00:00.00
Kent
Hey everyone this is Kent C Dodds on the remix podcast and I'm so excited to chat with Martin Bavio about how to make user experiences better for the web Martin say hi.

00:13.15
Martin
Hi Kent it's a pleasure to be here.

00:16.25
Kent
Ah, it's such a pleasure to to have you on the podcast now we've crossed paths many times over the the years I feel like through open source and discord communities and Twitter and stuff. Um I can't recall the first time we um. Ran across each other but I feel like it's been several years now. Yeah.

00:36.59
Martin
Yeah, it's probably something about me watching some of your videos. So it's probably I crossed your path before. So.

00:42.35
Kent
yeah yeah I wrote your 5 So yeah, maybe so so um, I'd love for people to get to know you a little bit Martin could you give us an intro to yourself.

00:52.87
Martin
Sure. Ah, so yeah I'm Martin I'm actually Martin it's an essence the the eye. Yeah, but says that's I'm pre used to Martin too. Ah I'm from argenina so based on the on what I heard on your.

00:57.92
Kent
Ah, sorry about that. You.

01:10.56
Martin
Conversation with Sergio I'm pretty sure your kid is gonna be happy that says second argentia. But.

01:12.70
Kent
I yeah I told him about that I told my son about that today. It's like what really? so he's gonna go nuts like I talked to another argentine in Argentinina is it argentine or argentinian.

01:18.20
Martin
Ah, hi.

01:24.41
Martin
Um, it's Argentina yep yeah yeah, and I actually live in Argentina so ah and I've been doing web development for 15 years I think ah so.

01:29.50
Kent
Yeah I talked to another Argentinian today. But.

01:40.10
Kent
Wow wow.

01:43.75
Martin
Yeah, it's I'm getting all and I'm starting to forget the your agents. But yeah, ah I mean I started with flush so I came from long back. Yeah, these days trying new stuff always and like. Trying to jump into the remy of the remix boat too.

02:03.90
Kent
That yeah, that's awesome. So um, as somebody who's been doing and that's not just software dev but web dev for 15 years is that right? Whoa yeah, you're like an og on web like I guess no like web.

02:11.55
Martin
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:18.47
Martin
Ah, yet.

02:21.69
Kent
Ah, so I think Javascript just turned twenty this last year if I am not mistaken. So um, yeah, you're pretty early on there though. Um, so I know that Ryan likes to talk about how Ryan Florence he he started using the web before Css was invented.

02:23.56
Martin
Um.

02:37.46
Martin
Um.

02:41.70
Kent
So he's he's definitely an og there. But um, yeah I ah I always appreciate hearing the perspective of people who've been around for a long time because um, in particular remix remixes the old stuff with the the new stuff and people who've been around for a while seem to. And that that really resonates with them. Um, now one thing I'm actually curious about with you is I've ah noticed that you're pretty active or you were at least in the next community the next Js Community is that right? So um, what is your. Level of activity and involvement in the next Js Community and have you like completely switched over or are you seeing that there are use cases that you prefer next still or what what is your thoughts there. So.

03:27.11
Martin
Yeah, ah sure. So next say I started actually using it like thinking next to because like because of the Argentina origin so you have e dermo and they also have all like core developers of next that we're also argentinean so for us it was kind of I think of proud.

03:39.77
Kent
I Yeah sure.

03:46.40
Martin
Next is came ah oneship. So ah yeah I started reaching it pretty early in the beginning. It was mostly like serverside rendering funny enough. Ah and like I think I like I am still using it for especially for like clients.

03:55.57
Kent
Right.

04:05.59
Martin
I do some freelancing and like lines these days like I think next had a pretty huge 2020 and especially I think 2021 where like they just blow so like a lot of people that know nothing about web dev in general know about Nas and that's like that's when you kind of.

04:16.68
Kent
Now I.

