well. I have my my whole kind of space dialed mostly with a couple of lights. I was using all LED panels. There's one right here and there's one right here is a backlight. So I have a backlight LED panel. I have a I guess you would call this a key light LED panel because it's kind of harsh but I'm not since I have white walls I'm mostly just bouncing off the wall to get like a full fill. It's a fairly harsh bright LED light. But the star of the show which is my new light which I've only had for if you've, a change in my setup at all. Scott Tolinski We've had this comment probably 10 times since you've put this light on. So everybody's noticing. Wes Bos So, which is, it's wild because it is. You know, I've been using the same camera and the same stuff for a little bit. This is, I use a light dome from aperture light dome and it is the this like big old soft box with a grid on it and a light thing to diffuse the light. And then for the light itself, I'm using an aperture Amaran 150 C. This light rules It is not cheap. It's 350 bucks. But again, we do this professionally. So got to have a professional lighting setup. This is on the cheaper end of fancy lights like this, even though it is extremely high quality. So this light does full on RGB, I could change it to be any color in the world. So I actually have mine a little bit yellow to give me some color. I'm a fairly pale person. So it gives me a little bit, just a more color. And yeah, I think this light right here is the star of the show. I do have some LED, like some cheapo LED things to give some color behind me, you may or may not see it. But this big old softbox makes such a tremendous difference. And I can even show you, I used to have a harsh LED light right here. And that was, yeah, it was a little too harsh all the time. So this is the backlight. Scott Tolinski And it's, I don't even like having it on because it's, it's like, you can see me right now when I move my hands in front of it. It's just a bit too much. Wes Bos I need it to be a bit more diffused dude you get this softbox and you're going to be looking like me so you turn this you can see I get a little bit of fill on my back light side of the head so that's The uh this is the back light here I have the this is the fancy light so you can see what it looks like without the softbox and then you give this on and it just gives it a full on like production Studio feel. And then this is the other harsh LED light. You can see that one is filling this side of my face. The thing that I have that is difficult for more difficult than what you will have is that I wear glasses and therefore I cannot have a light. You could see like when I look at the light or when I look at this light, they end up in my glasses. So I have to have this one way over here and I have to have this one way over here. And that causes so many issues with trying to, you know, not cast shadows or whatever. So this softbox again makes all the difference in the world microphone it's a electro voice re oh man i always forget the number on this re 20 it's a classic radio mic and that's why it sounds Good i have a deeper voice so this microphone is good for people with a deeper voice that's ([Time 0:23:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/72581b67-6f25-480a-a978-80149e6685a8)) - **Snake Case vs Camel Case** - Snake_case is easier to read for some, especially those with dyslexia, due to clear word separation. - CamelCase remains dominant in JavaScript, partly influenced by AI code generation trends. Transcript: Wes Bos I think it is like clinically, I don't know if that's a word, easier to read. There is a study done with eye tracking that determined it was easier to read. Me personally, I think biggest problem that you have is that everything in JavaScript ends up being camel case, all the AIs want to write camel case all the time. But for me, I prefer snake case, I have dyslexia. So for me, camel case, everything just kind of jumbles together. But when you have snake case, there is a clear delineation between each word that for me personally with my challenges just make it easier to read. So I don't know if that's that like is easier to read for everybody. But me personally, I find it tremendously easier to read. So that's why I use it. But I didn't even consider using snake case until Rich started talking about it. And then I started checking it out and was like, huh, this is way easier to read for me. ([Time 0:28:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d0559435-a396-4cad-9ade-307ea4062591)) - **Imposter Syndrome Signals Growth** - Recognize imposter syndrome as a sign you're growing and facing new challenges. - Embrace discomfort as a necessary part of progress and professional growth. Transcript: Scott Tolinski Probably once a week. And we haven't answered it in many years because I feel like we've answered it quite a bit. But let's hit it again. Have you ever hit imposter syndrome? Imposter syndrome is, if you don't know, where you don't feel like you have the skill to do something. So you have a job and you think, man, how did I get this job? I'm an imposter. I can't possibly be getting paid for this. They're going to find me out. And I think a lot of people in our industry have this. In fact, I think we talk about imposter syndrome so