Ryan Burgess
+This episode is sponsored by Wix studio devs. This one's for you. I've got 30 seconds to tell you about Wix studio, the web platform for agencies and enterprises. So here are a few things you can do in 30 seconds or less on studio, integrate, extend and write custom scripts in a VS code based IDE, leverage zero setup, Dev, test and production environments. Ship faster with an AI code assistant, and work with Wix headless APIs on any tech stack. Time's up, but the list keeps on going. Step into Wix studio and see for yourself. Welcome to a brand new episode of the front end Happy Hour podcast. This is one of our interview series as part of our sips of wisdom. I am joined with Kent C Dodds, definitely excited to talk about your career. Kent, welcome to the podcast. How about you give us an intro of who you are, what you do, and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages.
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+Kent C. Dodds
+I am Kent C. Dodds, thank you so much for having me on. I live in Utah with my wife and five children, and I am a educator. That's what I do. I have testing javascript.com epic react, dot Dev and epic web, dot Dev, are the places where I publish educational stuff. And very soon, actually, in the next month, we're going to be launching v2 of epic react. And so that's what I'm working on actively right now. It's going to be super sick, because React is super awesome and and it's only getting better. It's super awesome. And then, yeah, my favorite Happy Hour beverage? I honestly, I don't know, because I don't drink alcohol, but when I was a kid in in high school, I would ride my bike home from school and stop by Sonic, because they did, like this happy hour sort of thing with slushies. And so that's, I guess, my favorite happy hour thing, Sonic, and I love
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Ryan Burgess
+that too, is like, I think more and more like, I don't drink very much alcohol anymore, either. And so I think, like, I love like, Happy Hour drink can be anything, but I guess it's branded of more alcohol. But like, that is a first the like Sonic slushy, which I gotta say, I don't think I've ever even had Sonic period. Like, don't think I've ever eaten at one. I didn't grow up in the US. So okay,
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+Kent C. Dodds
+their food is not great, but the slushy was, was really good,
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+
Ryan Burgess
+all right? And I'm sure it's just like, jam packed full of sugar too. So like that. I'm sure you're just like, Yeah, this is great. This is my outlet right now. I love that. And I love, you know, I love how much you've been like, teaching react and doing a lot for the community. React has been, surprisingly, it's really funny, like, how you said it's so awesome. I'm like, yes, it totally is. But it's really funny how long it's been around. Like, oh
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+my goodness, definitely, you've
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+definitely been in, you know, in the front end community for long enough to know that we've gone through frameworks every other day. But react has some longevity, and, I mean, I still enjoy writing it like it is, and it's getting better. Like you said, being a manager, I obviously wasn't coding as much, but lately I've been coding a lot more, and being like, yeah, I forgot how much I love react. It's so great. It
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+Kent C. Dodds
+really is. It's, it's amazing because it like, it's remained relevant this whole time. I mean, J courtyard has been around for longer, but it's not relevant as much anymore. Certainly, it's relevant for some people. I don't want to like people are going to be offended, you know. But yeah, with, with React, it is still dominant in the framework ecosystem, like, by so much of a margin. And I know it's exciting to talk about new frameworks and and to, like, look at the the warts that are on React, and be like, yeah, how could it continue to exist with those massive problems? But really, maybe they're not massive problems, like, maybe it's just fine. And, and then, may I would say that reacts biggest feature is its ecosystem and just the number of people working on the problem. And the the React team has really outdone themselves with React 19, and it's going to just be killer. And, and it's actually amazing. It's been years since we've had a breaking change, and even before that, any breaking change was pretty minimal. Most of the ecosystem has been able to keep up there. I've definitely talked to plenty of people who are still on React 16 or something, and it can be kind of tricky when the primary problem actually for those people are they're using dependencies that are no longer maintained, and so they have to rip those out first. But other than that, like React itself has been able to carry us along with it all the way up to the cool stuff coming in, react 19, and it's been awesome to kind of hitch my wagon to what they're doing. Yeah.
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Ryan Burgess
+Are you most excited for in React 19?
