Interview with Brad Frost (@brad_frost, part 2)
Summary
In this second part of the interview, Brad Frost and host Jonathan Cottrell delve into the practical applications and philosophy behind design systems and shared language in development teams. They discuss how concepts like atomic design and pattern libraries create common ground, enabling teams to focus on higher-value problems rather than reinventing basic components.
The conversation explores the importance of company values and mission statements, even in technical contexts. Frost shares examples from client work where principles like “safety” translated directly into development priorities around accessibility and performance. They challenge the common developer skepticism toward “corporate culture” elements, arguing that explicitly defined values prevent chaotic practices and align teams.
Frost addresses whether design systems apply to all projects, arguing that even temporary or small-scale projects benefit from reusable patterns when done more than once. He emphasizes starting small with just a few components rather than aiming for comprehensive systems like Material Design or Salesforce Lightning. The discussion covers how established conventions free developers from repetitive decisions, allowing them to concentrate on more meaningful architectural challenges.
The hosts examine the industry’s tendency to chase new technologies versus maintaining stable systems. Frost critiques the “fetishism” of new tools and the prejudice against older, proven technologies. They discuss ThoughtWorks’ portfolio approach to technology selection and how design systems help teams make deliberate technology choices rather than following personal preferences. The episode concludes with advice about sharing knowledge and focusing on truly valuable work.
Recommendations
Books
- Atomic Design (book) — Brad Frost’s book about his design system methodology, available online for free. Jonathan mentions it as a resource for listeners wanting to learn more about the concepts discussed in the episode.
Companies
- ThoughtWorks — A company that evaluates technologies like a stock portfolio, considering factors like market share, risk, and how technologies complement each other. Jonathan references their approach to technology selection.
Tools
- Pusher — A hosted API for adding real-time features like chat or adaptive UI to applications. The sponsor segment explains it works on WebSocket connections and supports multiple languages and frameworks.
Topic Timeline
- 00:02:17 — The importance of company values and mission statements — Jonathan introduces the topic of business consulting concepts like mission statements and company values, acknowledging that developers often roll their eyes at these ideas. He shares his own experience realizing their importance when in leadership positions, noting how values provide common ground for decision-making. Brad agrees, giving an example of a client where the core value of ‘safety’ translated directly into development priorities around accessibility and performance.
- 00:09:46 — When atomic design and pattern libraries don’t apply — Jonathan asks Brad about projects where atomic design and design system concepts might not apply. Brad struggles to find examples, arguing that even temporary projects like splash pages or email templates benefit from reusable patterns when done more than once. He emphasizes that the value comes from not reinventing the wheel each time, though acknowledges that very small organizations might not need comprehensive systems.
- 00:14:56 — Starting small with design systems and pattern libraries — Brad and Jonathan discuss how people are intimidated by comprehensive design systems like Material Design. They emphasize that starting small with just a few components is valuable and creates a ‘center of gravity’ that can grow over time. Brad compares it to star formation - dust particles coming together - and notes that even basic documentation prevents repetitive explanations to new team members.
- 00:20:21 — The value of established conventions and tool choices — Jonathan shares how Whiteboard is establishing code style guidelines, noting that the discussion process itself brings out new knowledge in team members. Brad expands on this, explaining how conventions free developers from focusing on mechanical decisions (like CSS organization) so they can concentrate on higher-level problems. He gives an example of healthcare designers frustrated with debating border radiuses when they want to solve thorny UX problems.
- 00:27:58 — Prejudice against old technologies and chasing trends — Brad critiques the developer tendency to dismiss older technologies that work well, comparing it to preferring new styrofoam over proven asphalt for roadways. He acknowledges the appeal of new tools but questions whether marginal gains justify rebuilding systems. Jonathan adds that this bias stems from fear of obsolescence and the joy of tweaking workflows, suggesting developers should consider the resource cost of constant change.
- 00:35:42 — Technology portfolio management and team alignment — Jonathan describes ThoughtWorks’ approach to evaluating technologies like a stock portfolio, considering factors like market share, risk, and how technologies stack together. Brad notes how this becomes crucial with larger teams where individual preferences can create chaos. They discuss how design systems help teams make deliberate technology choices rather than having developers work in isolated technology silos.
- 00:39:09 — Design systems as job enrichment, not job elimination — Brad addresses the fear that pattern libraries will make jobs mundane, arguing instead that they free designers and developers to focus on higher-value work like performance optimization, accessibility, and micro-interactions. He notes that teams never have time for these ‘nice-to-have’ features when constantly rebuilding basic components. Stable technology foundations actually enable more exploration of advanced capabilities.
Episode Info
- Podcast: Developer Tea
- Author: Jonathan Cutrell
- Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
- Published: 2017-03-22T07:00:00Z
- Duration: 00:49:23
References
- URL PocketCasts: https://podcast-api.pocketcasts.com/podcast/full/cbe9b6c0-7da4-0132-e6ef-5f4c86fd3263/fb8001bc-6323-4f6d-922b-114c81fefd52
- Episode UUID: fb8001bc-6323-4f6d-922b-114c81fefd52
Podcast Info
- Name: Developer Tea
- Type: episodic
- Site: http://www.developertea.com
- UUID: cbe9b6c0-7da4-0132-e6ef-5f4c86fd3263
Transcript
[00:00:00] if someone says atomic design and even if it’s something totally at odds with
[00:00:05] what I’ve put out and I’ve, I’ve been at those places and stuff,
[00:00:08] so long as it works for you, like there’s not an issue.
[00:00:13] You know what I mean? It’s like,
[00:00:15] so long as you’re able to collectively establish, you know,
[00:00:19] sort of shared value, shared language and stuff,
[00:00:21] you’re in and are able to do good work as a result. You know,
[00:00:25] you could call things like crazy names and yeah, sure. So why not? Yeah.
[00:00:31] So I don’t know. I love it. Nesting dolls or something. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:00:35] So it is fascinating though, to see it all play out.
[00:00:39] And like there was a sort of another one that sort of pre atomic design
[00:00:45] sort of without, I’ll spare you the story,
[00:00:50] but the concept of being future friendly was sort of like another buzzword that
[00:00:55] I,
[00:00:55] I was partially, partially involved with, but again, it was like aggressive enhancement.
[00:01:00] Yeah, exactly.
[00:01:00] It’s like to be able to say a couple words and encapsulate like a,
[00:01:05] a whole lot of other words I think is really powerful and important.
[00:01:13] Welcome to the second part of the interview with Brad Frost.
[00:01:16] My name is Jonathan Cottrell.
[00:01:18] If you missed out on the first part of the interview,
[00:01:20] make sure you go back and listen to that before you jump into this part.
[00:01:23] Otherwise you might be a little bit confused.
[00:01:25] This is developer T my goal on this show is to help you level up in your career.
[00:01:31] The idea is to provide you with the same type of coaching service that I would
[00:01:36] provide you in person.
