Jason Lengstorf on Live Streaming, Creating Content, and Building a Studio Space

I sure hope you're hungry.

Oh, I'm starving.

Wash those hands, pull up a chair, and secure that feed bag, because it's time to listen to Scott Tolinski and Wes Bos attempt to use human language to converse with and pick the brains of other developers. I thought there was gonna be food, so buckle up and grab that old handle because this ride is going to get wild.

This is the Syntax supper club.

Welcome to Syntax.

On this supper club, we have Jason Langsdorf. He's gonna be talking all about his new studio Set up. He's gonna be talking about some of the projects he's been working on and just generally some of his thoughts in the coding space. We're gonna hit him with some questions and see what he thinks. My name is Scott Tolinski. I'm a developer from Denver.

With me as always is Wes, and welcome, Jason. What's going on? Hey. Thanks for having me. I'm I'm super excited to be here.

We've just been we were talking about new studio setups, and we just spent, like, 5 minutes wrestling with my studio setups.

Hey. I'm the classic, studio guy where, I have my my setup, like, finally dialing in. Yes. We do. Scott has, like,

8 minutes of trying to get his audio to pipe in. And it's just like, the more gear you have,

The more it screws up. I I feel like this is the pitfall. Right? It's like you you get these these ultra high powered things, and and there's so much you can do.

And then you just need a, like, a degree in audio

to fiddle with the gear to get it to do what you want. Unfortunately, I do have a degree In this stuff, my my degree is in music technology, believe it or not. I went to school for audio production, and I still not I can't get this stuff right. So Do do you feel like that works or or against you? I think it works for me, because I have seen a lot of mics and interfaces and things like that, but I also, maybe it works against me because I don't have the desire to be like, oh, this this $90 piece of gear that works just fine. Perfect. No. Let me let me spend all the money and then not get it to work because I had to go fancy with it. So

That curse of knowledge, you just you're like, oh, like, oh, I could go deeper into this hole? Sure. Let me do that. Right. The curse of knowledge. Exactly.

If only we had an error monitoring service for our audio gear, that would be pretty sweet. Right? And that'd be cool if Sentry worked on that. So head on over to Sentry dot I o if you want to have an error and exception monitoring service for your code because That'd be a heck of a lot easier to fix.

Let's get into talking about what you do and what you're doing lately, maybe who you are. So Maybe just give a rundown for the audience, anybody who doesn't know who you are, who you are, and what do you do. Yeah. I'm Jason Langsdorf. I'm,

Based out of Portland, Oregon, I've been working in web dev since, I don't know, the the beginning of, like, 2003 maybe.

And I have, recently been focused a lot on helping teach other developers, and I do that through video content. So I make a lot of, educational videos, tutorials, and and more recently, I'm trying to focus on making stuff that is Entertaining first and and, you know, fun to watch

so that it doesn't all feel like watching webinars. Yeah. Totally. That's like a hard trap. Right? You wanna teach, but sometimes that could just be super dry. And, one thing I've always appreciated about your content is The approachability of it all, and I think that's probably something that's just innate about who you are as yourself, but I I'm sure it's something you cultivate as well. When did you start making video content itself?

I I've I've had, like, fits and starts with this. So my very first Video content was god, must have been back around, like, 2005.

I was in a band and we would make tour videos. And so we had this little cheap, you know, mini cassette, camcorder, and I'd carry that around and take videos of of the other bandmates and stuff. We were we were doing tours around the Western US, so it was a lot of videos of of, like, smelly 20 year old men in vans.

But it was really fun, you know. I I got a I got a feel for, like, how do you do a little bit of editing? How do you shoot something that's actually fun to watch? And I I don't think I was very good at it. None of those videos survived. I don't know where they are now. But I made my 1st coding videos in probably 2015, 2016. I did some videos that were Just straight up tutorials like the, you know, how to create a node app with SSL and deploy it on DigitalOcean kind of stuff.

And those words they kinda, taught me a false lesson because I made, like, 3 of them, and they all did great numbers on YouTube. Nice.

Nice. Yeah. They they got tens of thousands of plays. I put no effort into them. You know? No. I wasn't doing the thumbnail game or anything like that.

They just got picked up and they ran. And then later, when I started taking video a little more seriously, I was at, I would have been 2018 when I was at Gatsby, and that's that's when I started the show that really got me into this, which is it's called Learn with Jason, where I, I pair program. And so I I bring an expert on, and they teach me something that they're very good at in, like, a 90 minute sort of talk show screen sharing format.

Scott, you've been on the show. I have. Yeah. It's super fun. Like, I I had an absolute blast doing it, and I've been doing it for for going on 6 years now, with no intention of slowing down. So that was the that was where I really realized that video was a thing, and and since then I've been Experimenting with different ways of of making it better and more interesting. And you just started like you went full time recently. Right? Tell us about that. I did.

Why did you decide to make that big jump? I feel like the the curse of being

Kind of good at things, and I and I mean that kind of, is, like, you you always feel like 1 more shift will make you finally actually good at it. And and so when I was at Gatsby, I was making Learn with Jason, and I liked it, but everything that I was doing felt like it was It had to be about Gatsby. Like, that was sort of the agreement. And, like, I owned Learn With Jason, but I was employed by Gatsby, and it just felt weird to do things on their time if it wasn't directly promoting the brand. So when I left, my intention was actually to go indie then, in 2018 when I left Gatsby or 2019, whenever it was. And then Sarah Drosner at Netlify hit me up and was, like, wait, come over here. And I was, like, I don't know. I just kinda wanna make these videos and stuff. And she's, like, no. No. No. Come over here. You can because you can still make the videos, but now they'll be about, like, the whole web because Netlify is is a web host, not like a specific framework or something.

And I got really excited about that, really excited about the opportunity of working with with a team because I love, like, I love working with a team.

And then I I made the classic blunder of of agreeing to more responsibility and became a manager at Netlify and eventually an executive.

Never got to make anything. Like, I was still run and learn with Jason, but that was, like, the extent of my coding. I I did the show 90 minutes, a couple times a week, and that was, like, the only time I touched a computer Except for meetings.

Yeah.