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+Kent C. Dodds
+Yeah. So there's some really cool form stuff coming, but I think I'm more excited about React server components. It's hard to decide between those two, but those are the two, like, main, big things that are coming react 19. There's also, like, some small things, like hydration errors are going to be nicer, which will be great. I'm hearing some of, like, one person out there listening who's like, Yeah, well, if you used quick, then you wouldn't have hydration errors. Now, would you? And like, that's fine. That would be awesome to not have hydration errors. But given that we have them, and I'm willing to put up with them for all the other things I get out of React, it's nice to get improvement error messages. And as far as small things go, we also have being able to just render script tags and link tags and the title tag just anywhere as part of a regular composition, which would be super nice, and that works with server rendering and everything too like so amazing that they manage that it really react. Has just taken a look at all the cool things that the ecosystem has done through frameworks like remix and next and redwood and and said, You know what? I think we could do that ourselves. And what's really cool about that? Maybe this is my favorite thing about React 19. What's really cool is that when react 19 is out there and all the frameworks have adopted it, you'll be writing product code, and I can look over your shoulder and have no idea which framework you're using, and that is huge, because the frameworks will all just kind of adopt what React is doing, and it's all just React code at that point. So the ability to share code, but also knowledge between the different frameworks and stuff will be massive. So yeah, forums, awesome, react, server components, super cool. But, but sharing knowledge and like knowledge transfer between these ecosystems, like sub equal ecosystems, I suppose that that's probably my favorite thing. I really
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Ryan Burgess
+like that call out, especially probably being like an educator too. It's probably easier to talk to those paradigms across different frameworks. But I think that that's really cool too, for even as an engineer, if you're working at said company that uses remix, and then you're like, Oh, I'm going to move to this other company that's doing react, or even just projects within the company, it just makes it so much easier to to shift around. And I think that, to me, is super powerful. I like learning new things, definitely, you know, checking out new frameworks and all that. But it's like, sometimes it's nice to just go build right? Like, you're just, like, just let me go build the thing. And so if it makes it easier for people, that's awesome 100%
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+Kent C. Dodds
+I and I agree, like, it's, it's fun to learn new things and do side projects and things. But at the end of the day, like most people, even if they are using svelte or solid on the side, most of those people are going into work and they're using React. And we can talk about how it would be better if they could use view or whatever else. But the the fact of the matter is that it's not always the right business decision to switch to some other framework just because it's marginally better in one or two areas, and arguably so as well. And so it's really awesome that the framework that everybody is using is getting such massive improvements to it in ways that, like simplify the full stack development experience, bringing composition to front end and back end code is going to be massive, and doing it the with the component model that we that all frameworks have adopted, you know, Since react came out, that is, is pretty epic.
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Ryan Burgess
+Yeah, absolutely. I love that. You put the keyword epic in there, too. All right. Ken, I love your career in general. I think there's some really fascinating things that I know our listeners will be interested to kind of dive into. I mean, let's start like early days. What What sparked the interest into software development. And you know what? How did you start out?
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+Kent C. Dodds
+Yeah, so I, when I was a teenager, I was into computers, but mostly for video games. And I had a friend who was was into computers for video games, but also really liked programming, and he wanted to make a video game. And so I was like, Yeah, sweet. Teach me how to program and I'll help you. And he had, like, this server running in C and he told me, like, look, I've got a server. He had, like, a little thing that showed output of or something. I'm like, wow, that seems really cool. Okay, let's, let's learn how to do this. I have no idea what you're talking about, but yeah, let's learn this. And so he explains, all right, let's talk about some data types. We've got booleans that's true and false. And I'm like, Okay, I guess. And then we've got numbers. Oh, good. I got numbers. I can figure out numbers. And then he's like, the the text between these quotes is called a string. And I he totally lost me.
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+
+What? What does that mean? That. Doesn't make sense. So I was like, Okay, you build the video game, and I'll do like, the business side or something. Like, I don't know maybe I can contribute to this, but I was still really into computers and pretty like, I could figure it out pretty well. And so I ended up doing a lot of blogging, actually, when I was a teenager. I just really got into Google and the stuff that Google was up to, and so I wrote a blog about Google. And I was actually when Google acquired YouTube, I was one of the first Google blogs to post about that, of course, like I didn't do any ground news reporting or anything. I saw someone else had posted that, but my blog was referenced all over the internet. Cool from that. So that was pretty cool. Like, yeah, so I but I was way into computers. Eventually, I stopped doing so many video games and started doing, like, more productive things with the computer, because I found out that my parents didn't mind me being on the computer as long as I was being productive, and I just wanted to be on the computer. And I see that with actually, my oldest son is that way. He's just, like, I just like, I just want to be on the computer all the time. Like, okay, you're going to learn how to, like, do something productive then. But yeah, I never really thought I would be a programmer. And in fact, when I went into BYU, I was thinking I wanted to be a video editor because I made lots of videos and stuff. And so my brother convinced me that if I got an electrical engineering degree, I could do anything with computers. And I think in the back of his mind, he's like, you don't want to be a video editor. Like, don't, don't do that. I'm going to tell you, like, go this direction. You could be a video editor, but like, you could do all sorts of other things too with this degree. So I went into electrical engineering. I took two classes that were programming related and or not related. There were programming classes. One of them was Java programming class, Intro to Computer programming, and the other one was computer systems. And in fact, I actually, I was at React Rally last week, and I met my TA from that class. He was there, pretty cool, and he's like, he actually didn't remember that he was my TA, but I was like, Dude, you were my TA. He's like, Dude, I learned react from you. So it's kind of a interesting, fun meeting. But I remember those classes convinced me I didn't want to be a programmer because I was like, sitting in front of the computer eight hours a day sounds like the most annoying, frustrating and non fun thing that I can imagine. And so anyway, I go on a mission for my church for two years, and I come back and I'm still thinking, okay, electrical engineering. I take a class that's like a math refresher, and I do terribly in it. And so I'm like, okay, math is kind of like the engineering thing, right? So I guess I can't do that. I bounced around a couple of different things. Ended up in info or in accounting. In the business school, my dad was an accountant, and I thought, like the first class was kind of interesting, but the second class just nope, nope, nope, nope. I hate that so much, no way. And so. But I was in the business school at that point, and I had taken some of the prereqs for information systems, and I was like, okay, computers and business that sounds interesting. Let's try that. And so as I was going through the program, I had a couple of jobs and things that kind of led me into programming through, like, automating some processes and stuff, and so I was kind of, what I didn't get out of my first classes about programming was like, we're just doing all this abstract stuff that doesn't really impact anything. But when I was doing these internships and side jobs and stuff, I had to program to make myself more productive, and it was just practical. I was deciding, what am I programming to make myself more productive? And that was where it captured me. I'm like, oh, okay, it's not just about linked lists and writing your own compiler and whatever. It's like, there's actually some practical value to programming. So that's how I got in. I can tell you the specific projects and stuff if you're interested, but, yeah, that's how it happened.