04:25.32
Martin
Can say that you're actually mainstream so a lot of clients without contact. They just ask for next year so I'm still using it I I haven't fully switched to the remix. But I I think I'm starting to switch in all the kind of personal projects on whatever I experiment with I'm trying to use remix. Ah, the reason I think is mostly because like it's kind of the evolution. You know what? ah I see like a lot of people are like especially like this people that like just trolls everywhere like they're talking about like going forward circle like talking about like. We're just going back to where we were I believe in this spiral story like this narrative where like we're actually kind of making progress right? Ah so I believed next year yes was a progress at that time and like even sbas and all that stuff we did I I believe it was a progress for.

05:20.84
Kent
Totally.

05:23.40
Martin
Um, reasons. Um, yeah, so we keep progressing and I feel like projects like remix are actually a progress on what we were. So yeah I just I'm trying to always keep in the evolution progress. So yeah, that's kind of the.

05:36.41
Kent
So yeah I love I think that's awesome like if if we were still building web apps the way that you were back in fifteen years ago like and that would be a little difficult with the expectations that our users have now. Um, yeah, so yeah.

05:49.95
Martin
Pretty boring right.

05:55.30
Kent
Um, ah, full-page refreshes are just not the sort of thing that our users want these days. So um, yeah I I completely agree with you and I I feel like um, these advancements are.

05:59.27
Martin
Um, yeah.

06:10.43
Kent
Um, like it. Ultimately it all comes back down to the user experience and what's the user experience that we want to offer to our users and there are things that we can do with remix that we can't do with other Frameworks and so yeah I agree it is a progress in that sense where we can now have. New capabilities available to us that we never could do before? yeah.

06:32.60
Martin
Yup, yeah absolutely and something that I feel like it's important is to I always try to kind of think about reasons and why thing happens. So why we actually for example, went into the sba and the jumpstack narrative. I don't think it was just like because we just wanted to reinbent ourselves I feel like at that time like when gmail came of came around which was kind of the first mainstream like Sba I feel like there was this war between the web and like all the native stuff like with apps.

06:50.18
Kent
I yeah.

07:05.84
Martin
Um, the ipad on like um Android so like there was an actual war in there and like the web was pretty close to lose like and the apps were like and they like the there was some actual real danger in in there that we were about to lose like this freedom of the web. So. I feel like this narrative like in that time we were trying to in a way mimic. Some of the ah aspects for the web like this like not reload in the end entire thing making it more responsive so there was actually a reason for like the jump sag and the Sba to actually happen and I feel. Ah. Like I feel appreciation for the people that actually push it for that. But yeah, now we've kind of come to time where like we can actually kind of get the best of that. But and some parts like make remember at some point parts of the Passwor. So good. So this remix.

07:45.36
Kent
Yeah.

08:02.86
Martin
Actually makes a ton of sense.

08:03.12
Kent
I. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that perspective. Um, and that's an interesting perspective as well to think that like um if spas hadn't come out then the user experience of like if we had stayed with what we had fifteen twenty years ago and just said no this is good enough and we hadn't innovated into what we are now saying is a poor user experience if we hadn't gotten to that point then we may never have um or the the landscape of the web would be so different now and maybe it would just be documents and. Anytime you wanted to do an app. It was like a native thing. Um, which is a total shame that that would have been terrible I love the web and I think it's it's my certainly my favorite platform to develop for It's the only platform I develop for I don't do any any mobile stuff or or native stuff. Um, just because I feel like.

08:41.51
Martin
Exactly jump.

08:59.39
Kent
The the web is it's a really special place. It has a lot of really awesome things about it. Um, and the fact that that nobody owns the web. Not no one company owns all of that and I really appreciate that about it. The web.

09:11.36
Martin
Yeah, yeah, absolutely the opportunities that the web kind of brought ah that's like something that ah it press me like when I had like fourteen or thirteen years old which was my first real experience with you with the web like the fact that anyone. And actually kind of publish something and show it with word and they don't have to ask for permission. That's a lot of things that today are being used in some other narrative with this web tree thing but they're kind of very native to the web itself and I also also like felt in love instant.

09:40.86
Kent
No.

09:48.40
Martin
And I've also never done like app development mostly because I'm in love with what the web represents and how fun it's also to build for the web because you have a lot of challenges like I Don know like people that that are doing app development. They don't like for example to deal with the the browser. And uncertainties where you can have different sizes and like and for me that's freaking awesome because like you have this thing which is uncertain right? It's like a bit like life. It's like you cannot control. It.

