Live at React Miami Recap with Event Speakers
Bite-sized highlights from React Miami cover speaker insights, conference experiences, and the importance of community
Episode Description
JavaScript Jam broadcasts live from React Miami, chatting with speakers and attendees about their favorite talks, networking experiences, and conference highlights.
Episode Summary
JavaScript Jam hosts Scott Steinlage and Anthony Campolo broadcast live from the React Miami conference, bringing on speakers and attendees to share their experiences. The conversation kicks off with introductions from Josh Goldberg, who works on open source static analysis tooling, and Dax Raad, creator of SST, who just finished his first-ever conference talk. Australian duo Michael and Selena join with plenty of humor, previewing their upcoming talk on pair programming and sharing stories about beach workouts and cultural differences. The discussion repeatedly circles back to the theme that conferences are most valuable for the in-person connections rather than the talks themselves, with Dax noting how easy it is to talk with people who share a common context. Kathleen McMahon highlights the diversity of content and speakers, particularly praising the conference's commitment to weaving accessibility into multiple talks rather than isolating it. Will Johnson discusses his passwordless authentication talk and calls out the morning developer health activities — beach volleyball, running, and yoga — as something he'd never seen at any other conference. Kent C. Dodds briefly checks in from a Burger King mid-journey on his onewheel to the airport, and Eric shares plans for an upcoming Solid.js talk at InfoBip Shift Miami. The episode wraps with plugs for upcoming events including Remix Conf and Render ATL.
Chapters
00:00:00 - Live From React Miami
Scott Steinlage opens the show by welcoming listeners to a special live edition of JavaScript Jam, broadcasting from the React Miami conference floor. He sets the tone for a relaxed, open-mic style conversation, inviting anyone in the audience to come up and participate regardless of experience level.
Anthony Campolo joins in, and the hosts begin bringing up speakers who are at the event. Josh Goldberg introduces himself as an open source contributor focused on static analysis tooling like TypeScript and ESLint, while Dax Raad shares that he works on SST, a serverless framework for AWS, and expresses relief at having finished his first-ever conference talk earlier that day.
00:05:32 - The Real Value of Conferences
Scott shifts the conversation toward what attendees and speakers have enjoyed most about React Miami, emphasizing that networking and hallway conversations are just as valuable as the scheduled talks. Anthony agrees, noting how many meaningful connections he's made with people both on stage and in the audience.
Josh Goldberg shares that he learned a surprising amount from Una's CSS talk and is about to grab lunch with people he's never met before. The discussion reinforces a recurring theme throughout the episode: conferences create a unique opportunity to see the people behind the screen names and build relationships that go beyond tech discussions.
00:10:49 - Michael and Selena Bring the Laughs
Australian speakers Michael and Selena join the conversation with their signature comedic chemistry, joking about learning Twitter Spaces, Australian-to-American currency conversions, and the price of tacos versus dresses in Miami. They preview their upcoming pair programming talk, promising unscripted humor and even some footage of bag work on the beach.
Selena reveals she's a state champion Muay Thai kickboxer from Victoria, Australia, and shares a funny story about trying to hit a punching bag on the sand and falling over. The duo's banter gives listeners a taste of the entertaining presentation style they plan to bring to their conference talk later that day.
00:18:12 - Dax on Local Life and Conference Culture
Dax Raad reflects on the irony of living just 15 minutes from the conference venue and hearing visitors rave about a place he takes for granted. He shares his perspective as a relative newcomer to conferences, explaining that the real draw is seeing people in three dimensions after only knowing them through text and screens online.
He makes a humorous observation about Miami's extreme air conditioning, warning attendees that indoor venues can be freezing despite the tropical heat outside. The conversation touches on the shared context that makes it easy for developers to connect on topics well beyond code, and Dax expresses hope that even more faces will show up at next year's event.
00:23:29 - Community Voices and Upcoming Events
Eric joins from the audience remotely, expressing major FOMO about missing React Miami and sharing plans for his upcoming talk on Solid.js for React developers at InfoBip Shift Miami. Kathleen McMahon, a senior design systems engineer, praises the conference's diverse speaker lineup and its commitment to integrating accessibility across multiple talks rather than confining it to a single session.
Kathleen also notes that Miami's growing tech community impressed her enough to consider relocating, highlighting the grassroots efforts to build a tech hub in Southern Florida. The conversation reinforces the idea that React Miami stands out not just for its content but for the vibrant local developer ecosystem surrounding it.