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Ryan Burgess
+That makes a lot of sense, though, the practicality of it, like, it's like, I think that. I don't think I would have liked programming either, like, I remember some of their early, you know, courses where it was just going too deep, or tell, like, telling you what the string is. You're like, what does that matter? Like, here, like, set a cookie. You're like, okay, like, here, I set a cookie, like, what's the point? Right? Like, have a cookie.
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+Like, yeah, it's
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+like, what's this cookie business? But it's like, once you apply it and you're you kind of have the tools there that you're like, oh, I can create this thing that makes my life easier. Or I do this setting a cookie does this, and you're like, Oh, I get that now, but when you're just trying to describe it, like, for me, that didn't land for as well. Like, I remember sitting in classes going like, yeah, that's not that much fun. Like, but once I started building something that I enjoyed, that's where I learned more. Too. Funny enough. That's.
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+Kent C. Dodds
+Yeah, it's the use cases that really capture us. Yeah, we you want to obsess over the problem, not the solution. Now, some people like they really obsess over the solution. They enjoy that, and that's interesting. But I think problems are more interesting and keep you more open to trying different things to solve that problem. That's
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+well said, Actually, I really like that. So it's been a few years now I believe that you've been doing epic Web. Is that correct? How long's it been? Yeah,
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+Kent C. Dodds
+yeah. So I started epic web, like when I left remix. So I was with remix for like 10 months, and then I went back to teaching full time. But so that was like, two, yeah, two years ago. Okay, I thought it a bit of it. All right, cool. Yeah, awesome. Before remix, I actually was full time teacher as well, so I, I just took a short stint at remix. I left PayPal in 2019 to go full time, that's when I launched. Well, let's see, yeah, that was 2019 right after I launched testing javascript.com
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Ryan Burgess
+Awesome, cool. All right, let's, let's talk about that like you go from, you know, working, I think when we first met was, I believe, at React Rally, probably one of the very first ones. So we first met, then you were at PayPal. What made you decide to go on the teaching route? Well,
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+Kent C. Dodds
+so I have been teaching since, like, I was really young. Even in church, you are expected to stand up in front of your peers for a couple minutes have your mom whisper in your ear what to say. And like, I love that speaking in front of peers has just been like a thing that I've done for a long time, and then it's also, I think it's in my blood, because half of my family are teachers. Like, in fact, I think all of my sisters, or no, most of my sisters, including my in laws, are teachers. And that's not a few people. I have 11 brothers and sisters. I
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+
Ryan Burgess
+was actually going to ask you that the way you were alluding to that. I was like, Wait, how many brothers and sisters do you have? So, yes, that is not a small number. Yeah,
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+Kent C. Dodds
+yeah, I have six sisters, five brothers and yeah. So most of wow, yeah. I'm trying to think, I think all of my in laws, my sisters in law, are teachers by like, they have a degree in education, wow. And yeah. And then so I, most of my brothers are entrepreneurs. They are their own boss, and my dad is was an entrepreneur. And so I'm both. I'm a teacher and an entrepreneur. And as soon as, like even when I was still in school, I was working at Domo here in Utah, and they had migrated over to AngularJS. And my friend Dave Geddes had taught a AngularJS workshop, and I asked him if I could use that workshop to teach my classmates who asked me to do that, nobody asked me to do that. I don't I still don't know why exactly I did that, but I also knew that nobody would want to just come to an extra class when they're in school. And so I, I met the Firebase team at NG conf a couple weeks earlier, and so I asked them to give me 100 bucks so I could go buy a pizza to get people to come and and so they, they sent me a bunch of Firebase swag too. They're like, Yeah, this is awesome. And so I had like 20 people there for this workshop and so, but like, I just really wanted to teach people stuff, and it has worked out really well for me as a in my career. So even long before I decided I want to go full time teacher, I became known for the things that I was teaching. So I'm teaching AngularJS. Couple months later, when, when we're all graduated, one of my classmates reaches out to me because he needs somebody to do an AngularJS, like, dashboard thing and and so, like, he reached out to me because he's like, Yeah, Kent is the AngularJS guy. I know that. And then I'm speaking at meetups, and I, one of the organizers of the meetups finds out that I'm entertaining opportunities elsewhere, and he's like, I totally want you because I know what you know, because you're always speaking at this meetup, you've demonstrated what you know. And so I'm I basically almost doubled my salary in just like six months after graduating, because I was speaking at meetups and made people aware of what I knew, what I could do. And then it was very soon after graduating too, that I ended up connecting with John Lindquist, because actually a meetup talk that I gave, he was like, Hey, could you turn that meetup talk into a workshop or a course on Egghead? And so then I get into Egghead, and then I met Mark grabansky of front end masters out at Midwest js, the conference there. I was speaking there, and then I reached out to him and asked him if I could do some front end master stuff too. And so, yeah, all of this, like meeting people in person, connecting, demonstrating what I know by being the one up front. All of this has been hugely impacted. Full to my career, even long before I decided to do it full time. That's