[00:01:37] If I was your personal mentor, uh, just through the lens of a podcast.
[00:01:42] So if you have questions for me, if you have feedback for this, uh,
[00:01:47] for these coaching sessions, if you want to call them that,
[00:01:49] then you can send that feedback to developer T at gmail.com.
[00:01:52] I’d love to hear it. I’d also love to hear who,
[00:01:54] who,
[00:01:55] who you would like to be on this show and people you would like to learn from,
[00:02:00] uh, on the topics that we talk about on the show.
[00:02:03] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of developer T once again,
[00:02:06] don’t forget if you didn’t listen to the first part of this interview,
[00:02:10] then go back and listen to it first.
[00:02:12] Now let’s jump into this interview with Brad Frost.
[00:02:17] You know, from the traditional business perspective, if you’re,
[00:02:21] if you’re doing consulting or if you’ve ever spent time with a business
[00:02:25] consultant,
[00:02:25] there is a lot of eye rolling that happens in the general tech community to
[00:02:29] this stuff, but there is something to be said, for example,
[00:02:32] for a mission statement at the top of your company, um, and, and for,
[00:02:38] you know, company values and this stuff,
[00:02:40] once you’ve actually been in a position of leadership at a company,
[00:02:44] you will probably feel the pain of not having those things.
[00:02:48] If you don’t have them, it’s really quite interesting to see, you know,
[00:02:52] all of these things that I previously wrote off,
[00:02:55] because, um, I don’t know,
[00:02:57] pride or something, uh, caused me to think that I knew better.
[00:03:00] Um, it’s interesting to see, you know, when I’m working with people, how,
[00:03:06] how often we go back to needing common ground, for example, it’s very simple,
[00:03:11] but we need common ground on how we make decisions.
[00:03:14] How do we arbitrate between two potential clients?
[00:03:17] You know, it’s, it’s going to go back to values.
[00:03:19] It’s, it’s ultimately, uh, you know, these softer concepts that were as developers,
[00:03:24] kind of reticent to, to give credit to, uh, and, and, and they’re really important.
[00:03:29] They really are.
[00:03:31] Yeah, absolutely.
[00:03:32] Like I, I, so a funny example.
[00:03:35] So I just finished up work where, um, uh, with a client who, where as part of like their sort of
[00:03:41] core industry, like safety was absolutely paramount, like, you know, to the point of
[00:03:46] being like paranoid or whatever, but it’s like having that principle in place, like as a company,
[00:03:52] like they literally would have.
[00:03:54] They had like videos where they’re like, remember to hold, uh, the handrail as you walk down the
[00:04:01] flight of stairs, like that’s like, that’s like how aggressive, you know, like they were like how
[00:04:07] bullish they were on safety, but like how that plays out in code and stuff like, you know,
[00:04:12] safety, like through, by ways of, um, you know, sort of like defensive, uh, sort of, you know,
[00:04:18] practices, things like accessibility, like becoming like really important and, uh, you know,
[00:04:23] things like, things like that.
[00:04:24] Yeah.
[00:04:24] Like performance and like getting things out to people in the field very quickly and stuff like
[00:04:29] contributes to that, you know, sort of safety principle that they have as a, as a company.
[00:04:33] So it was like, yeah, that’s stuff we do.
[00:04:36] We tend to like roll our eyes at like corporate culture or company culture, like mission
[00:04:41] statements or like other sort of suity sort of stuff.
[00:04:44] But like anymore, I find myself like whenever I work with different clients and stuff, I’m
[00:04:50] like, oh, thank God you actually have, you actually have a lot of this stuff.
[00:04:54] Like, cause, cause that stuff gets defined just by way of, you know, the, the collective,
[00:05:00] you know, everyone at the company will collectively define the culture, whether you explicitly
[00:05:05] say it or not.
[00:05:07] Yeah.
[00:05:07] And I’ve worked at tons of places where, you know, that stuff isn’t written down there.
[00:05:13] That stuff isn’t explicit.
[00:05:14] And as a result, of course, all sorts of terrible practices, uh, you know, sort of come up and
[00:05:21] bubble up.
[00:05:22] Yeah.
[00:05:22] Another good example.
[00:05:23] We at whiteboard.
[00:05:24] We work with a lot of events, uh, type things like we’ll create a site for an event or we’ll
[00:05:30] create an app for an event.
[00:05:31] And it’s, it is very interesting to know, like they’re, they are incredibly interested
[00:05:37] in, uh, the reliability of this thing to the point that they don’t really care if they
[00:05:42] have to scale up to like 500 dinos on Heroku because it’s for one day or it’s for like
[00:05:49] 10 seconds, you know, they just can’t let it die.
[00:05:53] Like it can’t, it can’t.
[00:05:54] It can’t crash in that critical, critical hour that the CEO is speaking.
[00:06:00] So like, it doesn’t matter.
[00:06:01] They don’t, they don’t care about optimization.
[00:06:03] Right.
[00:06:04] They care about it not dying.
[00:06:06] Right.
[00:06:06] Right.
[00:06:06] It’s, it’s a very interesting thing because it’s, you know, so we end up way over scaling
[00:06:11] and they’re totally happy with it.
[00:06:13] Right.
[00:06:14] Which is totally antithetical for me as a developer.
[00:06:17] I’m like, man, this feels wrong.
[00:06:19] You know, like I don’t want to scale this up.
[00:06:21] I know I can make it better.
[00:06:22] I can optimize the code.
[00:06:24] That’s not the business case right now in this moment.
[00:06:28] And coming back to those, those people that tend to be dogmatic or, you know, very sort
[00:06:33] of arrogant about sort of, it’s like, well, this is how it is.
[00:06:36] And it’s like, you know, your, your best practice might be an anti, you know, anti
[00:06:41] pattern at, at the next organization.
[00:06:44] And there’s actually really good rationale for why it’s an anti pattern.
[00:06:48] Absolutely.
[00:06:48] So, so I do, I love, I love that stuff.
[00:06:51] You know, again, it’s, it’s sort of back to what you’re saying about like,
[00:06:54] you know, reading people’s stuff and like, there, there’s stuff to pick up from people’s
[00:06:59] productivity schedule and their morning routine and stuff.
[00:07:01] It’s like, you can, you know, again, you can sort of, you should be exposed to all
[00:07:06] that stuff, but it’s ultimately up to your own, uh, you know, sort of like your own
[00:07:13] thought process, your own, your own sort of, you know, you need to make decisions.
[00:07:17] Like, don’t just sort of like blindly like accept, uh, things like you need to apply
[00:07:22] what you’re reading in the outside world to.
[00:07:24] What works for client a versus client B versus client C or whatever.
[00:07:30] So, yeah, this is a very personal thing too.
[00:07:33] I mean, my, my wife, for example, she has a, she has celiac and so, uh, the like average
[00:07:40] health advice might include, you know, I don’t know if it does or not, but it may include
[00:07:45] grains, right?