So when I left Netlify, it was it was like, alright. I I feel like there's A shift happening in the industry right now where events just aren't they're just not doing it right now. Like, people aren't Super excited to go to tech events. The the sponsors aren't showing up. We're seeing a lot of events. They're having a really hard time selling tickets, getting sponsors, And and so that feels it'll come back, but, like, right now, post COVID, shutdown and everything, people are just, like, if they're traveling, they're going to see Family and friends they haven't seen for 5 years are not they're not going to to work stuff.

So in lieu of that, we've seen this rise of, like, The tech YouTubers, and, you know, I'm I'm one of them, but I also feel like there's sort of a I don't know. How many times can we all, like, talk into a camera and say something about a framework before it just feel I don't know. I just feel like we're all kinda We're we're starting to approach the the local maximum of, like, how good that can be as content. And so I saw I see an opportunity to go Further, I think we can do more. And there's so many developers, there's so many great entertainers in this space, so many people who are, like, they're personable and they're kind and they're brilliant and they're good teachers.

What if we just give them a little bit more of a platform and and invest a little bit more in the format So that the things that they're teaching are fun to watch on their own merits. Like, can we make reality TV? Can we make game shows? Can we make, You know, like, something like a a travel show, like an Anthony Bourdain style parts unknown. Mhmm. Like, how do we go and take this a little bit further and and really give development audiences something That's excellent.

Right? And I think that that's that's what I see being the the next logical step with with tech events sort of Reaching a bit of a low right now. It's like, okay, well, where are companies gonna invest to to reach more people? Well, I think they do that through media. And Mhmm. And we're kinda we're in in a lot of the strategy plays right now, like, you know, y'all are over a syntax and, like, people like, somebody bought CSS tricks and and, you know, Gotch. Io got acquired and, like, media companies in the tech space are becoming acquisition targets. So just it just feels like something that really, Hey. It feels like where we're going, and and that was my this is my bet. I'm betting that this is the right next move, and so Learn With Jason is my solo effort to try to to help

drive that. Like, let's make it as good as it can be. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. It does seem like you put a lot of effort into thinking about what those next, Like entertainment content pieces.

And, you know, we we chatted a little bit on on Twitter a long time ago about, the idea of reality show TV or competition reality show. You have, like, a new project that, like, very kind of falls in line with, maybe like a YouTuber version of something in that aesthetic.

Do you wanna like, do are you able to talk about it right now, or do you have a Yeah. Of course. Announcement? Yeah. So do you wanna tell tell people about this new series and and maybe a little bit about what it's about? Yeah. So,

so the the goal is we have, I what I wanna get to is is, like, full blown TV production.

Mhmm. But we gotta prove it first. And so to prove it, let's let's Take a page out of, what's working on YouTube, and there's a photographer named Jessica Kobece, there's a music producer named Andrew Wong, And and several other folks who follow this format of, like, getting together 4 pros in their field, and then they get a common task, And then we watch each of them step through that task and just look at the creativity that comes out even with constraints. So in, in Jessica Colbasie's case, It's 4 photographers shoot the same model. And in Andrew Wong's case, they get a a sample or a specific sound pack or something and they all have to make a beat Out of that sample, and in in my case, what I wanna do is I'm getting together, 4 web devs, And each of us is getting a, prompt, like, we gotta build this type of site and a tool that we have to use as part of it. And that is sort of the that's the challenge that we've laid out. Each of us goes off, builds our own version of that thing, And then we come back and just compare and celebrate, like, how just how impressive it is that even with a relatively tight set of constraints, we come up with completely different Things. And so the, you know, the 1st episodes are in editing now. They're hopefully coming out within I'm I'm hoping episode 1 drops within a week or 2, But we I'm I'm pumped. I've been able to work with such brilliant people. I I again, Scott's been part of it, and and came up with, So far, I think the most unique app that I've seen in the builds, like, a really, really clever application of of everything.

And it's it's just like, every time I get these apps turned in, I'm leaving with new ideas. I'm expired. I'm I I am I'm inspired. I'm jazzed up. And, I I really hope that's the purpose of this show is that anybody who watches it is is walking away going, dang, I could build it like this. I could try this. Like, Oh, that's not as hard as I thought it would be. Like, I can go and build this stuff too. I don't know. I'm I'm sick of FOMO driven content. I want it to be inspiration driven, like Yeah. Not not do this or else you're falling behind, but, like, you can do this. It's actually within your reach. I think that's such a positive shift. I mean, we see So much content out there that is based on

x, y, and z sucks. You suck if you use x, y, and z. If you don't use blah blah blah, you're bad. And, like, I don't think that's helping anybody. It just kind of tribalizes everything. So, like Yes. Yeah. Focus on the inspiration. That's, like, such a a noble and, like, Awesome

pursuit, I think. Do you think that's like the long a long play there? Because you certainly could crank out a couple Next. Js is dead videos, and and you get a lot of washes on them. But I don't you know, I think that's sustainable

For for the types that do do that? The industry would dictate that it is sustainable, but I don't know that it's mentally healthy. Right? Like, I don't think the people who are The the people who are in those those situations in mainstream media, they don't seem like they're particularly, like, happy people. Yeah. I want to reach as many people as I can, and that means trying to Make stuff that's appealing and shareable and that people are really interested in.

I don't know what's going on. The place next door to me just started doing, like, Work. Listeners, Jason just I I think he just got a new studio. We'll ask him about that, but It sounds like a mixture of a murderer rapping on his door and, like like like, high voltage

Being buzzed into something? Guys, I think talking about clip bait, keep keep the podcast running. We don't know what's gonna happen here. Anything could happen. This is, What was it? That was somebody Hammering on my door. It was a delivery. Oh, it's a deli Oh.

They I guess they've learned that this is a big space, and I can't always hear things, so they knock like the Freaking police.

Wow.

Alright. I apologize. Well, at least you you survived. We we had, we were concerned for you, Jason.

Well, let's talk about your studio. So you're just interrupted by, somebody knocking on your door.