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+
Ryan Burgess
+so cool. I love the journey of it too. Like even just going back to that, like mom whispering in your ear to try and help you present. Like talking in front of people, even if it's a small audience, is very, very difficult. It is not something that people just, you know, get automatically. I don't think, I don't think people just automatically have that, like you kind of have to work through that. And I love that you did that at such a young age, and it's, you know, shown that you're like, Okay, well, I'll keep doing this and apply that. I also like what you said, that it's basically like showing your skills, right, by teaching, by being on stage, saying those. And it's like you almost don't even have to interview. It's like, well, we know that. You know that knowledge. We've seen you do that. So that's really cool, too. Yeah,
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+Kent C. Dodds
+yeah. Like your interview is the the years of demonstrating what you know by being upfront Absolutely. And I haven't interviewed it anywhere since PayPal, which I interviewed there in 2015 so it's been a long time. Of course, I've only had, I only worked at remix, and then for myself since then. So there's that. But like, yeah, I don't expect I'll ever interview anywhere again, just because if, if you don't know what I who I am, and what I can do, then we probably, like, I don't know, unless I decide to career switch or something, then that makes sense. But like, Yeah, I'm just going to do my own thing. From now, that's
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+
Ryan Burgess
+cool. Let's, let's talk about that Kent, because I think that, to me, is fascinating itself. It's, it's not easy to go out on your own, like you go from, you know, being at somewhere like PayPal, you're getting a constant check that comes in, you do the work and all that, but then it, it has its ups and downs to go on your own. It's a scary thing. And I'm curious. Like, what was the journey like to just say, you know, I'm diving into this and like, you know, what were some of the challenges that you faced through that? So
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+Kent C. Dodds
+I'm a risk averse person, sort of rather I'd say that i i take big risks, but I reduce the likelihood of the negative outcome a lot, and so, like, going out on my own is absolutely a risk. I had a nice paying job at PayPal. I was working full, full time remote. They would fly me in once a quarter to, like, see everybody and stuff. And that was awesome. I loved it there. It was a great job. And I had lots of autonomy there too. I made some really big impacts. They are still using tools and and components that I built, reusable components that I built for the whole company, like this is I left in 2019, so five years, five
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+
Ryan Burgess
+years later, that's impressive in tech. Like, honestly, something's kicking around long especially
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+Kent C. Dodds
+in front end stuff and and so, yeah, it just like it was a really rewarding time. I really enjoyed it. But at the same time, I was working like a lot for doing this side stuff. As soon as I launched my first course on Egghead that my side stuff was paying for my mortgage. So it's like, imagine your life with a house without a mortgage. But what I had to do was work like late into the evening, this idea of a passive income just paying you while you sleep. I mean, it's great, but that first course I released doesn't make me any money now, like, eventually, especially in tech, you need to, like, keep producing stuff and also remain relevant. There are courses out there about, like, timeless principles in computer programming that don't make their creators any money because their Creator isn't relevant anymore, like they're not keeping themselves in the forefront. And that word of mouth can only get you so far anyway, so you do have to, like, be constantly working, even for this passive income that makes you money while you sleep. And so yeah, it was a lot to of time on the side, and my kids were getting older. Like, the way that it typically would work is I'd say, Okay, I'm gonna work on this course for the next couple of weeks. Well, really, the course, it takes a long time. We could do a whole thing talking about how I prepare that stuff, but I would put the kids to bed at seven, and then my wife says, Hey, I love you. And it says, awesome that we're together, but I really want to be alone right now, because I've been with kids all day, and they've been touching me, and I just want to be alone. And so there's, there's a tip for you, if you want to be really productive, Marian, introvert,
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+
Ryan Burgess
+that's fair. She needs her space. You're like, all right, what do I do now?