00:38:00 - Kent's Onewheel Adventures and Will on Developer Health
Kent C. Dodds calls in from a Burger King, mid-transition from his onewheel to an Uber on the way to the airport, sharing stories about riding on the beach and sparking envy from Dax, who tried the onewheel earlier that day. The lighthearted exchange includes Eric's unanswered question about carrying a dead onewheel, lost to poor Burger King WiFi.
Will Johnson then discusses his talk on passwordless authentication using the WebAuthn API and reflects on finding his authentic speaking voice compared to the previous year. His favorite conference moment was the morning developer health activities — beach volleyball, running, and yoga — which he'd never seen at any other event and appreciated for bringing the community together through physical activity.
00:49:00 - Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead
Scott and Anthony begin closing out the live broadcast, encouraging listeners to follow the speakers for ongoing value and to subscribe to the JavaScript Jam newsletter at javascriptjam.com. They plug upcoming events including Remix Conf and Render ATL, where JavaScript Jam plans to continue its collaborative live broadcasts with conference communities.
The hosts give a final open invitation for any last comments from the stage, reinforcing the show's inclusive, community-driven ethos. Scott signs off with enthusiasm, urging anyone who missed React Miami this year to make sure they attend next time, and reminding the audience that recordings of the conference talks will be available for those who couldn't be there in person.
Transcript
00:00:00 - Scott Steinlage
All right. Yo, yo, yo. Welcome to JavaScript Jam. Normally, we do this every Wednesday at 12:00 PM Pacific Standard Time. If you're a regular, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not, welcome. We're here live at React Miami. Bring the heat, y'all. It's hot. It's good if you're here.
00:00:24 - Anthony Campolo
Yes, it is. I'm quite hot.
00:00:26 - Scott Steinlage
He is quite. Yes, Anthony, you are. What? Hey, is that weird? No, that's normal, y'all.
00:00:32 - Selena
[unclear]
00:00:32 - Anthony Campolo
We good? Because it's really incredibly warm, and I can't take it.
00:00:36 - Scott Steinlage
Yes, yes. He can't take it. Hey, and if you are around here in the audience, feel free to scan the banners. There's QR codes on them, you know. All right, feel free to scan. We're live. All right, this is going to be a good time. We're going to have some folks, some speakers here from the React Miami conference, join us to discuss some awesome stuff, just what they've been doing and how much fun we've been having here. Oh, man, I feel sorry for you if you didn't come to React Miami. There's Dax. He's joining us right now. Let's bring him up as well. There he is. Okay. Yeah, I'm just so pumped about this and so glad that we're able to be a part of React Miami with JavaScript Jam. This has just been really fun. Like, really, really fun. Alexis, hey, what's up? I see you in the audience. Welcome, welcome. Feel free to request to come up if you'd like as well. We'd love to hear your experience as a first-time conference-goer too, you know, so feel free, please, if you want to. With that being said, there's Josh as well. Let's get him in here.
00:01:50 - Scott Steinlage
Invite to speak. All right. Josh is a speaker here at React Miami. This is going to be great, guys. We're going to have some more fun here and just rock this for a little bit. It's going to be a good time, just as always. I just want to say, whether you're a beginner or whether you've been doing this for a very long time and you're a seasoned developer, it doesn't matter. We want to hear from everybody. Right, everybody? So feel free to request to come on up. I'll bring you up, and then you can ask a question, state an opinion, a fact, whatever. It doesn't matter. We want to hear from everybody. In fact, that just brings more value to the room, you know, because some great conversations typically happen when people partake. So feel free to join us as much as you want. Awesome. Well, Anthony, I'm going to go ahead and introduce myself. You can introduce yourself, and then we'll have some of the speakers introduce themselves, and we'll go from there. So, Sabin, what's up? Hey. All right. We got some good people in here. Okay. My name is Scott Steinlage, and I'm the technical community manager at Edgio and co-host of JavaScript Jam.
00:03:06 - Scott Steinlage
Anthony.
00:03:15 - Anthony Campolo
My name is Anthony Campolo. I am a developer advocate at Edgio. I'm literally...
00:03:30 - Scott Steinlage
All right, you were fading out there for a minute. Couldn't hear you. Anthony is a developer advocate at Edgio and also co-host here of JavaScript Jam as well. Can you hear me, Josh? You want to start? Yeah, we can hear you now. I went ahead and introduced you, unless you want to say something else.