You decided to get a space to do

Your all your video stuff? This we'll see if this proves to be a wise choice, but I I my operating theory is if you It's a little bit of if you build it, they will come. And and so I got a 2,000 square foot warehouse space in Portland, And I have, 3 different, like, permanent recording setups, where I not, like, Not, like, fully. I gotta move cameras around and stuff. I'm not going that all out. But I have, like, this set is is a set. This is a a Stage wall behind me, and I got lights, like, all around the place. I'm surrounded by a bunch of sound blankets and stuff. And then just on the other side of this, I have another Set another another fake wall that is, it's got, like, some armchairs in front of it and some plants, and it's like a a casual, like, interview style set. Got some, green screen set up and and different, like, photo backdrops so that we can do plain backgrounds, interview style documentary kind of stuff, And a whole bunch of reconfigurable things, like, I, you know, I can move things around the space and and set it up for whatever I need. And and my goals are, One, by giving myself enough space to get creative, I'm removing the the boundaries between, like, if I have an idea, I don't have to go seek out a space that I can do that idea in. I can I can make it work in the space that I have? And then 2 is, like, I just I feel like a lot of times what I'm missing is that direct human to human contact. And by creating a space where somebody can come in and Cowork with me or, you know, if there's a conference in town, I can, like, grab some of the speakers and, hey, come over here. Let's do some some extra content.

Or if, you know, a company wants to do a meetup, we can host it here. Just things like that where where there are opportunities for, like, Content and community and and interaction that, don't work if you're recording from home. Totally. And That's that's sort of the intention here is to create a space where where there's more room for collaboration and and, like, serendipitous Stuff that doesn't involve me inviting everybody I know over to, hey, do you wanna come hang out in my living room? It's it's more like, hey, come come to the space. It's set up for work. It's set up for creativity, and See what we can make. Yeah. Hey, guys. Take your shoes off at the door. Go upstairs to my bedroom. And yeah. I know. We we've all left that behind,

when you gotta move into this space. But it it's funny because from our perspective, it looks like a regular ass office. I'm, like, looking at you, And the backdrop looks very similar to what Wes and I have going on behind us. And if you wouldn't have told me necessarily, you know, that that was a fake wall, I don't know if I would have Would have pulled that out. Yeah. And that's sort of the goal. Right? Like, I can roll this wall away, and then then you'd be looking at a concrete wall behind me. And the the reason for that is that I wanted to be able to, like,

reconfigure the space as needed. So if I need to to create a, you know, a Two wall fake office, I can I can do that? If we wanna do a wide shot, like, almost sitcom style multi camera shot, then I can create a set Where we've got that, but there's not a wall in the way for that longer lens to to do the close-up or something. Like, there's there's all these, Little things that I've wanted to do where, you know, I I found myself, like, having to use a ultra wide lens because the room is only 10 feet wide, and Then it just kinda looks goofy and fish eyed when what I was going for was a wide shot, and it looks like I'm taking, like, a skateboard video wide shot. Yeah.

So, VX 1000? Yeah.

Yeah. Right? I I my goal in life is to one day find Like a v x 1,000 at a yard sale or something like that and Oh, yeah. To a webcam because that would be

sick. Just in the corner or top corner of your office There's something yeah. That was, like, my dream. And when I was in college, they had them available to rent for just for free from the college, through our program, you just had to be of the major that I was.

So, man, I was renting 1 247, and it was so cool to be like, man Yeah. As a as a teen, this would have been, like, my my prized possession, and here I am getting to use it. Got the top handle going on. Yeah.

Yeah. I was I was just in New York, And while I was there, we were riding the subway and this this raft of kids, they're all somewhere between, like, 18 and 25, Comes climbing onto the subway, and and they've got a teacher yelling at them, and each one of them is carrying, like, a $9,000 camera rig. They're, like, out. They they must have been hard students because they're all out learning something, but I just I saw the 1st camera come on. I was like, dang, that's a cool camera. And then another one followed, and I was like, these kids are not old enough to own this back here. Like, what is happening?

Yeah. Man, expensive camera gear. What you remember I don't know if you remember when the 1st RED cameras came out. They were, like, Half $1,000,000 or something outrageous.

I I I I've been in a bunch of awful music videos, and I was doing some breakdancing moves underneath One of those red cameras, and it was I I saw it, and it was like, you know, the holy cow. This thing cost half $1,000,000, and they hooked it up to the ceiling, bought with a bunch of, like, like, nylon rope and then spun it. And and I was just like god. Guys, what are you doing? And they're like, it's insured. It's Fine. I was like, oh my god.

This is crazy.

That, like, raises my my blood pressure just thinking about it. Are you sure you want me to, like, do handstands and kick around underneath this thing? I'm going to kick it. I kick things all the time. I kicked a hole in the wall.

I I have a question about mediums, in in what you think Is I get this question all the time. Somebody says, hey, Wes, I wanna start creating content.

And 10 years ago, it would have been Start a blog.

And I I think that starting a blog is is still a good thing to do, but I don't think it's the Way to go, because there are so many there is there's live streaming. There is longer videos. There is short form content. There is, Twitter based tips. There's TikTok, all that type of stuff. And it's it's pretty wild that especially when you go into these, like, micro Social networks, sometimes you'll find people who are, like, web development experts. And you're like, I literally have never Never seen even stumbled across you. And that's Not a slight at them. It's just like, wow, there's just different worlds everywhere we go.

Right. So if someone, like, do you have any thoughts on that? Like, what's The medium right now if somebody's starting fresh. This is a bit of a cop out answer, but it it depends on, like

actually, it's not a cop out answer. It's just the truth. What's the thing you're actually gonna do? Yeah. Right? Like, if you if you are if you are looking for the best medium, And you and you decide that the best medium is short format content because that's what you see getting the most traction, and you absolutely hate it. Like, you don't like making it, you don't like watching it or anything, how are you gonna possibly continue doing that? Like, it's not gonna it's not gonna work. Yeah. You gotta find the thing that, like, if you know that because ultimately, the secret to making any of this stuff work is consistency, and you gotta show up and do it, you know, 5 days a week. So What's the thing you can actually see yourself waking up and doing 5 days a week? And if that's writing a blog post, Great. Like, I I wrote blog posts just about every day for for several years before I decided that that wasn't really the thing that, I I always felt like I was sort of forcing it with blog posts. When I started making videos, I I struggle with a lot of things about video, but I don't struggle with making the videos. Like, I struggle with Overediting and, like, trying to perfect videos Yeah. And that makes me slow, but, like, I've never felt, like, making videos themselves has been, like, oh, I hate it. I don't wanna do it. So for me, I found that, like, short format and long format video content are the the plat that's the platform for me, because I'll wake up and do it. Mhmm. Each creator but I I guess the thing that I would tell most creators is, like, start with the one that you think you wanna do every day, but make sure you test them all because I wouldn't have Yes. The video was for me when I started. Same. Like, I I would've thought stumbled upon it by accident.