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+Yes, exactly. So I would spend like, two hours in the evening working on my courses and stuff. And eventually I was like, You know what, I don't really like spending all that time, especially when I'm launching testing JavaScript. So I launched testing JavaScript, spending tons and tons of hours after hours, getting that prepared and everything. And it does so well in the first two. Weeks, I make way more than my paypal salary from that. And so I'm like, Oh, well, like, the launch always is going to have this big mountain, because you've got, you know, a pent up demand, and you've got the launch discount and all that. But like, the long tail afterward was was still quite good. And so I thought, You know what, I think I could do this full time now. And so you change a leap of faith into a step into the light, and it's like, yeah, okay, that's just the obvious next step. So it actually, it wasn't a really big risk. I knew that it was working already before I started. But the only way to make that happen is by working crazy hard beforehand, so that you are you build the bridge before you cross. I guess clearly
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+
Ryan Burgess
+too, like you're passionate about it too. Like, I think that, to me, is the that helps with that drive. Like, nobody's gonna be like, Oh, set aside two hours a night to go work on this thing that I'm not enjoying. Like, it's like you clearly were enjoying it, which is awesome. And so now it's like, all right, I can do this full time and then go really deep on that cool that makes a lot of sense. It's still risky, but you kind of had a sense, like you still had some, you know, okay, this could this can work, yeah, what about what are the benefits, man, not being full time working for a company, and now just working for yourself. So
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+I totally love working at home, and I was working at home with PayPal, and it was awesome. But part of the the challenge there is, if you are the only one on the team that's remote, you'd like that is not a great situation. I had a lot of trouble. They made me the team lead, and after a couple weeks, I'm like, Guys, this just is not not working. I don't like it. You're all having conversations that I don't know about and and so that that was challenging, but going out on my own meant that, like, I didn't have to the only people I collaborate with are all remote themselves, like it's an open source, or I work closely with Joel hooks and the egghead crew, their company Skill recordings, and they're all remote. But then also, because I'm in total control of everything, I can just do whatever I want when I want to do it. Now, I also have to do other things that I don't want to do, just so I can persist, like in the business side of things. But that's part of why I have skill recordings, is they do all the stuff I don't want to do, so lots of the support and, like, building the platform, and, you know, giving people their money back when they want to refund, and all of that stuff I don't have to deal with any of that. And or, like, there's a server fire and they've got to go put it out. Like, no, that's not, not my thing. I do still develop software a lot, and especially with what I'm doing now, with the learning environment that is all me, but like, that's still on my terms, and I can develop things the way that I want to. I'm the primary developer. There's not really anybody that I have to, like, coordinate with. And for some people that be kind of lonely, and sometimes it can be. But I just, like, turn on the camera and live stream it, and then it's not very lonely anymore. And and then, like, people actually contribute more. When they see me live streaming what I'm working on, they're like, oh, I can do that. Like he didn't have time for it. I'll do that. So I can make it as lonely as I want it to be. And it I just get a lot of control in the winter time, I'm just like, You know what? I want to go snowboarding, so I just go snowboarding, and I realize that it means I'm not going to make progress on what I'm working on. But at the same time, I find that the work that we do involves the brain so much and having that time to just like, take a break and think things through, helps a ton. This morning, I was just going on a one wheel ride. I'm launching epic reactivity two in like a month. I've got tons of work to do, but just going on a one wheel ride and just like letting my brain go for a little bit really helps me to produce the like amount of stuff that I am able to produce. So, yeah, freedom is pretty nice. I like it. I
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+
Ryan Burgess
+I love that you called that out too. Is like, especially like, the contrast of, like, I have all this work that needs to be done. I have this deadline that's coming up, but I'm gonna go, like, not do work right now, and, you know, enjoy a one wheel ride. But I think that's so powerful, because taking that time, like you said, Our jobs are very much require our brain. And it's like, it'd be like, if you were lifting heavy objects in your job, and you, like, didn't do that for a while, you weren't working out or whatever, it's going to be harder. It's like giving your brain breaks. And just like, doing that actually, it will help you perform better, like on the job. And so I love that you called that out. I'm just calling attention to it because it's something I'm very much learning, taking an actual break where I'm like, wow, my head is just like, so much clearer, and I could probably do a better job of my job. Now than I probably even was before. So I love that you said that.
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+Kent C. Dodds
+Yeah, it really does help a lot. And maybe I'm just like convincing myself that it helps more than it does, because I enjoy doing that and but
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+that's that's good too. You need those enjoyment things in life. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+and so, and there are some things that, or sometimes I make commitments that make it so I have to work more than I want to. Like, the getting epic web launched was probably the biggest, most stressful time of my career ever, because I can tell you the whole story, if
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+I was just gonna say I'm like, what was the most challenging Kent, you read my mind.