much that we maybe even have a little bit of the flip side, where especially in the last five or so years where people take a three-week Boot camp and get a job at Facebook and get paid $100,000 a year. But have you had it? Yes. I don't think I have it as much as other people, especially once I got the confidence of being able to be able to say, I don't know, but I can figure it out. There's a certain point in your career where you realize there's no chance that you're going to know everything, but you get to a point where you realize I probably can figure that out Given enough time and resources. So my biggest advice to somebody that does have imposter syndrome is to know that has it and that you can you can push through that people that have been in their careers for for many many Years certainly don't put yourself into situations where you literally don't know what you're doing yeah but there should be a little bit of something inside you that says i i can figure Wes Bos This out yeah i think the best jobs the most growth i've ever had have been the ones where i've started feeling like an imposter like why would they have picked me for this job and then it's A good spot to be if you can step up to the plate because if they if they call your name and you come up there and you hit a touchdown with your baseball bat, then you can get just a tremendous Amount of personal growth from that. Come from because you feeling uncomfortable or like you have imposter syndrome is a sign that you are on a path of, you know, an uncharted path for you because it's always a little bit Scary to go someplace you haven't haven't gone. So as long as you are the type of person who's willing to take on a challenge, man, that's a good feeling and as far as have I ever had imposter syndrome yeah oh yeah totally again like I said In any job that I got that was like a big step up from where I currently was and within three months whatever you're then at that level next thing you know you're you're ready for the next Big jump in your scary trajectory of constant progression and growth. Scott Tolinski We've said in the past, like you should be like a 31% uncomfortable or a 21% uncomfortable with where you're at. And if you don't feel uncomfortable with any aspect of where you're at in life, not just like your code, like your professional career, but like other things in your life, if you're not Uncomfortable with those things, maybe stop and ask, am I just sitting? Am I just maintaining right now? Because maybe it's time to take on something that is a little bit harder. Wes Bos All right, ([Time 0:31:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6420b95a-62b3-485f-8406-d9a12a514730)) - **Use Reverse Proxy Servers** - Use a reverse proxy server to run multiple applications on one domain and server efficiently. - Configure routing rules to direct traffic to appropriate apps or static assets on different ports. Transcript: Scott Tolinski So what we did is we discussed what a reverse proxy is when you have your own server. And it's an area where I'm usually on somewhat on thin ice. For example, hosting multiple applications and servers on the same domain name. What can and should a reverse proxy do for me? I was thinking about setting up a small tutorial repo for others to use with a small project to teach yourself some of these practical applications. All right, so a reverse proxy is this idea that you have a server and on your server, you can have multiple processes running. And generally, those processes run on each on their own port. So you have a server. Maybe you're running a node application. Maybe you're running a web server that serves up a front end. Maybe you have like a database. Maybe you have an API server that's running, or maybe you just have literally 20 WordPress installs running all on the same server. When it comes time to visiting those applications, generally what happens is you visit like the IP address, colon, the port that that application is running on. And that's how you run each of them. What you want to do likely is you want to have a single domain name like syntax.fm. And then you want to put each of those applications at like a forward slash, you know, forward slash API, forward slash admin, forward slash watch when you're logging in so what a reverse Proxy will do is it will like caddy server is is one that i use all the time nginx is another really good one as well what's the other one that they have in coolify they have caddy server and Oh i don't know uh traffic traffic yes that's the default one yeah yes so basically you write these config files for your reverse proxy and that will take in every incoming request whether It's htp whether it's web socket request you know whether it's like tcp traffic um and then your reverse proxy will then route that traffic depending on your rules, to the different Applications. And that is how you can set up something like forward slash admin. And it will know, ah, I'm going to capture admin forward slash whatever. And I'm going to just pipe that straight into the admin application, which I know is running on port 1234. And then if something else comes in that doesn't match those, then I'm going to route it to this one. Or if it's like an asset, you could like match it by like JPEG or whatever. And