10:16.25
Kent
Its that's like parenting. Yeah, that's what yeah yeah, um, it's funny. Yeah I Actually really appreciate that about the web So tell me a little bit about the.

10:21.26
Martin
Ah, yeah, absolutely yeah.

10:34.21
Kent
The work that you do So You mentioned that you have clients. So I'm guessing you do consulting is mostly what you're doing so. I Oh I can hear you still can you? You can't hear me No, that's okay, um, I'll I'll make note of that we can edit this out I can never happen. Um, so I'll I'll start that question over again.

10:45.50
Martin
Ah, okay, yeah I lost you for like 2 seconds or can you repeat a question.

10:59.66
Kent
So I'd like to get to know a little bit more about the kind of work that you do So you mentioned that you have clients. Um, so do you do like consulting is it your own business or what is the and and I'm more particularly interested in the kinds of apps that you build and the constraints that they have so.

11:16.34
Martin
Ah, yeah, So um I typically do consulting work for like as a freelance sometimes I like I join a particular company or startup because like I find that thing interesting and I only work for that. That's my current scenario. So right now I'm working for a very earlier startup called Artmi that is doing like and we're basically building an ecommerce builder. So It's this kind of no code thing but especially for ecommerce which I think I joined this company mostly because of.

11:44.48
Kent
Oh.

11:54.15
Martin
Technical challenges that a product like this represent and it's using react so I can also kind of get to know a bit better about like this stuff that we you never need to do like memoization and all that stuff that kind of in this case, it's pretty important. So yeah, Ah so right now I'm doing. That kind of thing and I've always been involving ecommerce related stuff mostly because like I feel like ecommerce projects in a way. Actually they tend to express more gratitude towards web developer developers because like you actually get like. Every microsecd means money. So your work is actually appreciated where like if you're building I know like contact pages and sometimes it doesn't matter if you use like whatever you just.. It's just a side page right? so.

12:33.80
Kent
Yeah, yeah.

12:40.90
Kent
Yeah, they actually kind of hope that there's a bug on the contact page. Yeah, well that that sounds like a very interesting project. So ah, your role. There is mostly ui front end that sort of thing I'm guessing cool.

12:49.25
Martin
Yeah.

13:00.49
Martin
Yeah, yeah, um, um, like I know some backend but like I always say that like I wouldn't call myself a full stack because I've worked with some backend developers and I know that they I've seen what they can do and I would never do that. So like I'm not a full like at all.

13:14.31
Kent
I yeah you know what though remix makes makes it feel to me like I am a full stack developer because it allows me to do a lot of stuff like talk to the database directly and and um on my website I like. Generate a podcast episode. Um you know with ah an audio recording from the browser and like so I'm doing like really backend stuff and and um partway through my website rewrite I realized oh my gosh I've been writing way more backend code than I am writing frontend like am I a backend engineer now like what. What is going on. Um, yeah before remix. Um, so like I I joined up in the web dev community around like 6 to maybe eight years ago like so it's around seven years ago and um. And the first company I joined up with was already very heavily invested in client side. It was a startup brand new. Everything. So we're all doing client side stuff and so for my whole web career I was only doing half of what web dev really is. And I always kind of found it odd that like I would talk to backend engineers and they say they're web devs working with like Java or something I like wait Java is a web dev thing like of course I knew that like I knew that there's you know you could do html Css and sprinkle javascript but it just like There was a little cognitive dissonance there when I talked to somebody who didn't do a lot of Javascript but called themselves a web dev and so then I like now with remix and and even even at Paypal I did ah quite a bit of node and backend stuff but it mostly still was a lot of front front-end. And so now with remix I'm finding myself or I'm finding that ah remix bridges that gap between the frontend and the backend so well that I um I am a full stack web dev so like I'm I'm doing backend frontend. Ah, whatever end needs to be done a remix and yeah, enables me to do that.