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+So So I leave a remix when we successfully sell to Shopify and Mike, I did my job. That's what I came here to do. It would be cool to still be with them and be at Shopify. I understand it's been awesome for them, but I wanted to go back to teaching full time, and what I wanted to teach was building full stack apps. So in 2021 I built my rebuilt my website based on remix and a bunch of other technologies. And I thought I need to teach people how I did that. That's my next thing, full stack development with remix. And so I start working on a project that's going to be the basis for all the material. I called it rocket rental. It's basically like Airbnb for rockets. I needed it, would you I need? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the future, yeah. I wanted it to be realistic enough that it resembles the type of products we build, but not so realistic that people thought it actually was real. And so that was the that was the idea, and I built it out. Had a whole like design for all the different pages, everything. And I put together the first workshop. And that went really well, but I faced a couple of big challenges. One, when you're working well, actually, back up first my my thesis was that I want to, I want epic web to be something that somebody can start with having never coded a day in their life, and go all the way to being able to be a full stack developer. And so there's a lot there. And I kind of figured, well, let's just build a full stack app, and then I'll just go backwards and teach them everything they need to know, as if they'd never coded a day in their life. And if we do that, then we've accomplished the goal. And so I put together a workshop. I couldn't do the ultimate, ultimate beginner stuff first, because I don't want to make money on that. You know, when somebody's just barely trying to learn, like, am I going to like this? I don't want to take money from those people. And so I started kind of like in the middle and like, let's assume that you have programming knowledge. You already know react and stuff, and we're gonna build a full stack app with that knowledge. So I put together that first workshop, and the couple of challenges were, when you're working in a big app like that, knowing which file you're gonna be need to be in, can be challenging as part of each exercise. And so I built this whole workshop learning experience that helps guide you through all of that. And so one of the challenge, or one of the important aspects for me in teaching, is that people are working in the environment that they're going to be actually working in so like you practice using the tools that you will employ on the job. And so I you need to be able to run it locally. Lots of education platforms have their own in browser editors, and that's really cool, but that's not your development environment. And I want you to be running locally. And so this has to be an app that I that you can install and run locally, but also I want you to be able to identify the different files that you're going to be working in. And so I built this whole app. It's really, really cool learning experience. And so that was one challenge that I had in preparing for all of this. The other thing that I realized was that while it's cool to have this full app experience, there's also just, like a lot of distraction with that as well. It's just bigger than I needed it to be. And so to skip over a couple of things, I narrowed down rocket rental into a note taking application and created that as a project starter and called it the epic stack. And so people can generate a new app with all of the bells and whistles you expect from a full application, like authentication and not quite stripe integration. But we have, like an example of that, because not every app needs that. But like deployment, you know, Production Error monitoring, database, all, all of the things, testing, everything that you would need to get started. And so you can start a brand new app that way, or reference it with your existing app. And then the the idea was, okay, let's turn this workshop series into let's. Build the epic stack. And so, like, just everything kind of centering on this epic stack starter project. And so here's what happened. I i My wife and I were expecting a baby in November. This was last year. And so I said, Well, I want to launch epic web before the baby comes, in fact. So let's do a month before the baby comes, because you never know, like, and you just never know on those days, yeah, like the baby could come early, or like, there could be a complication and the baby comes very early, or like, the baby comes and then things are a problem. And I can never launch epic web, so I gotta get it launched beforehand. Let's launch it a month ahead of time to give us lots of room. And so I said, October 18. That's my birthday. Let's do October 18. And so I'm thinking, okay, the team that I'm working with to get this launched, they need at least, like, six weeks after I'm done with all the videos to be able to launch it. And so that puts me in September, like early ish, September. And I'm thinking, Okay, well, I'm gonna need to have at least a month of time to to record all the videos and things. So that puts me at starting recording videos in mid August. And I had React Rally in there too, actually, that I'd already committed to. And so yeah, after React Rally, I can get all the videos done. And then I was thinking, Okay, I need, like, a month to deliver these workshops so that I can make sure that the material is good and so people can go through it. And so that puts me starting workshops in mid July, because I was thinking, we'll have like eight workshops, and we'll do some of them are or eight days worth of workshops. Some of them are multiple days. And so I am in mid May at this point. So I'm thinking, okay, May, June, and then July, we start. I've got two months, and I already, like created the first workshop, which is based on rocket rental. I just retrofit it to the epic stack, and I've got the testing workshop I've done as well. Let's just retrofit that to Epic stack. So all I have left is the forms, data, modeling and authentication, and I'm thinking, I'm pretty fast at making these workshops. I've been doing this for a long time. I'm pretty sure I can make this work. It'll be a lot of work. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I knew I could do it. So I, I list the the workshop series. And I'd actually done something like this before, with epic react. I had like eight, eight workshops over the course of four weeks, two workshops a week, masterclass style. And it was awesome. So we're going to do the same thing. So we list 30 tickets. They're gone in like a day. So I'm, I'm like, I've done 80 people before and and I can manage this the way that I put together the workshops and not degrade people's experience. So let's do another 30. Those go really fast. So I'm like, okay, there. This is great. Like people are interested in this. So I'm working, and I find myself splitting my time between retrofitting the that first workshop with, like building the workshop experience, the epic workshop app, and like, making modifications and make the experience better and everything. And two weeks before the first workshop, I'm still not done with retrofitting that first workshop. And I'm like, oh, shoot, I am in serious trouble now. And it's like, a week before I finally finished that first workshop, and that first workshop is two days. So I'm like, Okay, I've got, like, two weeks before the next one, but that next one's not ready at all. I haven't even started it, and that's the forms workshop, and that one's a single day. So I'm like, maybe I'm okay. But then the one after that is data modeling, that's two days, and then authentication is another two days, and then testing is one. And so I'm thinking, Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna be in trouble. So I talk with my wife. I say, Hey, hon, here's the situation. And I explain the whole schedule like we talked about this before, but I said, I'm in big trouble with timing on this. I can either postpone it and we just say, sorry. We're gonna do this in September. We'll give you your money back if that doesn't work, or maybe we'll even do it later, depending on how long this is going to take. Or I can just hammer this as hard as I can, but what I need is you just need to do everything by yourself. And she's pregnant, like in her second or third trimester, now beginning of the third trimester, and has four kids at home, and it's summertime, so they're even at school either. Oh, summer's so much harder. Yeah, yeah, for real, like, right now the house is nice and quiet because these kids are at school. So yes, yeah, it is. And I say I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna go to work and then I'm gonna go to sleep. And that's really all that you can expect from me, if, if we do this. And she said, and I said, if we postpone it, then, like, Who knows when it gets launched and what happens with when the baby comes? We just don't know. And she said, I can make it work. We will. We'll make it happen. And so I wake up every day at like, 630 and I go for a run. I. I come back, I shower, and then I jump on my one wheel and go to Starbucks close by, and I'm working there. I grab a breakfast, I grab lunch, and then dinner, and then I get back at like, nine, and yeah, and go to bed. And I I actually did all the things you're supposed to do, except for, like, just working like crazy. So I slept eight hours a night. I got my exercise. I took a break on Sundays, and I worked like that for six or seven weeks.
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+It was just lunchtime, building
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+the railroad track on the front of the train like and so the last workshop was done the night before I delivered it, I and I barely managed. And when I was done, I thought I had eight days worth of workshops. I had 16 days worth of workshops. So that was part of the problem too, because I just had so much more material than I thought. No, I like, I knew the beginning and I knew the end, and so I just needed to fill in the space between. I just didn't realize how much content there was in between. But yeah, it was an insane amount of work. And then, of course, I had to record the videos. And there were twice as many videos as I expected. It ended up being 452, videos that I recorded in like three weeks. Yeah, it was insane, just insane. So, yeah. Sometimes I can just go up into the mountains and and snowboard or, like, hit the the pavement with my one wheel. Sometimes literally hit the pavement. But like, other times I just have to crunch hardcore because I've made commitments and and that's like, part of my modus Apprendi is like to to commit to something massive and then work like crazy to deliver and then, and then take breaks between. So that's how I I like that. I I like it works out pretty well. And, yeah, I'm, I'm never gonna do that again. And I actually did another Master Class series with epic react, with the updated version and everything and that, I was a lot more careful about my commitment there. But yeah, sometimes you just have to commit to big things for big things to happen.
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+Yeah, no, I liked your thinking too. You also learn from it, right? You're like, Okay, now I'm gonna rethink that. It's like, I need to estimate a little bit better on that one. Thankfully, too, you have such a supportive wife on that one. It's like, I know I'm she, she held, held down the fort for you on that but I'm glad that you were able to pull it all together. Maybe it leads to, you know, before we end the episode, I think this probably leads into a good question of, like, one thing that I think is really tough when you're doing something like on your own, like you are, and you have these ebbs and flows of work that you're doing. Like, how do you manage all that? Like, how do you find the balance for, you know, having kids and family, but you know, how do you balance, like, the work and the strides, like, being able to go snowboarding doing all that. Like, how do you what are tips that you have that kind of work for you? I
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+would say that it's important for people to recognize, like, some people who are listening to this aren't to the point in their career where they can do what I do now. You just like, I have a really good, steady income coming and, you know, behind everything that I've developed so far. And so you want to like, you don't want to listen to the richest man in the world about, like, what they do in the course of their day, because what they do is going to be very different from what you have to do. And in fact, it's probably very different from what they did when they were in a similar position to you. And so what I would say is, if you want to get to get to a spot where you have lots of freedom, you got to work like crazy hard to get to that spot. And like, we can blame that on capitalism or the current political leaders, or whatever you want to blame it on. I don't care who is to blame. This is the the game that we're playing, right? Yeah, yeah. You just got to play by the game. And some of us have a