you could route it to another, simply just static file hosting that is on your server. So it is a great way to run multiple apps on the same server. It's a great way to save money because a lot of these platform as a services, they're going to bill you based on how many apps you have running. So if you ([Time 0:38:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9cdff115-5db4-42db-96dc-5fc008febb3d)) - **Upskill After Layoff Strategically** - After a layoff, focus on building many projects using hireable technologies like React and React Native. - Develop proficiency with AI tools to stand out in job interviews and increase your hiring chances. Transcript: Wes Bos Curious what the direction you'd recommend I had while refreshing my skill set. Yeah, this one, the direction is honestly going to be right now, make make stuff. Because if you have been laid off here, you probably are just applying, you're looking for stuff. And a lot of these jobs are going to be giving you technical interviews or expecting you to know all this stuff. And since you're behind, sure, you're going to want to study specifically the things you are interviewing for. I feel like react react Native is never going to be a bad thing to study and get really good at. Because, I mean, here in the world of 2025 with AI, AI just is going to assume that you're writing React every single time. So like having a good understanding of React deeply, I think will will help you but just be building as much stuff as possible like a small app every single day because you getting your Hands dirty and some real code is going to really take you a lot further than opening up your books and starting to study. Now, I think in this new world as well, like really being good at AI tools is going to be a job differentiator. If you go into an interview and you're up against somebody who is very skilled with all of the latest AI tools or perhaps it's like on the bleeding edge of that stuff and you're like, I don't Know, I just write it all by hand, they're going to get the job. Scott Tolinski You're saying like a cursor or co-pilot, being able to use those effectively? Wes Bos Being able to use them effectively, but not even just like being able to use them effectively, even as far as like having an opinion on what like is an effective use of those versus like, Oh, I just paste my code into chat GPT and then whatever, or I don't use anything at all. I do think being like, I use this tool for these reasons and it helps me because of this way and I'm a faster developer for it is like a much better thing to bring to the table than shrug, you Know? Yeah. So I think, yes, obviously I do think learning React, you know, React Native, those are great things to hang your hat on. But in addition to that, I do think you see all these mandates from CEOs saying, I'm not going to hire anyone who is not skilled in AI. I think that's serious. And I think that is like the new norm already. So if you want to bring something to an interview, I think you got to bring those those cutting edge AI skills. Scott Tolinski That's a really good point, because like people don't want to hire someone who just bop, bop, bop types in the box the AI code comes out the other end. They want to hire somebody who knows how to effectively use these tools, like Scott said, and be able to move faster and crank out more code, right? As much as people listening are probably being like, no, bad code is going to come out and it's going to be unmaintainable in a couple of years. And those are valid concerns, but the person hiring you doesn't necessarily care about that. What they, they care about is that A, you understand how the code works and B, you're able to use these tools to effectively create stuff and like build stuff that it is that they want. So that's a really good point. I think also you need to be scaling up on stuff that is very hireable right now. So Scott says, of course, React, React Native. Those are very hireable as well. Build many projects that every single time you choose something a little bit different you know use tailwind in one project use some other css thing in another project use veed in one Project you know maybe try the new roll down so that when it comes time to talking about it you can say yes i've i've used all these things i've i've played with this i dipped into it so it Shows that you have, like not only are you like keyword optimizing your resume, but you're also just showing that you know what you're talking about. And then the final thing I'll say here is that not only using AI to code, but building stuff with AI. So interfacing with the different models, interfacing with the different open AI APIs, building a little chat for yourself. Because a lot of people right now, as these businesses get sort of scooped by AI, they're going to be kind of reactive and say, oh, we need to put AI in our own product as well. And they're going to want to hire somebody that actually knows what they're talking about with these things. So I think that React and AI, as much as you may hate both of those things, those are probably very top of the hireability skills right now. ([Time 0:43:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c4990f5b-95e5-4b96-9d05-17e585061415)) - **Cardboard Cutter Saves Time** - Wes Bos shares