15:14.84
Martin
Yeah, in a way like like I came from like when I started doing this. There wasn't a frontend ah backend you were just doing web memory right? So it feels a bit like going back there. Ah and like I have like the the blog post where I wrote about like the.

15:24.97
Kent
Yeah.

15:34.71
Kent
Yeah, yeah I.

15:35.50
Martin
To Rails I feel like that's also like when I was doing Rail development before like jumping full into from them. It felt a bit like that I didn't have this kind of now I'm doing from them now doing backend I was just building a website ah and kind of having that feeling back. Where you don't have this kind of thing where like you're like oh I'm this place where I don't I know nothing about or I shouldn't be working on this because this is backend and there is a separation on the actual tool that is telling you that this is backend remix not doing that at all. So. It's nice to go back to this. Mental like this mindset where you're just building a web app a website or a product and that's ah, that's it right? And that's pretty good for like I remember the rails times there there was the the entire startup thing. What's happening like like in parallel with rails. Because people were being kind of encouraged to build and remix in a way it feels similar that you're encouraged to build and that's it and that's pretty cool.

16:39.27
Kent
I Seriously Um, what's interesting. The the interesting thing for me as somebody who's never used Rails was it always seemed to me like rails made you productive in large part because of the cli. And that you could just like generate a bunch of stuff you know move really quickly. It did have like some stuff built in remix doesn't do that as much yet eventually we'll have our seal eye do that. What makes me feel like I'm so productive with remix is just the abstractions have just been nailed so well. That Um, ah they they just manage things from the abstraction point of view and so like I can like I'm super looking forward to the remix cli is anything like the rail cli because then you're just going to be moving like a monster like it's going to be Awesome. Um.

17:29.39
Martin
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

17:33.94
Kent
Super productive and like with ah with remix now. It's not just we handle your backend and we drop you off of the network cliff and you just handle the front end but there's just this really nice seamless connection between the front end and the backend and the um. The cool things that you can do when you have a really nice frontend. So a lot of people kind of get this impression that it's like oh remix is like a Javascript backend framework um, that ah you know for building websites, not web apps. It's not for web apps. Um, and. That is a narrative that we need to correct or or perception I guess we need to correct because when you we're not remixing the old technology with like modern times we're remixing the old technology with modern technology and the things that you can do when you have that really seamless connection. Um, and actually have a lot of really awesome experiences. Um on the the client is not to be underestimated. It's really cool apps. You can build now that you don't have to worry about race conditions and and optimistic ui and all that stuff.

18:39.47
Martin
Yeah, yeah, ah I think it's something very like it was expected in a way because when you mentioned server rendering like people go directly to backend and like the other mindset. So we have this kind of like very dual way of like seeing this like you either do in client or you're doing like server rendering and then that's the complete opposite I think people like they're not realizing that like this product comes from the minds of like Ryan and Michael who were like. Behind like react browder which in a way was one of the more client related apps of the mom right? So react router at the beginning with Barry into client thing I always even like seen like today I was like looking in preparation for this I was looking at at at a all tweets by Ryan. Where he's actually kind of pointing to this apps feeling and that he wanted to kind of build react route. So it feels more like that. So in a way that context is as important as like the server rendering part so that's where the actual remix happens right? like this is ah server. Yeah, it has a lot of like.

19:48.40
Kent
Yeah.

19:55.71
Martin
Server rendering and it has like but at the same time it come from the context of people that has work on client apps a lot. So it's kind of the perfect conjunction right.

20:05.15
Kent
Yeah, yeah, totally now. Um Martin you actually also have a newsletter and I wanted to make sure to talk about that a little bit too. So can you tell us about this newsletter like what made it so that you wanted to to start doing ah a newsletter for. What is right now. A pretty small audience. Yeah because ah for like and you know a small small ah framework or a small community currently. So.

20:25.21
Martin
Ah, yeah, sure.