like, started the game with with fewer monopoly monies than others and like that stinks, but that's the way that the world is. And so if, like, you can complain about it, or you can just, like, deal with it. And and I definitely have privilege over a lot of people, and other people have privilege over me and where we ended up can be in completely different places based on what we did with that, that privilege. So anyway, I just wanted to preface my answer with that. So I would say working super hard ahead of time to kind of build something that can can give you that level of freedom helps a ton and like getting to a point where things work for you, whether that be like money, and you get really into investing or something, or like products that you support and and can make money for you what you're going but you want to, you want to distance your. Self from effort to create value, so that you don't have to be constantly putting forth the effort to make the money. So like I could take a ride on my one wheel, and I that's not going to change how much money I make today. Now it i I'm also thinking about the future and launching epic react v2 enables me to continue with that in the future, but it it gives you a lot of freedom to say, I'm going to invest a lot of time or money or attention into this one thing so that in the future I can have freedom. And so, yeah, and then, like with, with all the kids and everything I they're getting to the ages where I can take them with me on my one wheel rides or on my snowboarding excursions and whatever. And that is, like an awesome thing. So I can kind of double dip on the things that I enjoy, and also being an awesome father and everything that I want to be, too. And I just love that. Yeah. And actually, double dipping is like a big part of everything that I've done, too. When I was at PayPal, I would learn something, and I'd say, Hey, I'm going to write a blog post about this and share it with my coworkers and the manager. Like, what manager doesn't love that, you know, knowledge sharing. And I'm just going to put it on my my personal blog that's public to the internet because it's nothing about, like PayPal specifically, it's just like development in general. We're not sharing secrets or whatever. And so now I've got 200 blog posts that people like reference constantly, which I did on the clock when I was at PayPal, because it was for my coworkers and for myself in the future. But yeah, so like, double dipping is another thing that I found to be really effective for me now, like I never worked on this is to be totally clear, I don't recommend anybody work on something that they're making money from two things at the same time. So, like, I did prepare workshops sometimes on the clock, but that was because I was delivering them at PayPal, and so I was like, right? I'm gonna go into PayPal this quarter. I'm gonna teach them, testing, react, so I'm gonna work on this workshop, and then when that that's done, I have all of this great material. Now I'm going to go record it, but I'm going to do that after hours in the evenings, so like, there's a little bit of a maybe you could call that a great area. I feel ethically sound with with that specifically, but, yeah, double dipping, I think, is a really awesome well, it was a strategy that worked out really well for me too.
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+
Ryan Burgess
+I like that. I don't think I didn't feel icky the way you said it, too, because it's like, yeah, if you're making money, like, it's like, that feels a little bit differently. You're like, I'm getting paid my salary and I'm making money here that that feels a little bit off. But like, when you're like, putting out a blog post or speaking at a conference. It's like companies benefit from those things too, like they really do. It's like it can attract talent to be like, Wow, PayPal is doing X, Y and Z. I want to go work on that. Or I saw, I saw Ken C Dodd speak at this conference. He seems great. I want to work with him. You know, it does attract talent, or it shares ideas in many great ways, and so I think companies do get benefits from it. But yeah, when it's like you're pocketing cash, it feels like so much more. I don't it feels wrong at that point. Yeah, so I'm with you.
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, work super hard to for freedom in the future, like you kind of it's, uh, you tie your hands to free your mind as, like, a common saying that you're and it's kind of a similar thing here. You tie yourself up to so that you can have freedom in the future. I
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+love that thinking for the future and building that. And like you said, like the courses, like they have longevity, they start to wear out for making money. But you're like, All right, I'll launch v2 I guess. Actually, yeah, when can we expect v2 coming out? I don't think you'd said the exact date or maybe, yeah. So
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+we, we have not announced an official date yet, but it will be mid September. So we are within, within a month. Now, today's August 21 so yeah, just a couple weeks away, we are currently working on the best way to communicate why it's such an upgrade from v1 and like, what what has changed and what is offered now by react that even really experienced react developers will get out of this, and also how there's room for total beginners, and how this is the best way to get into react as well. So yeah, currently, actively working on trying to communicate that effectively.
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+That's awesome. I love that too, because I feel like that could be very useful tool. If you're at a company and you're like, we need to upgrade. Here's all the great reasons why, and really sell it. So I like that, Kent, thanks so much. This is awesome, hanging out and just like learning more about your background, the things that you've been working on, if people are interested in talking with you, I know they can probably find you online in many places, where can they get in touch with you?
+
+Kent C. Dodds
+Yeah, the best. If you want to shoot me an email, then go to Kent cdance.com, Slash contact, otherwise, hit me up on X or or even I've got a discord and, yeah, I'm can't see, Don's everywhere.
+
+
Ryan Burgess
+Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And you know, for our listeners, if you're looking to find us, we're on Twitter at front nhh, on YouTube, front nhh. Thank you for listening. Thank
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+Kent C. Dodds
+you. See you, Ryan. You.
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