[00:07:46] Yeah.
[00:07:47] You whole, whole wheat is, is healthy or at least, you know, yeah, so, so, uh, but for
[00:07:54] her, it would be terrible, right?
[00:07:56] So, uh, this, this idea that, Hey, you know, we, we’re, we are different.
[00:08:00] We have different priorities.
[00:08:02] We have different values.
[00:08:03] We have different, uh, struggles.
[00:08:04] We have different weaknesses.
[00:08:06] So yeah, absolutely important to understand the realities of that.
[00:08:09] Yeah.
[00:08:10] And I, I do think that there’s, and all that’s to say, it’s like, there’s a, there is something
[00:08:15] to be said.
[00:08:15] There’s a sweet spot.
[00:08:16] It’s not like total relativism.
[00:08:19] Like it’s not, you know, it’s not like, well, nobody, nobody can be right.
[00:08:23] So therefore like anything, anything goes, it’s like there, there is something, there’s
[00:08:27] like general trends that it’s like, oh, this is typically a good idea.
[00:08:31] It’s like, again, if you have a good reason, whether it’s celiac disease or you’re designing
[00:08:37] something for, you know, an event that’s going to be live for one hour, uh, you know, you’re
[00:08:41] going to have good reasons to override that.
[00:08:43] But like, generally speaking, there are some, some good things that things that you’d be
[00:08:49] wise to, to listen to or whatever.
[00:08:51] So, yeah.
[00:08:52] Like don’t eat a ton of sugar.
[00:08:53] Just because you can’t have a wheat.
[00:08:56] That’s not, that’s not logical.
[00:08:58] A metric ton of sugar.
[00:09:01] Yeah, that’s good.
[00:09:03] Uh, so, so I’m going to ask probably, uh, I, I don’t want to ask all the questions
[00:09:08] you’ve been asked before.
[00:09:09] There’s a lot of content online.
[00:09:10] You’ve obviously done a lot of talks, so I don’t want to rehash stuff that you’ve already
[00:09:14] talked about.
[00:09:15] Uh, and I, I couldn’t find necessarily a place where you talked about this.
[00:09:19] Uh, I’d be really interested to know, um, kind of.
[00:09:23] We talked about sweet spots and applicability and all that, uh, uh, of, of certain practices
[00:09:29] and habits, uh, when it comes to atomic design and, and pattern libraries and these design
[00:09:37] system concepts, what projects have you encountered or what projects could you imagine this stuff
[00:09:43] just absolutely does not apply to?
[00:09:46] Yeah.
[00:09:46] Yeah.
[00:09:47] So it’s an interesting concept just because.
[00:09:51] It, it does tend to come up, uh, I’ll get sort of challenges at, at sort of conference
[00:09:59] like question and answers and stuff like that or whatever.
[00:10:02] And back to sort of your line of work or, or, you know, with clients where it’s like,
[00:10:07] oh, this event is going to be live for an hour or something.
[00:10:11] A lot of people work on like splash pages for, you know, for QR codes that are going
[00:10:17] to be printed out in a grocery store and, uh, you know, in, in this campaign.
[00:10:21] Is live for a month.
[00:10:22] And, you know, so we’re going to make this, this microsite and burn it down in a month
[00:10:27] or whatever.
[00:10:28] And then we’re going to, you know, do that again.
[00:10:31] And that’s where, as I talk to more and more places, it’s like, uh, I, I’m struck, I struggle
[00:10:39] to see where these, these concepts don’t apply because even in that sort of, you know,
[00:10:45] whenever I, whenever I talk to those people where I’m like, okay, so we’re making a splash
[00:10:50] page, no doubt.
[00:10:51] Like visually, let’s just say it’s for like a, uh, consumer goods, like, like, uh, you
[00:10:58] know, candy bars, like different candy bars, like have totally different branding, have
[00:11:02] totally different colors, have totally different vibes to them or whatever.
[00:11:06] Um, and you’re, you’re making these throwaway websites.
[00:11:10] Well, you’re still going, if you’re doing that, like more than once, you should be thinking
[00:11:16] about reusing things so that, so that you’re not having to reinvent the wheel.
[00:11:21] From, from scratch shows, you know, so that every time you need to make a new splash page,
[00:11:26] it doesn’t take you exactly two weeks, uh, to, to design and build or something, you
[00:11:31] know, it’s like, you should be getting gains every time you have to, to do that.
[00:11:35] And it’s, it’s funny because I’ve, you know, I’ve worked with these places that are like,
[00:11:40] oh, we have, you know, we have a super big challenge for you because like this, you know,
[00:11:44] this one is totally, uh, you know, this thing is a square peg and, you know, we can’t fit
[00:11:50] this in.
[00:11:51] And it’s like, when, when it comes down to it, it’s like, sure, maybe like the marketing
[00:11:56] site and like all the applications that happen after a login, uh, might feel, uh, pretty
[00:12:03] differently or whatever.
[00:12:04] But as it turns out, you know, there’s still a lot of the same DNA, uh, shared between
[00:12:10] them and stuff.
[00:12:11] So, so I, I do, I really struggle even for these people that are like, I build email
[00:12:17] templates and they’re like totally bespoke every time.
[00:12:19] Or I build, yeah.
[00:12:21] These, these sites that are meant to be thrown away or, or whatever.
[00:12:24] And it’s like, cool.
[00:12:25] But like, do you do that more than once?
[00:12:27] Like, you know, uh, and, and if the answer is yes, then yeah, you can actually make,
[00:12:32] make a lot of use out of these things.
[00:12:36] So, uh, I, I do want to, I’m, I’m really genuinely struggling to, to find areas where,
[00:12:46] where like, it just doesn’t make sense.
[00:12:48] I mean, like, obviously, like if you’re like a small, like mom,
[00:12:51] pa shop and whatever, it’s like, you know, maybe you don’t need to invest in like this
[00:12:56] huge, like mission statement and design principles and all of that stuff.
[00:13:00] Like maybe it, it definitely becomes more attractive the bigger the organization, I
[00:13:07] think.
[00:13:07] Um, sure.
[00:13:08] Uh, but, but at the same time, again, even those small, small shops and stuff, it’s like,
[00:13:14] you know, you should have a point of view on how things get done at your company.
[00:13:19] Uh, that, that’s.
[00:13:20] Yeah.
[00:13:21] Probably, that probably makes sense.
[00:13:23] Sure.
[00:13:24] And not enough people, I think, spend the time to sort of define that stuff.
[00:13:27] Uh, so I, I’ve been having a lot of fun in that world because it, it’s taking me way
[00:13:34] outside of my comfort zone, which is like front end code and stuff.
[00:13:37] And now I’m like helping talk about, you know, like, let’s take a look at this branding deck
[00:13:44] or like, let’s, let’s talk to, let’s talk to the person.