Yeah. Yeah. That that's a great answer. Right. Like, just, you know, like, whatever. Ever. Do whatever you want. Right. I'll say that's also like, that's a really good tip is, like, often people will say, like, here's my Plan. I'm going to be doing x, y, and z. And it's like, honestly, you gotta test you gotta test stuff. Or they're like, this is The type of content I'm going to be making, like, what do you think about that? And it's honestly, you got to make 10 kinds of content.

1 of them is going to hit And probably because you're super excited about it, and and you you just need to run with that. I think people are a little bit afraid to they they wanna sit and plan and research Rather than just test stuff out. Yeah. I I think, like,

there there's this challenge between, like, Focus and growth, where when you if you overfocus, you say, like, I'm a blogger and that's All I do, then you've you've painted yourself into a box, and you don't learn about other things that might be way better.

Right? Like, if or for for you specifically, like, you know, you if you if you only write and then you'd never try podcasting, you might not learn that, like, Actually, you've got a great radio personality, and you're really fun, and people love to open up to you, and you can get something that, you know like, imagine if, like, somebody like Ira Glass, who people love Talking to had refused to do anything but write.

We might not have he might not have ever discovered as a creator that that was his Special place to be. Right? And we would have all missed out on all that great content. But on the other hand, if you if you Go too broad and you're trying to do a little bit of everything, then you never get enough done to see any real results because you're too all over the place. Mhmm. So One of the ways that I've thought about it is is somebody years ago, I don't remember who, said, whenever you make a decision, treat it as, like, forever for now.

And you've you're going all in on this thing for a little bit, and when you get new information, you'll adapt to that new information.

And so I I've started thinking about it as as sort of like, when you play like a a map development game, like a civilization building game, you know, you You can't do all the things at once. You kinda gotta optimize on doing one thing to make you healthy enough to be able to do the other stuff later.

And that's sort of how I've looked at my career is, like, you gotta get to the point where you can, like, pay your bills. And then once you can pay your bills, you can look at expanding what you do And, like, experimenting and then that experimentation shows you something else you can do so you can let go of the old thing that you did and start pursuing this new thing that you learned. And Each of those turns into, like, new opportunities, new lessons, new things that that can make you happier, more effective, more successful, and and so on.

So you need the focus and you need the exploration, and you need them in, like, almost like a seesaw balance so that you can, you know, make some make some progress And then explore. And then make more progress and then explore. And and that, that kind of forever for now commitment has been a a mantra for me, to give me permission to put all my focus on one thing for the next stretch until I look at what I've learned and and reassess what the next forever for now is. That's great.

Like that a lot. You've been doing, live streaming for a little while too. I know that's something that's, like, hard to get into or or the tools are difficult. The tech's hard.

Do do you feel like that's a a challenge to continually livestream, to continually have stuff to do there, To be on your best live all the time? I I mean, I I rely on the joys of editing, to make me sound smart. So Live is a is a

Very unique kind of thing because I think depending on who you ask, it's either, like, their greatest joy or their greatest fear.

And, you know, I mean, we know, like, public speaking is a lot of people's, like, number one fear and that that fear of looking foolish to people and and being unprepared.

But then again, like, I I come from a performance background where I was, you know, I was a musician, I was up on stage, and that's all live. And so to me, there's this sort of energy that comes with live And the that immediate feedback loop of, like, I'm doing something, and and I can see the people who are watching reacting to that thing, and I'm I'm, like, oh, I got something. Like, people are enjoying this. We're Having a good time.

To me, that's, like, that's pretty magical, and and I don't know how you would get that in another medium Outside of public speaking, which is one of the ones that that was, like, my earliest was, going and speaking at conferences, was how I kinda recreated that feeling of of being a a lead singer in a band.

And live streaming is definitely one of those things that I I think you're not going for quality with live streaming. You're going for Interaction.

And the best live streamers I know aren't putting on, like, highly produced shows.

They're they are chaos agents, and the the thing they're good at is that sort of, like, improv and rolling.

So something will happen, and they don't, like, Panic and worry that their mic's not working. They just kinda switch into mime mode and try to make people laugh while they try to figure out how their mic is like, why it stopped working suddenly.

If if it doesn't make you want to curl into a ball and and, like, fully shut down, it has a lot of lessons to teach On how to just, you know, be okay with everything, just, like, it's it's it doesn't matter. It's you're just learning, you're playing, you're you're something out and a lot of it's not gonna work, and that's actually part of the process. That's, like, a good thing to learn that something's not working. It's not failure. It's a lesson. And and those are You know, I I feel like that's, it helps me with my general calm, but I also know that a lot of people, you know, when they do it, they, like, leave Fully drained. Like, it it their battery goes to 0. They've got like, they're, you know, they're, like, covered in stress sweat. Like, it's it's not for everybody.

Yeah. I get that. We we we record basically the whole weeks and sometimes more than that, sometimes, like, 6 episodes of the podcast on one day.

Wow. And it it won't, like, leave me I mean, if we do that, I'm I'm toast. But, you know, at the end of today, this is the the last one we're doing today.

Like, I'm not gonna leave here being like, but if I mess up, we could just say, oh, cut it. Alright. Let's, you know, chop it up. We have that at so the amount of Dress, I think, is a little bit less than going straight live. But that said, I'm sure we'll be doing these shows live at some point and, some point more frequently. Who knows? How do you, like, start to prepare for a live stream content wise? Do you have when you start a stream, do you have content ready to go that you're planning on doing, or do you have a general, here's the project I'm gonna be working on, or here's the thing that I'm gonna be talking about, the person I'm gonna be interviewing or whatever, And just go from there? Like, how much do you plan?