20:32.24
Martin
Yeah, ah so yeah, the newsletter is actually called Molton and I got the name I which always feel like it's important from like this Tom Molton guy which was doing remix in the seventy s I think. So it just googling for that and I found that name and it wasn't that kind of hard of a story but like it. It had some context and like I felt like certain or a newsletter about remix could be a nice way to contribute to the community because I know that you like the remix like. Official team has ah it at least it had a newsletter and I've actually received some emails but I wanted to help because I know that you you guys might have a lot of kind of work right now and you might be kind of yeah doing a lot of things so I pretty sure that writing a newsletter with like latest news.

21:17.67
Kent
Yeah I.

21:26.65
Martin
Ah, wasn't something that you had time to kind of put on so I just felt like contributing and that was kind of the origins of the newsleter I'm just trying to contribute because I feel like in the end no matter how cool or like hey good good or bad like ah technological from a technological upon a video project is. It's mostly about people right? like if people are nice and they are sharing and they're participating and like the project's gonna it's gonna do well. Ah so I'm just trying to contribute in the most humble way that I can right now.

21:52.90
Kent
Yeah.

21:57.71
Kent
That oh I love it. Yeah, that's that is so true. Um, that if like it doesn't matter how technically good the solution is if the community is no good and then yeah, nobody wants to hang out there and and use it. Um, so.

22:07.83
Martin
Yeah. Um, absolutely.

22:15.52
Kent
Yeah, your presence in our community makes it better because of who you are and we appreciate you contributing in this way too. Um, and so you've done is this week was up. Um, the fourth newsletter is all right? Yeah yeah.

22:17.71
Martin
Thank you.

22:27.87
Martin
Yeah, yeah, the fourth in five weeks I missed one because I was with covid it's ah I couldn't really focus on finding news.

22:35.50
Kent
Yeah, yeah, Covid is the worst.

22:39.67
Martin
Yeah, yeah, and like I'm trying to I still trying to find the format for it for now I started with some news but I didn't want to just like send news I want to at least have like even if it's just 2 paragraphs of something that could be educational.

22:55.78
Kent
Yeah, yeah, yeah I like that.

22:57.58
Martin
So I added this like I'm pretty proud about like the use. The platform section where I'm trying to show something about the web I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna kind of like ah at least I don't know by the tenth issue I'm not I'm not sure what I'm gonna put in there. But yeah I'm just need to keep digging on the. And you talk about like this right? like that you spend more time on Mdm than in remix stocks while building your site. So I'm kind of doing that but only for like user platform section.

23:20.55
Kent
And.

23:26.43
Kent
Yeah, yeah I think that's super I Really like that that section and yeah I I Really appreciate that aspect of remix as well that you the better you get at remix the better you get at the platform. Um.

23:41.63
Martin
Yeah.

23:43.40
Kent
And so yeah for anybody who's listening who's not already subscribed to this newsletter, go get ah give martine subscribe because it's a really good good one and also I am gonna I have couple tabs open I'm going to link to the um and blog post you referenced earlier the on rails blog post. So.

24:00.15
Martin
Okay.

24:02.93
Kent
And anybody who either has experience with rails or would be curious to know what somebody with rails experience thinks of remix that that is ah a useful blog post there.

24:13.79
Martin
And if you're if you're curious I have some worst stories about that that blog post that could also kind of put in like the violence that remiss not perfect, but because like the developers were not perfect. So I made some mistakes that could be also like some good.

24:26.36
Kent
Um.

24:32.60
Martin
I Think yeah, just like as a way to learn at least I learned.

24:35.54
Kent
Um, yeah, um, you mean like you want to tell us about that. Yeah.

24:41.47
Martin
yeah sure ah so yeah I think I was too used to this like static generation side where you just build deploy and forget about it especially with static stuff. So in this case I just like I just built I was using. A helpless ems called data cs um I was just on their free plan and the thing is that since I just deployed without thinking about cash or anything I was this Saturday I was actually fishing with my dad and I started receiving. Like someone. It seems like on a Saturday send the the blog post to hacker news. This was like two weeks after I publish it so I was definitely not expecting something like that and somehow we got into the the homepage of Hacker News so I think like 10 minutes after I was receiving email from dato.

25:28.40
Kent
I.