[00:13:48] Yeah.
[00:13:48] Let’s talk about mission statements and stuff.
[00:13:50] And, and, uh, I, I love it because I do, I think that, that irrespective of the, the
[00:13:57] industry or size or whatever, it’s like, you know, actually articulating what, what it
[00:14:04] is you do and why you care about the things you care about is, is healthy.
[00:14:09] Yeah.
[00:14:09] Yeah, it is.
[00:14:10] And, and really, uh, so I kind of formulated my thoughts on this same topic because I agree
[00:14:18] with you.
[00:14:18] There’s, there’s so many things that.
[00:14:20] Um, it’s very unlikely that the actual conception of a style guide is going to be prohibitively
[00:14:29] costly.
[00:14:30] I think a lot of people that the problem that they face is that their perspective on what
[00:14:35] it will take to create a style guide or what it will take to create a pattern library or
[00:14:40] to actually implement something like atomic.
[00:14:42] I think they think that the, the detail oriented and like hyper, you know, uh, it’s, it’s going
[00:14:50] to be a four week process or it’s going to be, you know, half a year before we actually
[00:14:55] get this thing in place.
[00:14:56] And I think we, the, the important message here is like the smallest version of this
[00:15:02] is better than no version at all.
[00:15:05] So if you have like a landing page and you really only have two or three components on
[00:15:10] that landing page, just do a small style guide for the two or three components.
[00:15:14] There’s nothing that prohibit, like there’s not a minimum size where this starts becoming
[00:15:18] valuable.
[00:15:19] It’s valuable.
[00:15:20] It’s valuable on step one.
[00:15:22] Yeah.
[00:15:22] Yeah.
[00:15:22] You’re at, you’re absolutely right.
[00:15:24] And, uh, it was a conversation I had with, uh, Chris Coyier a while ago, um, where we
[00:15:30] were sort of talking about this and just because there’ve been like a few really prominent,
[00:15:35] really super well done, uh, examples of material design sort of being the most famous we’ll
[00:15:41] say, but then also, uh, Salesforce’s lightning design system, uh, uh, are these like fantastic,
[00:15:48] really thorough.
[00:15:49] Just.
[00:15:50] Just like beautiful, uh, you know, comprehensive, uh, sort of examples.
[00:15:56] They’re the, the, the sort of like high watermark for, for all of this thinking.
[00:16:00] Um, and yeah, you’re right.
[00:16:02] Like people will look at that and they’re like, uh, you know, I can’t, I can’t do this.
[00:16:08] Like I don’t have, you know, a team of 15 people and, and, you know, I can’t hire all
[00:16:12] these, all these people and dedicate all this time to, to this kind of thinking and that
[00:16:19] becomes.
[00:16:20] You know, a deterrent to, to ever start down the path.
[00:16:24] But I think to, to your point and sort of what I ended up talking about with, with Chris
[00:16:28] and I do, I think I talk about it in, in the book a little bit where it’s like, do that
[00:16:33] thing, like spend rather than writing the same email for the third time, put it somewhere
[00:16:40] and share that thing.
[00:16:43] And that, that, that might be the only thing, but, uh, I talk about it as, as sort of like
[00:16:49] the formation of like a star, right?
[00:16:51] Like you have all these like dust particles, like these things that are just sort of floating
[00:16:55] around out there.
[00:16:56] But just even with those, yeah, like you said, two or three components that provides that
[00:17:00] little center of gravity.
[00:17:03] And then, you know, with the fourth and the fifth, like, you know, suddenly the, the thing
[00:17:07] starts to get traction and suddenly people start looking to that for answers.
[00:17:11] And then you can sort of say, oh yeah, let’s, let’s build this out a little more comprehensively
[00:17:16] as time goes on.
[00:17:18] And, you know, by the way.
[00:17:19] You know, what’s our perspective on performance or what’s our perspective on accessibility?
[00:17:23] Maybe we should add those sort of guidelines in there as well.
[00:17:26] How do we write Ruby code?
[00:17:28] How do we write node code?
[00:17:29] Like what does commenting look like?
[00:17:31] It’s like as time goes on, like this is not something that you have to do all at once.
[00:17:36] It’s, it’s, it’s really does serve as like a foundation for which you can grow for years
[00:17:42] and years.
[00:17:43] It’s knowledge base.
[00:17:44] It really is.
[00:17:45] It is.
[00:17:46] It is.
[00:17:47] It’s a way of doing things, right?
[00:17:48] Right.
[00:17:49] Yeah.
[00:17:50] Like, but it can start small.
[00:17:51] It, and again, like this is, it, it, it does, it comes back to like, do you want to write
[00:17:56] that email for the third time?
[00:17:58] Like, like that should be like alarm bells going off in your head.
[00:18:01] Like anytime you find yourself repeating yourself, the answer, you know, the answer to that,
[00:18:08] you should be like, oh, that’s, that’s my, my trigger or whatever.
[00:18:11] Like I should put it somewhere and so that way, like, of course, like, you know, if you
[00:18:16] leave the company or whatever, the new hire comes.
[00:18:19] They don’t have to come bother you and keep bothering you.
[00:18:21] It’s like lots of developers I know would rather spend their time doing work than explaining
[00:18:30] the same concept for the umpteenth time.
[00:18:34] I think, so we’re going through some of this at whiteboard, especially when it comes to
[00:18:38] code style and you know, how do we do get hub like, uh, and everybody has a different
[00:18:44] opinion.
[00:18:45] Everybody has a different way of doing things.
[00:18:46] You know, we have differing opinions about it.
[00:18:48] Should we?
[00:18:49] Uh, alphabetize our CSS or should we, uh, do it based on, you know, responsibility or
[00:18:55] the, the type of rule that it is, you know, put your positioning stuff in one place and
[00:19:00] your, your dimensions and another, and everybody has differing opinions on this stuff.
[00:19:05] Right.
[00:19:06] And, and yeah, and, and so w w we’ve started, you know, creating these boundaries and what
[00:19:12] it does, the interesting thing that it does is it brings out new knowledge in our workers,
[00:19:17] right.
[00:19:18] It brings out new knowledge in people and the opinions become, it basically, it’s going
[00:19:24] to make you a better developer and it’s going to make you a better designer because you
[00:19:28] start to recognize, okay, if this is our way, then why is it our way and really answering
[00:19:34] the why is where the value is generated.
[00:19:37] It’s not just a, you know, it’s not a place to go and copy paste code from only right.
[00:19:43] Certainly you can do that.
[00:19:44] The reuse is there, but the value in that discussion shouldn’t be forgotten.
[00:19:48] There’s so much value in arbitration with your, with your coworkers, so much value in
[00:19:54] talking about, okay, you know, do we want to do spaces or tabs?
[00:19:57] Just the common one, right.
[00:19:58] But then it’s also, Hey, maybe we don’t need to keep on changing tools.
