Episodes
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Rushed timelines and last-minute jobs are something that most developers are all too familiar with. While frequent rush jobs can signal deeper management issues, the fast-paced nature of the world means unexpected challenges often arise. In this episode, Matt and Mike explore strategies for developers to take charge when work needs to be completed quickly. They discuss how project leadership and effective decision-making can help prevent a rush job from turning into endless overtime. By taking ownership of the work order, setting realistic expectations, and cutting through bureaucratic red tape, developers can streamline communication with their teams to prioritize coding time and deliver results efficiently.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/taking-control-in-a-rush
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
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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
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Missing episodes?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Code quality matters! When developers write better, cleaner, and safer code - their deliverables improve significantly. When code is safer, there are less problems with crashes and unintended errors. When code is cleaner, team members find it easier to read, peer review, and add on to down the line. Improving the quality of your code is easier said than done, however, as it takes more than just "getting good" at coding. In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed the importance of and how to improve your code quality by keeping coding styles consistent with your team, refactoring, writing good tests, using prettier formatting, and linting.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/why-code-quality-matters-testing-linting-refactoring
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
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Should AI run in the cloud or on-device? Some people think that on-device is the only way forward as it ensures a certain level of privacy, while others worry that our local hardware (PC, smartphone, smartwatch) is not powerful enough to deliver cutting-edge features. In this episode, Matt and Mike explore how on-device AI and cloud-based AI work. The guys discussed the benefits of each approach while analyzing and debating their differences on both a hardware/software and user-experience level. Are you worried about your AI information being out in the cloud?
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/should-our-ai-data-be-in-the-cloud---on-device-ai-vs-cloud-based-ai
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
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This week Matt and Mike took a trip down memory lane to discuss, debate, and reflect on some of their biggest projects that shaped their careers as web developers. As with many tech careers, the road to becoming a web developer is anything but straightforward. In the case of Matt and Mike, their planned IT startup took a hard right turn based on the opportunities they were afforded over the years such as working for a large medical clinic under the scrutiny of strict government regulations, being caught up in Chrome OS fever as Chrome Apps landed on Windows, helping a large fast food franchise deliver important info to their franchisees, and many more! The pathway to becoming a web developer is anything but linear and the guys hope that this episode's conversations prove that there is no one single pathway to success in the web dev game.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/our-biggest-projects-how-we-became-developers
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
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It's often said that in order to become a junior developer, you should learn the three foundational pillars of web development before moving onto a framework, plugin, or other specialty. These pillars are of course: HTML (for site structure), CSS (for page styling), and JS (for advanced UI interactivity) - we refer to them as vanilla tech. Way back in the day, these pillars were pretty much the only thing most developers used to create websites (minus backend tech), but these days most jobs require that you have experience with a popular toolset like React + Next.js, or Svelte + SvelteKit. In this episode, Matt and Mike check in on HTML, CSS, and JS in 2024. The duo discussed these technologies through the frontend lens exclusively, pushing aside things such as JavaScript usage in the backend, or being typed by TypeScript - in order to capture what these technologies were initially used for. Through this discussion the guys question how relevant vanilla tech is 2024, and whether or not it is primarily used as a learning tool by today's standards.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/is-vanilla-tech-just-for-juniors-exploring-the-role-of-html-css-and-js-in-2024
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
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In this episode, Matt and Mike dive deep into the results of the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024, uncovering the latest trends, technologies, and tools shaping the programming world. From the most popular programming languages and frameworks to the evolving work environments and career satisfaction of developers, the guys break down the data to give you a comprehensive look at the state of software development today. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights into where the industry is headed and how you can stay ahead of the curve.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/developers-hate-technical-debt-stack-overflow-survey-2024
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
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Today, we're diving deep into the vital topic of navigating ethics in web development. As developers, we face numerous decisions that fall under the umbrella of ethical practice, from ensuring digital privacy and user consent to integrating accessibility features and prioritizing data security. We'll explore how ethical considerations influence our choices, such as selecting sustainable hosting options, responsibly implementing cutting-edge technologies like AI, and making mindful UI/UX design decisions. Additionally, we'll discuss the complexities of client intentions and our responsibility as developers to uphold ethical standards. Join Matt and Mike as they unpack these essential aspects to create a more ethical web.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/the-right-way-to-code-navigating-ethics-in-web-development
Magic Mind Trial using our link (https://magicmind.com/HTMLPODTRIAL) and our code (HTMLPODTRIAL) - Full details can be found in the show notes!