25:38.50
Martin
Telling me that they're like basically their limit there for like going to their api I was about to reach out. yeah yeah I like yeah so I think at 11 am m I original time the site got down I like I could I couldn't ever.

25:42.74
Kent
You You got slashed out it. But.

25:58.34
Martin
Get into the data dashboard order to pay because I had three g or whatever so I couldn't even do that so I could fix it. Yeah I could fix it like 11 pm and I had to actually pay like I don't know like 2000 ah

26:00.24
Kent
Oh and bummer.

26:12.30
Kent
Oh my goodness.

26:15.61
Martin
Yeah, just to kind of get the site up again and the thing is that when I got into Hacker news Again, there were a lot of people commenting that the fact that the site was down was talking about javascript in general they were just bashing everything like raying javascript but no one occurred that it could be a like.

26:28.67
Kent
And.

26:35.30
Martin
Developers fault. Ah yeah, so the lesson there is like good development includes thinking about gaching even if it's just basic gash because if I had the glue just some kind of cache control. This was ah just a static blog post I could just include an infinite. Ah, cache on the on the cdn and that would have totally fixed it because you wouldn't have gone to their Api every time so think about cashche even if it's just basic cash because it's important. Not only if you isn remis ah, that's one of the things you just mentioned that learn about cash is gonna. Keep you a lot of good things whenever you decide to kind of go beyond remix because you're going to be a better web developer. So yeah, that's kind of the lesson niler. Yeah, and yeah, absolutely.

27:21.39
Kent
Yeah Wow Kind of ruined your fishing trip. Yeah,, that's ah, that's an unfortunate. Um yeah that that's the thing like um, we can and hopefully eventually like that sort of thing will become even easier. Ah. With the the future as well. But like yeah for a blog in particular where it's not unique to every user. It's pretty easy to just stick cloudflare up in front of it or or any Cdn Really um to to cache that. So yeah, fun lessons learned.

27:50.88
Martin
Um, yep.

27:57.00
Martin
Yeah, yeah, but I think we're to use it that the thing we're too used to like even if like no matter if it's the tool or the platform to do that for ourselves and it's fine to not worry about that. But at the same time.. It's good to know about it and like we're web Developers. So We are not marketers so to not know for example about Cash I consider that to be in a way a flaw and that we need to know about that kind of stuff because it's part of a work so that's where like the in a way I feel like developer experience is kind of like a knife thing. But it's also nice to know what's going on under the hood right? Um, at least on the web.

28:37.39
Kent
I yeah, totally um, yeah, something that I have heard often said is you should understand your level of abstraction and 1 level below yours and so for us web devs who are doing whether it's frontend or backend I think the. Network is probably a good level of abstraction to to understand even if you don't directly interact with the network you're using like fetch Api and stuff. Yeah, still good to good to understand cool. So Martin we've got just a minute left. Of course we can go a little over but um.

28:55.76
Martin
Um, and.

29:05.45
Martin
Um, absolutely.

29:15.36
Kent
What would you say is 1 thing that people could do to improve their user experience and.

29:20.45
Martin
Ah I think a good a less like ah a good lesson generality for me. What's been on. My career is to try to focus on the fundamentals. Not so much on the shining like gus on wesson hype because the fundamental is like this like. Duncan on the spurse he was called like Mr Fundamentals because he know how to do all the basic stuff and he could like build abstractions on top of those. So I feel learning like the fundamentals of the web that always pays off, especially for building interfaces for the web. So. Learning about those fundamentals maybe using remix because that sets all that actually kind of pays if you actually do that. That's a good way to kind of always be yeah, kind of a good web developer.

30:11.39
Kent
So super. Yeah, love it all right? Martin what's the best place for people to keep up with what you're doing.

30:19.49
Martin
Probably Twitter I'm Mariano tree because Mariano just Mariano is taken by some brazilian guy that doesn't t tweetak since 2017 so as yeah so marbiiana tree in Twitter that's the where i.

30:30.32
Kent
Ah, rats all right. All right? Super hey, thanks so much for giving us some of your time Martin and thanks everybody for listening. We'll catch you later bye.

30:44.92
Martin
Yeah, have a good one.