[00:20:04] We found the thing that does that thing.
[00:20:07] And we don’t have to, you know, deliberate over what slider we’re going to use on the
[00:20:11] next project.
[00:20:12] We don’t have to deliberate over which gym we’re going to use for authentication on the
[00:20:15] next project.
[00:20:16] We just go straight to the one we know.
[00:20:18] And then we move on to more valuable things that we can spend our time on.
[00:20:21] Yeah.
[00:20:22] That, that, that’s extremely well said and, and you’re totally right.
[00:20:26] Like by, I guess I’ll sort of build upon that by, by just saying rather than every, each
[00:20:32] individual developer head down, focusing on the mechanics of writing that same CSS code
[00:20:38] that the, you know, for the 15th time or, or it might be their first time, but each
[00:20:43] of the other people are doing the exact same thing.
[00:20:46] That is this wasted time.
[00:20:48] Uh, and, and by having sort of conventions in place, you are freeing more people up to
[00:20:54] have those higher level conversations.
[00:20:56] You’re elevating everyone on the team, uh, and the same goes in the design world and
[00:21:01] stuff too.
[00:21:02] Um, you know, I’m working with a sort of a healthcare client now and did a bunch of like,
[00:21:07] sort of, you know, interviews with a bunch of their team members and every single one
[00:21:11] of them are so frustrated, they’re like, I would rather be figuring out this really tough,
[00:21:17] thorny problem rather than going, should my border radius be eight pixels or six pixels
[00:21:23] or should it have this gradient or should it be flat or whatever?
[00:21:27] It’s like that, you know, solid, there’s no doubt that, that there are some people that
[00:21:32] are, are more skilled in those areas and, you know, care more about that stuff than
[00:21:37] others.
[00:21:38] Um, but at the same time, like, you know, we want, we want to be operating at a higher
[00:21:45] level.
[00:21:45] We want to be doing, you know, focus.
[00:21:47] Focusing our time on, on nuance and on, like you’re saying, like the whys and stuff like
[00:21:51] that and, and actually caring about that stuff rather than spaces or tabs or, or BEM or SMACs
[00:21:57] or whatever.
[00:21:58] It’s like, it’s pick something, go with it.
[00:22:01] Um, you know, don’t just blindly copy and paste it, but, but, you know, do have a good
[00:22:07] understanding of sort of like why these conventions are in place.
[00:22:10] Uh, and that opens the door to having more sort of constructive conversations and, and
[00:22:17] if something is sort of philosophically wrong or something, you know, you’ll have more people
[00:22:22] that are able to sort of, you know, address that in a, in sort of a, a coherent and smart
[00:22:28] way.
[00:22:29] We’re going to take a quick break.
[00:22:31] We’ll be right back to the interview with Brad Frost, but I want to talk about today’s
[00:22:34] sponsor, Pusher.
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[00:24:21] Now let’s get back into this interview with Brad Frost care once, right?
[00:24:27] So you said like people care, they care about it a whole lot.
[00:24:31] Well, capture that the value of that caring, and then just hold on.
[00:24:35] Like the, I think, so there’s a, there’s a bias.
[00:24:39] I can’t remember the name of it.
[00:24:40] It’s something along the lines of, uh, old code is bad basically.
[00:24:46] Right.
[00:24:46] So the idea.
[00:24:47] That as code becomes older, it becomes less reliable or it becomes less relevant or otherwise is bad.
[00:24:54] And I think some of this is, is trained in us from, you know, food goes bad.
[00:24:58] So therefore our code must also degrade over time.
[00:25:02] Uh, and some of this can be true, certainly in design.
[00:25:05] For example, uh, if, if you rely on trends for your design to be relevant, then that trend is going to change.
[00:25:11] And, um, you know, the, the average developer kind of bucks against, uh, you.
[00:25:17] Using trends and design as much as possible, uh, partially because of this.
[00:25:21] But, uh, if you, if you find something that works, especially when it comes to development, if you find something that is a solid pattern and you realize that it’s well maintained or it’s maintainable and people understand it well, and, uh, all of these things are going right, then capture that.
[00:25:40] And then just do it again.
[00:25:41] You know, like it’s a short circuit.
[00:25:43] Uh, it’s very similar to what we were talking about earlier with.
[00:25:46] With the language that we use, the buzzwords that we use, if, if we find something that is really good at communicating a point, for example, atomic design, it’s a great metaphor to communicate a point.
[00:25:57] There’s no reason for you to go and write another book that’s, that’s about the same thing, but renaming the book, right?
[00:26:04] It’s, it’s done.
[00:26:05] Just, just care once.
[00:26:07] Yeah.
[00:26:08] Yeah.
[00:26:08] I do think that there’s, there’s a lot to that.
[00:26:11] And I, my frustration, especially, uh, you know, as a developer is like.
[00:26:16] One of the most common questions I get asked by people that are starting off in the field or, you know, or, or studying or, or people that have been working in it for the last decade or whatever, like people are, are struggling with keeping up with the latest and greatest.
[00:26:31] Um, and, you know, it’s just, I like to, to joke that, you know, GitHub repositories multiply like rabbits, you know, it’s like, it is.
[00:26:40] And, and there’s, there’s something very appealing that to, to people who.
[00:26:46] Have been doing this for a long time that know the basics that know, uh, you know, they might’ve started in PHP or whatever.
[00:26:54] And it’s like, okay, but yeah, like, but I know that.
[00:26:57] And so I’m bored now.
[00:26:59] And so I want something new.
[00:27:00] And I do think that that drives like a lot of that sort of, you know, I need to, to, yeah, find this GitHub repository that was just published two days ago.
[00:27:09] And it’s the new coolest thing ever.
[00:27:12] And, you know, whenever, you know, finally got around to learning grunt, you know, years ago.
[00:27:16] And it was like, as soon as I did that, it was like, oh, there’s gulp and then there’s up and then there’s broccoli.
[00:27:21] And then it’s like, and then it’s like, there’s, there’s no doubt that, that, you know, some things might have, you know, inherit benefits over others.
[00:27:30] And again, it comes down to having the discernment to, to judge when and where those things are appropriate or where gulp would be more appropriate over, over grunt or something like that.
[00:27:41] But this, this sort of fetishism or like this sort of prejudice against like things.
[00:27:46] Things that are old, things that actually work really quite well and are solid and are well supported and are not going to, you know, blow up in, in three months.
[00:27:57] It’s strange to me.
[00:27:58] It’s strange to, to sort of witness that stuff.
[00:28:01] And like, I see that a lot, like I’m not a good backend programmer, but like I’ve, I learned by working on a lot of sort of WordPress sites and stuff and hacking them to pieces and Magento, which is a e-commerce PHP database.
[00:28:16] Like sort of e-commerce platform and stuff.
[00:28:18] So I’d like Frankenstein together, these like e-commerce slash blog sort of experiences.