I have 2 formats, and and I prep differently for both of them. So Mhmm. Learn with Jason is a very structured show.

When when Learn With Jason starts, it's exactly 90 minutes long. I've got, You know, closed captioners and and a a whole thing. Like, I have an intro, an outro that are basically the same for every show.

We've got sponsorship breaks and and a a relatively stable format of, like, we have a podcast the session for the 1st 15 to 30 minutes, and then it breaks over into screen sharing, and we live code for up to 60 minutes, and then, you know, I send everybody off to the next, wherever we go raid. The prep for that one, kinda by design, I I've made that show where I don't prep.

Nice. Yeah. For for a couple reasons. Like, 1, I wanna have a beginner's mind when I'm learning about the thing. So when I get introduced to like, I got, Rich Harris is coming on to talk about Svelte five. I have not looked at rooms at all intentionally because I knew he was coming on the show so that when he shows me this stuff, I'm gonna have, like, my actual first impression.

That being said, I do have things that I know I wanna talk to Rich about. I have you know, there's there are things that I prepare And then things I intentionally avoid so that the show goes the way that I want it to go.

The the other format that I have is on on Tuesdays, I do longer free form streams.

And for a long time, it was sort of like, I'm gonna work on whatever I'm working on, and and if you wanna come hang out, come hang out. And those were fine.

More recently, I've been trying to get a little more structured with them where I have a few things that I'm trying to To say, and I want them to be YouTube videos.

And that like, for me to just sit down without an audience and, like, Make an engaging take on, like, what, I just did one today on, like, what's AI's role in in creation.

Right? I feel like that's a that's a good topic, but I can't just, like, turn on the camera and plop down and, like, be energetic about it.

But if I if somebody asked me about it on stream, now I'm talking to somebody.

And that's the the energy I want is, like, I want YouTube videos like that, the the talking head videos, to basically be, like, if you sat down and asked me this question, what would I say to you? And and so by doing it on a livestream, That becomes true. Somebody asked me a question, and I'm able to, like, directly respond to that. So I try to I try to go in guiding, Guiding toward that sort of q and a, and and sometimes I'll go in with some questions that I, like, definitely wanna touch on, and so I'll I'll Start talking about it a little bit, and then usually somebody asks a a related question and that's, like, okay, that's the moment. And and this is also a a thing of of being live and just sort of embracing the chaos of it all is I I've just adopted this thing. I I learned it from from Theo because I was like, how do you get so many videos done? He told me, he's like, well, I don't really treat my stream like it's anything precious.

So when I wanna do one of these videos, I just say, alright, you know what? This is good. I'm gonna do this as a video. Everybody hold up for a second, and then I, like, turn to my computer and I click the marker button, and I hit the record button, and I turn this thing on, then I turn back and I just start as if I'm recording the video, But it's still live. And then when I'm done, I'm like, alright. And then I, like, turn everything off, and then we just continue as if things are going. Go with your energy is

We were talking about that as well. A bunch of the people from Century were like, how do you decide what to do? And I was like, unfortunately, I don't have, like, a algorithm for you. I have what I'm stoked on and what I'm excited about. That's when I need know I need to run with it.

To me, that's such a like, the thing that makes content fun is finding somebody whose energy is infectious. Right? And I think that's one of the things that I've always loved about syntax is that you 2 are clearly just, like, sharing things you're enjoying. Mhmm. And and that's that's energy that's hard to deny.

And the folks that I I follow the most are all similar types. Like, you know, Cassidy Williams is one of my favorite creators in the space because She she only makes stuff because she's excited about it. There's no there's no real, like, incentive attached to her stuff anymore. She's a a CTO now. And, you know, folks who who live in that world of, like, I'm here because I like being here and I wanna share, that's the magic of this This space and, like, what makes this entertaining, like, you can't you can feel it when somebody's just stepping through the motions and trying to, you know, put together content. It's like, okay. Well, they just looked at Twitter and copy pasted the first 5 URLs they saw, and now they're doing a roundup of of what's new in tech or whatever. And that's no shade on people who do roundups.

But, like, There are people who can do that really authentically. Like, I I would say the the Bytes dot dev newsletter is a great example of, like, carrying energy through a roundup. And then there are others where it very much looks like they were just as they were scanning their timelines, they copy paste it, and they go, here are the top 5 things in tech this week, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, See you next week. And it's like, okay. I mean, I don't dislike it, but, like, it's not you're not you're not bringing any of yourself to it. You're you're You're following a formula, and I think a lot of companies are looking for the formula.

Processes like that, you can have a structure, but you can't put a formula that precise on it Because it sucks all the humanity out of it. Exactly. That's it's funny that you're you're saying exactly

what Scott and I just had a conversation about where With, some of the folks at Century because their marketing team was, like, trying to ask us, like, hey, like like, what's the sauce With those type of stuff. And one of the big things I always say is we can't round the corners off of this type of thing. You know, we're not having 20 people give their opinion on what a topic or how we should approach it. We hit recording and we go with it, because that's why it stays good. And that's why it has personality to it. You know, that's why our website has grunge. You know, a lot of people say we shouldn't put grunge on it, but don't care because that rounds the corners. Never let go of that grunge. Yeah.

Yeah. No ulterior motives. Right? I think that stuff's too everybody can see through it. You're just you're you did this because you thought it Get clicks or get shares or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And and, like, you can you can even have ulterior motives, and as long as they're transparent and it's, like, Part of the show. Like, I I was actually I was gonna say, like, the way you opened this show with that, like, very natural plug to century that was, like, part of what we were talking about. Like Yeah. That's I I I actually love that was so good because I never would have thought to, like, naturally transition. I would have said, alright. Before we start, let me do an ad.

Right? Like, it just it's it's it's good because it just kinda fits into the thing. And, like, obviously, we have to make a living to keep doing this. Right? Like, I have to somebody has to pay me, Or else I'm gonna have to stop doing this and go get a job again.