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
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Web development is regarded by many as an absolute cluster f*ck. You can't just grab the "right" language and start making a website, there is a seemingly endless supply of no-code tools, libraries, JavaScript frameworks, and more. Even if you and a developer friend are trying to make the exact same project, your finished product will likely be largely the same...but the technology that powers it can be wildly different. What makes matters worse is that problems in the industry are addressed relatively quickly by community projects that of course spawn competing alternatives, and then rather quickly (at times) become old and outdated by even more modern solutions that push them out of the way. While it's great to have such an active community, if you're looking from the outside in, the web development industry looks like a total disaster. In this episode, Matt and Mike explore why web development seems so messy.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/why-is-web-development-a-cluster-f-ck
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
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Explore the dynamics of synchronous vs asynchronous work as Matt and Mike discuss, analyze, and debate these two popular team workflows. Learn the pros and cons of both work styles, including security, flexibility, and team collaboration. Discover how these methods impact web developers with practical examples of onboarding, mentoring, and deep work. Tune in to understand how to effectively balance sync and async environments for optimal productivity and employee satisfaction. Whether you're a team leader or a solo developer, this episode has valuable takeaways for everyone in the tech industry.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/async-work-for-web-developers-revolution-or-redundancy
Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers.
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In this episode we dive into the toughest situations web agencies face. From budget cuts and impossible deadlines to social media crises and viral success, Matt and Mike discuss practical strategies for managing stress, negotiating with clients, and maintaining quality. Learn from the guys' experience as they explore real-life scenarios like “The Budget Slash,” “The Perfect Storm,” and “The Design Diva,” offering insights and solutions to keep your agency thriving.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/navigating-difficult-situations-as-a-web-agency
Thank you to this episode's sponsors! Check them out below.
Limited Time Magic Mind Discount: Up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one time purchases. Use our link and code (at checkout) to claim the discount!
Link (affiliate): https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20Discount Code: HTMLPOD20Wix Studio: The Web Platform for Agencies and Enterprises
Give Wix Studio a try today: https://www.wix.com/studio
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In this episode, we dive into the challenges companies face when balancing rapid feature development with maintaining stability and processes. We explore what it means to build fast, including establishing a tech stack that allows for quick iteration, easy rollback, and efficient database management. We discuss the importance of getting ideas from concept to production swiftly, while ensuring quality through early QA involvement. The episode also covers why it’s sometimes okay to break things, especially when dealing with a small user base, and the critical areas where building fast is not advisable, such as user data security. Join us as we unpack strategies for maintaining velocity without compromising on quality.
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/build-fast-and-break-things
Thanks to Wix Studio for sponsoring this episode! Check out Wix Studio, the web platform tailored to designers, developers, and marketers.
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In this episode, Matt and Mike discussed time management and time respect as a web developer, specifically diving into their thoughts on different types of billing, invoicing, and availability requirements. Some freelancers feel as though they should charge for every minute that they're on the clock since they're trading their time for money - while others believe more in the project angle, they're dedicated to getting the job done and therefore will often work "unpaid overtime" or will essentially be on-call for no additional pay. For small business owners, the duo also discussed their thoughts on invoicing, comparing and contrasting invoices will very little detail, versus ones that describe every thing that was done and how much those items cost. Then towards the end of the episode, the guys zoomed in on package deals - and how loose or strict you should be when enforcing the confines of a package deal (ie website maintenance package).
Show Notes: https://www.htmlallthethings.com/podcasts/do-you-respect-your-time-as-a-web-developer
Limited Time Magic Mind Discount: Up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one time purchases. Use our link and code (at checkout) to claim the discount!
Link (affiliate): https://magicmind.com/HTMLPOD20Discount Code: HTMLPOD20 - Show more