[00:28:24] So like, that’s, that’s where like my, my backend knowledge comes from is, is that, and again, there’s no doubt that there’s other languages and stuff out there that I can, you know, sink my teeth into and probably should.
[00:28:36] But like, I do get weirded out whenever people are so dogmatic or, or, or like, oh, but that’s old and let’s all laugh at it.
[00:28:45] It’s like.
[00:28:46] Well, hang on a sec, you know, like, are we talking about, you know, things like, things like asphalt work really well for roadways, you know, like there are no doubt more, uh, amazing newer technologies out there.
[00:29:03] Like, are we going to go, you know, pave, you know, 500 miles a road with like this new styrofoam, something like, I don’t know.
[00:29:13] Like, I think about like longevity.
[00:29:15] I think about, you know, sort of things like, uh, you know, like how, how much are you going to have to like look out of the corner of your eye and keep an eye on this thing?
[00:29:25] Like, are you sure that this like brand new spanking new thing that’s fun to play with?
[00:29:30] I get it.
[00:29:30] And, you know, it keeps your developer mind active and keeps those neurons firing and stuff like that.
[00:29:36] But like, is this, is this actually worth it?
[00:29:38] Like, is, has this been solved elsewhere?
[00:29:40] Has this been solved years ago?
[00:29:42] Like, can you do what you’re trying?
[00:29:45] Are you just wanting to do with less or are you just wanting to play with new shiny toys?
[00:29:50] And there’s no, there’s no one right answer.
[00:29:52] Again, back to like this, you know, notion of relativism.
[00:29:54] It’s like sometimes it is an appropriate time to play around with this new stuff or to push the envelope or to, uh, you know, or to, to really experiment.
[00:30:03] And then there’s other times where you’re, you’re trying to build something, uh, that’s, that’s meant to stand the test of time, uh, or something, uh, or meant to be reliable or meant to be, you know, to work on, on operations.
[00:30:15] And then there’s other times where you’re trying to build something, uh, for a mini or two G networks, uh, in the developing world or whatever.
[00:30:19] Like there’s, you know, there’s, there’s appropriate times and places for, for all of these things.
[00:30:24] But again, it comes back to that sort of attitude of, I get, I get really sour whenever I, I start hearing people talk about, um, PHP is bad.
[00:30:36] Oh, wow.
[00:30:36] Can you hear my dog snoring really loudly?
[00:30:40] Yeah.
[00:30:41] It’s good.
[00:30:45] It is, uh, it’s true story.
[00:30:49] Um, my wife and I will, will travel quite a bit and, uh, sometimes she can’t sleep, uh, because we’re used to hearing our dog Ziggy snore.
[00:30:58] And so I made a little, um, white noise app.
[00:31:02] That’s just a recording, a recording of our dog snoring.
[00:31:06] And from time to time, she’ll be like, can you put on the Ziggy white noise app?
[00:31:10] And I, I say, sure.
[00:31:14] Uh,
[00:31:14] that’s great.
[00:31:17] Oh yeah.
[00:31:18] Yeah.
[00:31:19] No.
[00:31:19] I, so, uh, where were we?
[00:31:22] Uh, prejudice against things that work.
[00:31:25] Yeah.
[00:31:25] Yeah.
[00:31:26] So old things that work and it’s like, for example, uh, uh, a white noise app with, with, uh, your dog snoring sounds, it works great.
[00:31:34] Why, why go with the bathroom fan when you can have the white noise dog snore app?
[00:31:39] That’s it.
[00:31:40] No.
[00:31:41] So I think, uh, I think, you know, this, this concept of.
[00:31:44] Of having bias against old code, like it’s rooted in something good.
[00:31:50] Right.
[00:31:50] Um, and the, the anxiety of trying to stay up to date is, is also probably rooted in, you know, when I say it’s rooted in something good.
[00:32:01] I mean, it’s, it’s more, it’s rooted in fear, most likely that we’re going to become obsolete or that something’s going to break or, uh, you know, something is going to go horribly wrong if we don’t update, if we don’t stay on the cutting edge.
[00:32:14] And, um, you know, yeah, it’s fun also, uh, as a developer, we find a lot of joy in, in, uh, tweaking.
[00:32:22] A lot of us do at least, um, in changing our workflow, but we have to understand like, what are the ways that we’re spending and what is the resource spend that that is happening with these decisions?
[00:32:36] And, and really, is there something more that we can, that we can focus that same energy and tweaking, uh, on?
[00:32:43] And, uh, I believe it’s ThoughtWorks, a company that does, uh, effectively they do like, uh, they look at their current technology, uh, portfolio, very similar to the way that they would look at a stock portfolio.
[00:33:00] And they, they map out, uh, all of the technologies that they use based on, you know, how, how successful is it?
[00:33:07] What is the market share of this particular technology?
[00:33:09] Uh, is it a bet?
[00:33:11] Is it something that we think is going to have a lot of value?
[00:33:13] Is it something that we think is going to have growth in the upcoming years, uh, that could be risky and it could just totally tank?
[00:33:19] Um, is it something that we already have a lot of competency in?
[00:33:22] Is it something that’s going to make another technology we use, uh, that much more valuable, right?
[00:33:28] I’ve talked about that on the show before of, of stacking technology.
[00:33:31] So if you, if you know HTML, then, um, learning CSS is, is extra valuable, right?
[00:33:38] Right.
[00:33:39] And then learning JavaScript is even more valuable.
[00:33:42] So it’s, it’s this stackability.
[00:33:43] So a lot of developers I think are extremely haphazard, unfortunately, about this, this picking process.
[00:33:53] What am I going to use?
[00:33:54] Well, I’m just going to like try my best to find something that’s, that I like and, um, and that’s new, right?
[00:34:02] And that’s like our only heuristics for picking this stuff.
[00:34:05] Right.
[00:34:05] And it turns out that we like a lot of things and a lot of things are new.
[00:34:09] And so it’s really hard to pick between a pool of a thousand.
[00:34:13] Uh, when those are our only criteria.
[00:34:17] Yep.
[00:34:18] Yep.
[00:34:19] And, and that’s where sort of, again, back to this sort of design systems and, and, uh, front end code guidelines and stuff like that.
[00:34:28] That’s where, you know, that stuff becomes exponentially harder whenever you have, you know, more and more people on your team.
[00:34:37] Right.
[00:34:38] It’s like one developer with one opinion, who’s, who’s tastes change with time.
[00:34:43] Well, multiply that by the number of people on your team.
[00:34:47] And if everyone’s given sort of like full reign or whatever, or free reign to, to sort of like espouse their opinion or like, well, I’m just going to be over here playing with, with react, uh, because this is attractive to me.
[00:34:59] Uh, and then like, you know, developer two is like, well, cool.
[00:35:02] In my corner of the universe, I’m going to play around with view or whatever.