And and so, you know, I I want people to know How do I make my money, and how does it affect them? And, you know, sometimes that's gonna be I get sponsored to build with somebody's tool, and sometimes it's gonna be I got paid to Go speak at a conference or something, but, like, always, I want that to be clear and, like, part of what we're talking about. And then if I can do it, you know, like, with the 4 devs Build the same app thing. That's like, a sponsor is paying me so that their tool becomes the secret thing that we have to use as part of the build.

And, What a great way to do that. Right? Like, you you as a as a company, you want people to use your tool.

They're not gonna voluntarily watch a webinar, but they'll probably watch Scott Talinski built something, and so there you go. There's your webinar, but it's way more fun because now it's like, hey, let's go play with a new toy.

I agree with you though. As soon as the as soon as the, Like, I'm trying to manipulate you into doing something becomes the focus of it.

That's when I think we cross the line into why people say developers State marketing is because we can smell when a thing isn't made by somebody who's trying to be stoked with us. It's made by somebody who's trying to get us to do something. Mhmm. And that's it's a fine it's a fine line. I want people to do a lot of things, but it's not the reason I'm talking about it. Like Yeah. Yeah. I wanna talk about Astro because I'm using Astro a lot, and I'm stoked about it. Obviously, I also want you to buy the course on Astro that I'm working on, but that's not like I would still be talking about Astro if I wasn't making the course. Totally. And that's that that was, like, one thing that I struggled with when I moved from

courses that, paid my rent, essentially, from courses that I was making for for fun Was like, oh, now I have to consider that just because I like x, y, and z, there might not be, you know, enough people who actually like that as well to buy it, to support to support me, just because I the things I like might be a little too niche sometimes. Mhmm.

Let's rapid fire into some things really Quick care. We had we just wanted to know your you talk a lot of you talk to a lot of folks about all kinds of different tech. So just really quick, we wanted to get your thoughts on a couple of things. Do you feel about, like, the React space right now in general? Weird.

I feel real weird about React right now. How come? Several reasons. I I think we're seeing React transfer from something that was, like, a tool sponsored by a company To support the paid thing for the company, to React becoming a tool that is the paid thing for the company with With Next. Js becoming, like, the key monetization driver for for Vercel who's now hired half more of the React core team. More. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that has you know, there's some clear incentive shifts there. There's this really weird feeling of, like, the the massive break Between React before and after server components, to the, like, to the effect that it feels the same way that I felt When people were talking about, like, the Angular JS to Angular switch Yeah. Where it's, like, well, it's the same thing, but it's not the same thing at all. Like, everything changed.

And I I also feel like, I don't know, like, there's just no there's no gas in the community right now. Like, people are just arguing about the silliest Stuff. And I'm not seeing anybody, like, showing me new things. Like, the the new things in in tech seem to be outside of of React right now. It's you can use it with React, and we're seeing a lot of that. But it's not like I don't know. It's it it it feels like right now we're seeing React Kind of turn into a it's a grown up company. It's a it's a grown up product inside of a paid company that needs to drive revenue so that the board doesn't yell at them in in board meetings. And and it just shifts the the whole vibe, and so it makes it all feel weird.

Yeah. Vibes off. What about, and this is something You interviewed me about about a week and a half ago.

You were emceeing a conference I spoke at, and part of that was Chit chatting after.

But I'll ask you your thoughts on AI. I think AI is,

so my I I actually just recorded a a YouTube video about this today that'll come out, I don't know, someday.

And the the my thesis on it is I I think AI is a wonderful writing to like, creation tool, not a publishing tool. And and what I mean by that is, like, I love AI as a tool to help get you from, like, a blank page to a working draft.

I still think we need humans to take that working draft to something that feels good.

Like, I don't think you would I I personally don't think you should publish, like, AI art as I made this, this is my art. I don't think you should publish an AI generated article as, like, I wrote this, this is my article. I I think that when that happens, it feels hollow. Like, I I think It's it's good for like, I I actually I liked your use of it where you were doing, like, summarization. Yeah. I thought that was really clever because that's, like, you made a thing, And you're letting the AI do some chores. Right? Yeah. I really like the idea of using AI as, like, I need to write an article about this. Give me, like, 15 bullet points about what this article could be. Like, what could the angle be or, like, what could the the some of the ideas be? And it just spits out a bunch of garbage and you look at it and you go, oh, I I like that. I like that. I like that. Now suddenly you got a direction to go in. Right? Or, like, if you're an artist And you use AI to generate a bunch of different images around some prompts, and you use those as inspiration to then go and create the thing that you wanna create.

And I think it'll help you make better art. Right? So I love it as a as a thinking tool. I don't know that I I would encourage anybody to, like, just straight up Publish an article that they're like, hey, AI. Write me an article about, you know, the state of React, and then just publish that under their byline. That feels weird. Yeah.

And also like that, that kind of stuff is going to become like table stakes. You know, like, that's 1 thing I didn't. I was Driving home from my conference talk on that, I was like, one thing I didn't talk about was once everybody can do something That becomes table stakes like we saw with graphic design.

Good graphic design is table stakes now, you know, like you can you can get Canva, You can have a couple elements. Boom out the other end. You have decent graphic design, and now that's that's table stakes. And now If you want to stand out, you got to do something interesting or better.

And being able to crank out a garbage article on React State Is like, people are going to become blind to it because

everybody's gonna be doing it. Yeah. When you can you can feel the I don't know. It just They feel like a little uncanny valley. Like, when you read something that was written by AI and unedited by a human, like, there's just something about it that it sort of Gives you the heebie jeebies.