how a cordless cardboard cutter saved him significant time on recycling duties. - Scott Tolinski humorously reveals he got an extra cardboard bin secretly to manage his recycling better. Transcript: Wes Bos Which is essentially just like a blade and a handle. You squeeze it, the blade spins, and you go, and it just shears. Scott Tolinski Oh, Caitlin has one of these for fabric. Wes Bos Yeah, it shears through heavy cardboard. And it's not just cardboard. They say it can do like carpet and all kinds of stuff. I don't know. I'm only using it for cardboard. And it seems ridiculous to have a power tool for cutting cardboard. But we have our cardboard day is once every two weeks, which is crazy. And you got cardboard in these modern times. And so we were just struggling to do anything other than fill the bin and then jump on it. Jump on it until it all fits in. Scott Tolinski Breaking down the delivery cardboard is like a full-time job. Wes Bos It is, and your hands get all dry and stuff from it. So this thing costs $35. You charge it with USB, and you just... And you cut your cardboard into little strips, and it takes no time at all. And I've already used this thing $35 worth of time. Like this thing has already saved me so much time. So for a little $35 tool, I found this to be a delight to use. Even if it is probably just drop shipped, rebranded, whatever, it works just great enough for me for 35 bucks that's awesome i i i actually thought about that as well my approach to the Scott Tolinski Cardboard is simply just get more blue boxes because we're allowed unlimited recycling here because i just like i hate breaking down the cardboard that's it's such a huge thing but Maybe i i have a knife on me all the time, too. Yeah. But I've, like, cut myself so many times. This is so much easier than a knife. It's so much easier, yeah. Wes Bos And I will say, like, we have two cardboard bins, and we still fill them up like crazy. Because whether that's, like, paper bags and, you know, Amazon boxes or whatever, we're getting our this or that. Man, it is crazy. The people the people that uh own this house before us on our like while we're moving in the guy was here and he was like hey just so you know i stole you a second cardboard bin and nobody knows About it and so they're not gonna take it away but this one this other one this one's yours too. And I was like, oh, my man, setting me up. Yes. Everybody else has got one and I got two. Scott Tolinski You never want anyone to find out about those things. At our cottage as well, we're the only people that have a mailbox. ([Time 0:50:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/66b71e4e-ac31-480d-9c8c-bb8a6d92e80c)) - **Use Kitchen Scissors Often** - Keep multiple pairs of kitchen scissors to ease food preparation and reduce cutting board use. - Maintain scissors by washing them regularly to ensure hygiene and convenience in the kitchen. Transcript: Scott Tolinski Going to pick another thing for cutting, which is just scissors. We do a lot of meal prep for our kids, obviously. And we are big kitchen scissors family. Instead of having to get a cutting board out and cut it up with the knife, we simply just have probably six or seven pairs of kitchen scissors. They're just regular scissors, but we keep them in the kitchen. You throw them in the dishwasher every single time they use them and use it just to cut up the kid's food or if they're having pancakes or whatever. And I think that using scissors in the kitchen is severely underrated. So I'm here to pick to you using scissors in the kitchen yeah are you you a scissors kitchen kind of guy we got kitchen scissors we got kitchen scissors specifically yeah they uh yeah well I have some that can cut through chicken bowls or chicken bones or whatever but like those are are decent but they're so big and like we just ordered a like a 12 pack of just the regular paper Wes Bos Cutting scissors and they've been great for the kitchen costco's good for that they sell like uh normal pairs of scissors in a three pack that are nice scissors all right that's good Scott Tolinski You always need scissors like in every room you always do it drives me nuts that like and the kids take them away, and oh, man. Check this out. My wife even wrote Tolinsky on them. Wes Bos So no one's going to take these scissors. They're mine. Oh, yeah. Scott Tolinski We both got some pairs. These are technically kitchen scissors, but I don't know why they're in my office. Wes Bos You best believe mine are inside a Gridfinity bin inside this drawer that has been sectioned into Gridfinity bins. Scott Tolinski Amazing. Wes Bos I printed out last night a Gridfinity teabag holder. So shout out to Gridfinity. Scott Tolinski Everything in my house is Gridfinity now. I did the whole utensil drawer. So anyone doesn't know, Gridfinity is basically you print this track for like a drawer. And then you print out literally any bins or holders or whatever. And you can make your own. And then it will slot into the grid that is in your drawer. And then things won't slide around or whatever. So I redid our whole utensil drawer. And I made a couple custom models for the like asian spoon and one knife holder ([Time 0:53:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6f938de3-d0ed-4c49-aa37-05a798b31f10))