[00:35:05] And I’m going to play around with, uh, angular over here because like, you know, cause whatever I’ve just made these decisions.
[00:35:12] Google does it or something.
[00:35:13] Yeah.
[00:35:13] Now, suddenly you have this, you know, cornucopia of like chaos and crap.
[00:35:19] Right.
[00:35:19] Right.
[00:35:20] And so, so it, it, it does become like really interesting to, I love how you’re saying like, to, to think about it as like, as sort of like a portfolio of stuff to like, to evaluate it in a very sort of like, in a very thoughtful way so that you’re, you’re making calculated decisions on sort of what you adopt and, and what, you know, what you’re doing.
[00:35:42] Right.
[00:35:42] Yeah.
[00:35:42] Yeah.
[00:35:42] Yeah.
[00:35:43] Yeah.
[00:35:43] And it’s not to say that, that you can’t play or you can’t poke around or whatever.
[00:35:49] It’s about sort of being, being very thoughtful and deliberate with like what you’re, what you’re betting the farm on.
[00:35:57] Yeah.
[00:35:58] I mean, spending a ton of time to move to one system and then turning around and moving it to another system, uh, unless, uh, you know, in very extenuating circumstances, I suppose.
[00:36:11] Uh, but, but generally speaking.
[00:36:13] That’s probably not going to be very valuable for anyone involved, right?
[00:36:17] Right.
[00:36:17] It’s, uh, and I’ve, we’ve faced this before, right?
[00:36:21] We’ve seen, you know, for example, bootstrap used to be on make and then, uh, it moved to, I don’t know, gulp or, or grunt or something.
[00:36:29] Um, and now the whole world is using web pack and, uh, you know, it’s, it’s extremely easy because you see so many benefits in the new thing.
[00:36:40] It’s extremely easy to just say, yep, let’s do it.
[00:36:42] Let’s throw a bunch of time, throw a bunch of resources at it and just make it happen.
[00:36:46] Uh, but, but what you forget in that process is, you know, developers on your team, for example, they have to acclimate to that new thing.
[00:36:56] You have, you forget that, Hey, some of the stuff you were using before, they, there may not be a stable version of that for this new thing.
[00:37:04] Right.
[00:37:05] And you have to change everything because you decided to change one thing.
[00:37:09] Right.
[00:37:10] Right.
[00:37:10] And that, that, that is like that, especially.
[00:37:12] In the sort of like node world and stuff where it’s like every, you know, it’s like, it does have like such a huge ripple effect.
[00:37:19] Um, one of the other things that I think is really fascinating about this notion of like, sort of let’s like blindly adopt new stuff or let’s, let’s do the next cool thing or whatever.
[00:37:29] Um, there’s, there’s this really fascinating, uh, sentiment that gets said to me a lot of times whenever I talk about patterns and talk about, uh, atomic design and design.
[00:37:42] Um, there’s this whole notion of, you know, what we were talking about earlier is like, you know, solving something once and, and sort of codifying that as like a pattern or a reusable pattern.
[00:37:52] There’s so many people that are so terrified that their jobs are going to be mundane, uh, just sort of like plugging in, like, you know, kicking around though, the same old code or copying and pasting this thing or like, you know, why do you even need me on staff anymore?
[00:38:07] Because like, you know, if we already have patterns and stuff like who, you know, I don’t have anything to do.
[00:38:12] And I think that it’s such like a, a terrible mentality to have about like your, your life’s work or your career’s work is like, I want to, I want to open up Photoshop and create the same homepage template, you know, again and again and again and again and again.
[00:38:29] Uh, but it’s, you know, what, what we find is, is, you know, as I talk to, it’s especially designers, again, people who love that, that sort of like, I’m going to open up a blank Photoshop canvas.
[00:38:42] Um.
[00:38:42] And, you know, just sort of go to town, like, you know, total blue sky.
[00:38:46] I could do whatever I want.
[00:38:47] I guess the developer equivalent of that is you could choose whatever tech stack you want and framework you want or whatever, and just go to town and have fun.
[00:38:56] Um, but this notion that like, you’re going to be out of a job if like you, you sort of patternize, uh, parts of your workflow and stuff is just absolutely like ridiculous, I think.
[00:39:09] Right.
[00:39:09] And what you find is that, is that as time goes on.
[00:39:12] All those things that you couldn’t do, um, before, because there was never enough time or enough budget to allocate for that.
[00:39:21] You’re able to concentrate on things like, uh, you know, performance optimization or accessibility or, you know, better responsive, uh, you know, better responsiveness, I guess, or from a design side of thing, you’re able to focus on like micro interactions or animation or, you know, motion and, uh, you know, all these things that we’ve, we’ve sort of.
[00:39:41] Uh, treated as like.
[00:39:42] Nice to have, uh, we’ve never gotten around to actually being able to play with those things because we’re too busy, uh, you know, recoding the card pattern for, you know, the 20th time.
[00:39:53] Yeah.
[00:39:53] So, so again, there’s, there’s a lot of back to, back to sort of, you know, older technology and like, or stable or technology and why not chasing every trend that comes out is, is it’s, there is this fear again that, yeah, we’re going to be obsolete.
[00:40:11] We need to keep moving forward.
[00:40:12] It’s better, it’s, it’s, it’s cool or whatever, but it’s like, is it like if you’re just burning everything down and, and rebuilding it in a new technology to get a couple of marginal gains, like would that time be better spent working on, you know, a cool new feature or, you know, refactoring this other thing that’s been causing you a headache for years or something like that.
[00:40:34] So I feel like sort of building on sort of stable technology allows you to explore more things.
[00:40:42] Uh, then, then again, building that the core of your app or whatever, again, again, and again, uh, using just like different frameworks or different whatevers.
[00:40:53] And I actually wrote down kind of a theme for this episode in my mind based on the questions that I had, uh, which we’ve strayed from pretty largely, but, uh, ultimately it was, it was about abstraction.
[00:41:04] So we’ve covered everything I wrote down just in a kind of a backhanded way, uh, or not backhanded, but, um, abstractions.
[00:41:12] Abstraction or being abstracted from, uh, from one thing to another, that’s, that’s really a lot of what we’re talking about.
[00:41:20] I want to encourage developers to continue connecting, um, with the parts of our jobs that are impossible to replace and to start thinking of ways, um, following this abstract, abstracting theme, start thinking of ways of abstracting themselves out of particular processes.
[00:41:37] Right.
[00:41:37] And so this, this concept is, uh, totally applicable to that because we have ourselves totally wrapped up.
[00:41:46] It’s like when the industrial revolution occurred and you had people who were, um, you know, they were afraid that their, their sewing job was going to be replaced.
[00:41:56] And so they started, uh, protesting against these, these, what effectively was going to replace them.
[00:42:03] Right.
[00:42:04] Um, it’s like a revolution against our artificial intelligence.