And and I so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It feels soulless. You know what? We had, Taylor, Taylor on talking about interviewing, and one of the points he said is don't even bother submitting an application if you write your cover letter with AI because They run it through a generator. They can tell. It's it's obvious. And we got some pushback on that. People would said, like, how is this any different than using a premade template for your cover letter? Like, my response to that is, like, it's the same. It it it is the same. That's not a good either. You shouldn't have things that are are soulless. You shouldn't have things that

aren't representing you, you know, or the the human the humanity there. Right? And, like, to that end, like, when I get a a LinkedIn mail Sent to me that is very clearly a copy paste template where they it was like, hello, insert first name. Yeah. I really loved your work at insert current company. Yeah. Would you like to work this job that has nothing to do with that thing? I mark those as spam too. Like, Yeah. Those templates and AI template, like, all of that is gonna go in the junk folder, and and so, sure, do whatever you want. But if you want it to be effective, you'd have to put a little effort in. Yeah. Wes had somebody that was sending him a a video that was generated. Oh, that's super weird. Yeah. Yeah. Like a fake It's super weird.

Screen recording that had the like, the mouse was programmatically,

looking around your website or something.

Made the mouse look like it wasn't programmatically moved around.

I know. Which was

really interesting and that type of thing. But, like, yeah, that's These b s e reach outs are getting to a point where good reach outs won't work anymore. And I said this as part of my talk is I think, like, the relationships that you have with people are gonna be even more important because it's it's gonna be too hard to cut through all this

Garbage that pops up. I'm really interested to see how like, the pendulum always swings. Right? And so We at first, we were like, alright, go full remote. Everybody can work from everywhere, and and you'd you know, maybe you'll never meet your coworkers. They exist only as a Slack avatar or something. Yeah. And and we're seeing it swing back the other way where, like, the the the space is so saturated. And, like, people are given Straight terrible advice. Like, I've seen things going around on Twitter that are like, just lie on your resume. Just Yeah. Tell them you've done all those things. And it's like and and so, you know, obviously, recruiters now Don't trust anything that they're seeing, and so they're leaning even more heavily on referrals than they ever were before. And, like, if you're if you're a hiring manager, you're Absolutely looking for referrals. And so that's it's like shrinking the industry as opposed to opening it up because of how people are abusing the The the openness of these these modes. And I'm also seeing, like, I don't think the return to office is necessarily I don't think people are pushing back against it as hard as they thought they might be because there are things that I'm thinking about too. I'm like, I don't know. It's it's kinda nice to have everybody on the same time it it is kinda nice to be able to get lunch with your coworkers. I'm not saying I would ever go back and work in an office again, but, like, it would be kinda cool if we were all in the same city. Yeah. You know? I haven't I haven't worked in office since 2014.

And Mhmm. When we were in, Toronto at the Century office a Couple weeks ago, man, there was something straight electric about being in a room with Wes and Caitlin and Ben and just getting the hash stuff out. And it's like, This this is special. It's it's not like something I I don't wanna be come across as being like you gotta go back to work guy, but, like, Man, there was something special about it that I haven't personally had in such a long time, you know, and energy there.

Yeah. And we can see people Going back to commuting on our podcast stats, so everybody needs to go back to the office so they'll listen to more syntax.

You can you can you can see you can see the COVID. Yeah.

You can see where covid was and the back to office in our stats, which is which is amazing.

And We're pretty sure the COVID drop off was real.

It bounced back after that. But then, like, you can see Very clearly with the go back to work in the last 6 months or so, you can see the the increase. And we pulled all of our users, and a lot of them said, I'm listening more lately because I'm commuting.

It's funny that you say that because I'd never really considered it, but the last time that I consistently listen to any podcast Where was when I worked at IBM, and I drove over the office 3 days a week. Mhmm. Yeah. There you go. Fascinating.

Yeah. I this is actually one of the reasons that I have I've always I I was trying to get to an audio only format, and I couldn't find a way to do it that felt Like, I wasn't just making a teaser, you know? Oh, yeah. And so I I've just stuck with video, and then I realized that, like, what people are doing is they're putting it on On their TV in the background, and they're not actually looking at the they're not looking at the TV, but they they hear it. And then if they then they'll, like, swivel to watch for a second and then they'll go back. So it's kinda like when people put the news or a sports game on in the background. It's it's to, like, it's background noise. They're 10% paying attention to, which, Which you know, my shows are 90 minutes long. Like, I think that makes sense. That's you can't really, like, sit down and consume multiple episodes of Learn with Jason. You kinda Jump to the part you need.

Yeah. Yeah. Well and you have such a soothing voice. It's nice to have on. You know? It's great.

It's a type of voice mail. ASMR series. Yeah.

Jason reads, React

15 Documentation. Code, comments. Yeah. Oh, yes. It was Nice vintage. Yeah. So So these are the questions that we ask everyone who comes on to the show, just kind of general what you use, what type of stuff you like, your preference is.

What kind of computer mouse and keyboard do you prefer to use? I have a,

MacBook Pro.

I it's one of the older, The, like, the 1st m one models, it's fine. I you know, it does what I need it to do at least. I use a a Moonlander, like the split Keyboard and well, that's it. In the studio, I've got the Moonlander, and at home, I've got the ErgoDox EZ.

And I just learned about this thing that I was really excited about called Synergy, which lets me share the keyboard between my Mac and my PC at home. That's right. So now I don't have 2 keyboards on my home desk for my gaming PC and my my other laptop, and then I I I'm a trackpad person.

Like, I feel like that's a controversial choice, but I I I prefer truck pad as as well. Yeah. I don't know how to I don't know how to function without the, The multi touch. Yeah.

Yeah. I I prefer it greatly. Yeah. The multi touch is

is a really nice thing to have, especially when you're like, You probably do a lot of video editing. When the app support multi touch, it's like a whole second input

of being able to To do things in swipes. I I also just have realized how much I'm dependent on it because, like, I have 15 desktops, with, you know, I've got, like, my video stuff on this desktop and my my messaging on this desktop, and and I've now learned because my home computer now, because I switched To that, like, keyboard sharing thing, I have a gaming mouse instead of a trackpad, and I've had to learn a bunch of shortcuts to move between the desktops, but I hate it. Yeah. And I keep finding, like, oh, I just do the I I switch it to a 4 finger swipe to go between desktops, and I use that

all the time. I like that a lot too. Yeah. That's been a big shift for me to not have that that multi touch in input on the home computer. I tried to switch up and go with the stage manager feature for a little bit, The new in the OS? Because it kind of replaces spaces in a way. Right? Okay. But it, ultimately fell pretty flat. I I went back after Maybe a month of like, I was like, I'm gonna give this a real solid try.

