Working in technology today, especially around JavaScript, is amazing.
It runs everywhere: Server, client, IoT boards, etc.
You can build UI for basically everything: Browser, mobile, terminal, canvas, WebGL, Desktop, etc.
It’s a great place to be, with a bright future.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants.”
- npm package maintainer
Day in and day out, I’m amazed to see what is coming out in the JavaScript open-source community.
It’s inspiring and keeps me on my toes.
Some Folks I’d like to thanks
I want to take a moment to thank some of the folks who have helped me along my journey.
This list is by no means comprehensive.
These are just the folks that came to mind during this random stream of consciousness.
If I missed you, my apologies, I’ll probably start writing more posts like this. It was kind of fun reminiscing how I know some of these people.
Todd motto
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I tweeted with Todd to see if he’d be interested in working on a project with me.
At the time, I was building giant jQuery spaghetti monsters that I called an “application”.
Todd mentioned, ‘Have you heard of this thing called React?‘. The answer was no, so I started investigating, and I’m glad I did!
Now Todd is on the angular two train, but maybe he will come back to the light side soon? (j/k)
Thanks Todd!
Ryan Florence
I attended React Week a year ago and got a huge leg up from a week worth of sheer React goodness.
Since then, Ryan has created numerous projects in the React ecosystem.
He tweets day in and day out the gospel of React and other great ‘keep it simple stupid’ developer tips that I love!
If you haven’t seen Ryan speak, you are missing out. He’s a great presenter and usually cracks some solid jokes while doing so. It’s like javascript stand-up if that’s a thing…
I use React Router pretty much every day.
Thanks Ryan!
Jed Watson
I met up with Jed the first time he was in town for React conf. We chatted, and he gave me some advice on a project I was working on.
I thought that was pretty nice of him to meet up, and since then, I’ve been following his work closely.
I think his project keystone, the node CMS, has some pretty enormous potential, check it out if you have the chance.
Now I use his package classnames is pretty much every project these days.
Thanks Jed!
Dan Abramov
Dan has created so many projects I use on a daily basis; I don’t really know what my workflow would look like without him.
Hot module reloading with React changed the “DX” (developer experience) game and made me wayyyy more productive.
Check out redux and the dev tools that come with it and increase your productivity like woah.
Thanks Dan!
Kent C. Dodds
Kent is the man. When I get stuck on a problem, I stop and think to myself… “I bet Kent has encountered this and made an open-source project to fix it.” Turns out 90% of the time that statement is 100% true.
The amount of amazing JavaScript-focused content he creates is second to none.
JSAir, his YouTube channel, his medium posts, egghead.io videos etc are all amazing resources and have been helping me fight away “JavaScript fatigue”
Thanks Kent!
Cory House
Cory is another guy in the community, consistently putting out great content in his medium posts and in his numerous tutorial series on Pluralsight.
I had the pleasure of helping Cory during his React talk at fluent this year. It was a fun time!
Check out his react slingshot project for a super solid react dev setup.
Thanks Cory.
Sindre Sorhus
I haven’t met Sindre personally, but this guy is insanely prolific when it comes to open-source projects.
I’ve been using AVA, his test runner, for a little while now, and it’s changed the way I do testing and made it so. Much. easier.
Thanks, Sindre and AVA team!
TJ holowaychuk
This guy… It’s insane how much amazing open source work he has given back.
Express, Koa, Apex, Co just to name a few.
It’s fabled he is not just one person but an army of sentient robots deeply embedded inside the internet.
Thanks, TJ and whoever is helping you… =)
Devon Lindsey
Devon is awesome.
I reached out to her on twitter a while back, and amazingly she responded and was super helpful!
In her spare time, she runs the ReactJS bay area meetup.
The meetups consistently have amazing speakers sharing some pretty cool ‘edge’ tech, and It’s by far my favorite dev meetup to attend.
Thanks Devon!
Now it’s your turn
Who inspires you?
What projects in the open-source world have made your life way better?
I challenge you to write a post like this and share it.