[00:42:07] Today, maybe, um, the same concept is, okay, we’ve got this, this way of freeing up new energy that you can use on something else.
[00:42:18] And if you view it as an opportunity rather than as a threat, then you start realizing, Hey, wait a second.
[00:42:23] I can work on, you know, innovative tech, uh, innovative design of textiles rather than actually having to sew it.
[00:42:30] Or, um, you know, I can actually take some time and think proactively on behalf of the client about new technology.
[00:42:37] That they can implement rather than, Hey, how are we going to do this card design again?
[00:42:41] Yeah.
[00:42:43] Yeah.
[00:42:45] Awesome.
[00:42:46] Well, this has gone incredibly well.
[00:42:48] I’ve enjoyed this discussion and, uh, uh, I think, you know, a lot of the people who are listening to the show, they’re, they’re hoping to, uh, to add value to their careers.
[00:43:00] And I think this concept of, you know, focusing on the truly valuable, that’s what we’re really talking about here.
[00:43:07] Right.
[00:43:07] Focusing on the things that are really valuable and capturing that value and forwarding it and, and really, um, taking the investment and maximizing the investment of your time.
[00:43:19] Uh, that’s what this is all about.
[00:43:21] Yeah.
[00:43:22] That’s very well said.
[00:43:23] And I think applies to, to life in general, you know, like those things that, again, that, you know, that we’ve found helpful.
[00:43:34] And so like one of the, uh, sort of piece of advice.
[00:43:37] I, I always have is, you know, share, share what, you know, you know, uh, share what, you know, and the more we can do that and sort of pass that value for, you know, something we found valuable to us, something as trivial as I really like this Netflix show and you should watch it too, or whatever.
[00:43:57] It’s like that, that is how things, that is how we transfer knowledge.
[00:44:03] You know, this is, this is how culture is made.
[00:44:05] This is how we, we make progress.
[00:44:07] It is by putting things out there and sort of, you know, try things out, see what works, see what doesn’t work and whatever, learn from each other, uh, and lather, rinse, repeat, keep doing that.
[00:44:19] Yeah.
[00:44:20] And it actually answers, I believe it probably answers the final question, uh, that I ask all of, all of the guests that come on the show, which is if you could give every developer 30 seconds of advice, you know, what would you tell them?
[00:44:32] And I believe that that’s probably true.
[00:44:34] Yeah.
[00:44:35] There’s, there, there’s other parts.
[00:44:37] To it.
[00:44:38] And I say, I tend to say, uh, uh, work hard, don’t be an asshole and, and share what, you know, and that’s sort of how I live, try to live my life.
[00:44:48] And I think that that’s sound advice for other, other people as well.
[00:44:51] So I’m not too quick to give out advice, but I do think that those are, are some good, good tidbits.
[00:44:58] Well, the challenge is, is humility and I’m challenged by your humility.
[00:45:02] I appreciate the time so much and, and I appreciate you, you know, being authentic.
[00:45:07] In your career, uh, for, for creating so much value for people, um, through things like atomic design, your book, and also just the concept of atomic design.
[00:45:17] The book is online.
[00:45:18] For example, you know, it’s, you can go and learn everything that, that we’ve been talking about.
[00:45:23] If you’re listening to the show and you’re interested and you don’t want to spend the money to support Brad, which seems crazy, but you know, if you don’t feel like spending the money, Brad’s sharing his knowledge with you, uh, and, and sharing the experience.
[00:45:35] So thank you so much for, for, uh, for making really this, this industry a more, uh, I hate doing the, the Silicon Valley thing and saying, making the world a better place.
[00:45:47] Um, thank you for making the industry more authentic and for challenging people with humility.
[00:45:52] Thank you very much.
[00:45:53] Yeah.
[00:45:53] Thanks, Jonathan.
[00:45:54] This is great.
[00:45:55] Great chatting with you.
[00:45:57] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of developer tee.
[00:46:00] Thank you again, of course, to Brad frost, make sure you go and check out all the things that Brad is doing.
[00:46:05] You can find out most of the stuff at bradfrost.com and of course we’ll include links in the show notes to relevant things that we’ve mentioned here before we go.
[00:46:15] I have two, uh, two pieces of homework for you.
[00:46:18] The first piece is something you can do today.
[00:46:20] And the second one is something that you’re going to be thinking about for the next month or two months or three months.
[00:46:25] So the first piece is to think about one area where your language at wherever you’re working today, uh, if, if you’re working as a developer where the language.
[00:46:35] That you and your coworkers are using is not totally clear, right?
[00:46:40] Not a hundred percent clear.
[00:46:41] I want you to think about an area, uh, send this episode to the one or two people that you think would, would be able to help you solve that clarity issue.
[00:46:52] Right?
[00:46:53] So you’re going to figure out an area where your language is unclear, and then you’re going to send this episode to those people, uh, and ask that they listen to it and then sit down and talk with them for 10 or 15 minutes.
[00:47:05] To help clarify some of this language.
[00:47:09] This is perhaps the most important kind of work you can do, uh, to create a, a better communication system on your team.
[00:47:18] Okay.
[00:47:18] Once again, it’s very simple.
[00:47:20] Figure out an area where your communication is unclear.
[00:47:23] It doesn’t have to be bad necessarily.
[00:47:26] It doesn’t have to be a difficult.
[00:47:27] It just is unclear.
[00:47:29] It’s not a hundred percent clear.
[00:47:30] Send one or two people, the episode who work with you in that area.
[00:47:34] And then sit down and talk about that 10 to 15 minutes.
[00:47:38] Uh, there’s not a specified structure, but the goal of that meeting should be to clarify some of the language you’re using around your practices.
[00:47:47] Now, the second thing I want you to do, the second piece of homework is I want you to be actively aware of buzzwords.
[00:47:54] It’s pretty easy as a developer to almost have an, an instinctual rejection of those buzzwords, but I want you to be actively aware of them.
[00:48:04] What that means is whenever you hear a buzzword, whenever you have that feeling of rejection of that buzzword, uh, whenever you want to just write it off, I want you to remind yourself of the conversation that was had in this episode, the conversation about the value of buzzwords.
[00:48:24] How much weight they can carry, how much meaning they can carry instead of rejecting them.
[00:48:30] I want you to learn to embrace them.
[00:48:33] This is going to help your communication.
[00:48:34] Now, this doesn’t mean that those buzzwords are going to be absolutely clear, but it does mean that your communication moving forward is going to increase in quality.
[00:48:47] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of developer to thank you again to pusher for sponsoring today’s episode.
[00:48:53] No matter the size of your organization, your application can almost certainly benefit from real-time features and pusher makes it absolutely simple.
[00:49:04] Uh, to implement these real-time features, get started with a free plan today at spec.fm slash pusher.
[00:49:10] Thank you again for listening to today’s episode of developer tea until next time.
[00:49:15] Enjoy your tea.
[00:49:15] Okay.