Didn't stick. Yeah. What text editor's theme and font are you rocking these days? Versus Code,

Operator mono and night owl.

Nice. Alright. I think I picked up I think I picked up operator mono because of you, West. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was I feel like I was OG operator mono. Like, this is before feel like you deserve a cut. There was the joke for a long time where you just What would automatically respond with the font as operator mono? I think that was what, like, got it to worm into my brain.

I I've been thinking about switching it. After I'm done recording my, my course, I think I might just try something new because it's been a while. And I've been I've been using my Cobalt 2 theme for, like, Like 14 years or something crazy like that. And I often think, like, should I try something else? I probably won't ever do a new theme, but it's fun to try a new

A new font, but it has less of the wow factor these days. You can do if you wanna be cool like me, you can use the syntax f m theme, and you can use n d I o, which is the, the the font that we use on the website. Yeah. Yeah. I use that as my programming font, and it's great. I'm not a fan of of dark

Editor's themes. That's why I like the blue. You know? It's dark. You can make a light barrier. Not too dark. No. I don't want I don't like light themes either. Blue themes. That's actually been my, that like,

Night owl is use it uses like a midnight blue for the background, which, which is now when I try to switch to an actual dark theme, Like, no. No. Get this away from me. What is this? It's too dark. I want mine like, I'm peering into a black hole.

1. 0 OLED.

Don't yeah.

Here's a question. Do you would do you run light mode or dark mode on on your apps or mix?

Dark mode, wherever it's supported except in Google Docs. Yeah. Yeah. That feels weird. I tried dark mode in Google Docs, and that is that is too it's too weird. Too much. It's weird. Yeah. It's like I I tried it for, like, 3 days, and I was like, this is no. I don't like this. This feels weird. I did the same for my email. I do dark mode with most things, but email, I can't do it. Google Docs and can't do it. Notion.

Any, like, any, like, text based applications.

I like light mode. I think we're gonna see a resurgence of of light mode lovers

In the next year or so. I do like light mode. I, I've I've been trying to I think what I actually want, and I don't know how to do this Because it would take too much work, but what I want is, like, light and dark mode at different times of day. Yeah. Like, when I'm outside and the sun is very bright, I want light mode. Or, you know, like like it's when you give a a talk on stage at a conference, like, you should use light mode because it's more legible Yeah. Because the the projector's got that terrible bulb, and it's, like, too bright and all that.

But I don't wanna have to think about it. I just want it to be like, it's bright enough for light mode. Here you go.

Hey. I'm gonna tell you what. Like, if you go to macOS Appearance, there is 3 settings, light, dark, and auto. You just check the auto box. Bingo. Bongo. You're donezo. Scott, I think you just changed my life.

I it's baked in, baby.

Alright. I'm trying it. I'm gonna I'm gonna turn this on as soon as we hang up. Is that based on time or Or, actually, is there a light sensor? I don't know. We're gonna find out, and I will report back. Wessie, you can hard code it to time, or you can tell it to do sunset. Yeah. Yeah. Sun You can tell at a specific time. I told it a time. I told it 6 o'clock I want you to change. That's or, like, I'm out of work. I've already eaten dinner. I'm ready for dark mode. I'm I'm you know? Yeah. That's I I run I run it on I forget. I forget when, but it just turns on At sunset or or whenever it is. And the sad thing is is that there's a couple of weeks in in the winter that it turns on while I'm still working at, like, 4:30.

Oh, yeah. And I'm just like, oh, don't go dark mode on me yet.

I'll show you guys the reason. If you watch The screen right now, you'll see the reason why I use dark mode. Watch this.

It's in my glasses. Yeah. Yeah. That's why.

Jason, here's a quick question. What Hammer do you use? This is a special one just for you. I use a,

a Sony FX 3 with the 24 to Seventy, G Master lens.

G Master. Nice.

You were looking at me at a, Sony FX Through right now, Wes, are you rocking your FX 3? Oh, yeah. Of course.

Yeah. Look at that. Team team z's. Yeah. We have to. I just realized I haven't had my My, door opened the whole time. Ugh, Wes. In a side and a little side note, Wes has this little built in there. We were playing hide and go seek with my kids yesterday, And I hid in a cabinet about that size for way too long. Nobody could find me, and the kids were like, It it was my wife's turn to find. So you think she could find it? She could not find me, and then the kids both couldn't get themselves hidden. So she had to count to, like, 60 seconds, and I'm in there with my neck crooked open. I was like, dear god, get me out of here.

Yeah. I feel like if I were to play hide and go seek, my my wife would see me go into an uncomfortable spot and then pretend not to be able to fight me and just giggle about it the whole time. Yep. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're struggling. Alright. So last thing we have here is a sick pick and a shameless plug. What do you got for us today? Okay. So my my sick pick would be I I talked about this a minute ago, but it's called Synergy, and it is a it's an app That you install on all of your computers, and then it will use software to let you use the same mouse and keyboard across all of the computers, Which is good if you're like me and you use, like, a specialty split keyboard thing because those are expensive and I don't wanna have to get one for every computer.

And also, I don't like having multiple keyboards on my desk. It feels really cluttered and messy.

So, I just installed that. It's been great. It's got a little bit of weirdness, like, I I have it hooked up to a PC that I used to play games, and I have to turn it off before I play the games because otherwise, if you turn right too much, Your mouse slides onto the other computer, and suddenly you're not playing the game anymore.

So so that was a little bit of a, oh, okay. Gotta adjust for that. But, it's easy enough. I just turned it off in the tray and then turn it back on when I'm done.

But that, that one's been been killer.

And then for a shameless plug, I will say, head over to head over to to learn with Jason. It's, lwj.dev, And just hop on my newsletter because that is that is where I send everything.

I'm on a bunch of different media, Like, all the different social media and and stuff like that. And the only place where I actually, like, share all the things I'm working on is is the newsletter. So if you wanna keep up with me, that's where to go. Sick. Well, it's been a blast, Jason. You're the best. Thanks for hopping on and, and chatting with us. It's been, really awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.

Peace. Awesome. Peace.

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