00:03:53 - Anthony Campolo
All good.
00:03:55 - Scott Steinlage
Okay, awesome. Josh, if you want, feel free to introduce yourself, and then Dax, and we'll just kind of go down the list like that. So, yeah. Hey, everyone.
00:04:06 - Josh Goldberg
Yeah, hi, I'm Josh. Hope you can hear me. If not, well, I'm one of the speakers this year. I'm going to be talking in a couple hours. I do open source stuff full time, working on static analysis tooling like TypeScript and ESLint.
00:04:18 - Scott Steinlage
Awesome. And if you've been listening to JavaScript Jam for any time, you know you've heard Josh a few times on here. So thank you so much, Josh. Appreciate you, and we're so excited for your talk coming up here very soon. Dax, what's up, brother?
00:04:35 - Josh Goldberg
Hey, sorry.
00:04:36 - Dax Raad
I switched to iPhone recently, and I'm learning how to use it.
00:04:43 - Scott Steinlage
It's quite all right. It can be something to be learned. So, yeah. What are you doing, man? What do you do?
00:04:49 - Dax Raad
What do I do? Like, what do you mean, what do I do?
00:04:52 - Scott Steinlage
I mean, who are you? What do you do?
00:04:56 - Dax Raad
Uh, my name is Dax. I am an open source developer, and I work on SST, which is a framework for building serverless applications on AWS. I just did my talk earlier today, and I'm glad to be done with it because now I can relax.
00:05:11 - Scott Steinlage
Yes, the pressure is off, right?
00:05:13 - Dax Raad
Yeah, exactly. All the people that got to go on day one, they're the lucky ones. Kent got to go in the morning on day one. He's been chilling for two days. So definitely next time I do a conference talk, I'm going to ask to go as early as possible.
00:05:32 - Scott Steinlage
Yes, that's good. Get it over with, right? Awesome. Out of the way. Well, it was really good. I heard some really great things about your talk, so I'm so glad that you were able to partake in React Miami and contribute the value that you did, and I'm really looking forward to seeing you at other conferences too. So this has been such a phenomenal thing. I mean, that's one big thing about events, guys: it's not just the talks, obviously. Yes, that's a big deal. But it's also the networking, right? It's the conversations with people between halls, you know, hallway chat, I guess you could say. And so that's an important piece of it all, which is why JavaScript Jam is partaking in a lot of these things, because we want to help grow that community, build that community, and help people network and find each other and discover each other, and just be able to do more for the developer community. So we're really, really excited to be partaking in this too. So I'm just going to start off, Anthony, unless you want to say anything else.
00:06:38 - Scott Steinlage
I was going to start off with a few questions as far as what was the most fun thing they've done at the event here, what was the biggest thing they got out of the event, things like that. So, Anthony, do you want to start maybe, or add anything to that as well? That would be great.
00:06:57 - Anthony Campolo
I mean, I've just been having a really good time getting to meet people. I mean, all the people up on the stage right now and a bunch of people in the audience I've gotten to chat with. So, yeah, it's really cool. You know, this is a really good event for the general React network, which I am pretty plugged into. So, yeah, there's a lot of people I was excited to meet. There's still a couple more that I'm hoping to connect with before heading out. But yeah, it's been a really great time.
00:07:28 - Scott Steinlage
Awesome. Yeah, I totally concur with that. I mean, like I said, meeting people that you've talked to and seen on Twitter, or even just been following on Twitter and maybe have never had the chance to exchange a conversation with, but now you're able to see them and not only see them, but potentially have a good little bit of a conversation or at least say hello and introduce yourself, which is really awesome. So that's a huge piece of this, right? So, yeah. Josh, hey man, you're next on the list here, basically in the order of people who came up, if you don't mind. What was your biggest thing you got out of this, and what have you been most excited about, and things like that?
00:08:21 - Josh Goldberg
Well, I had a great time at the beach. Just kidding. I haven't visited the beach yet. No, the talks have been really great so far. I think today I learned a whole bunch of stuff about CSS from Una's talk. I thought I was kind of up to date on the latest and greatest, and I was very wrong. But again, the networking, the talking, it's just a lovely time to be able to talk with so many people who have so many diverse and different viewpoints on the industry and cool things they're working on. It's really fun. I'm about to go get lunch with a bunch of random people I've never talked with before, which makes me very happy.
00:08:53 - Scott Steinlage
That is the best, man. That's so cool. It looks like we got Michael and Selena joining us in the audience there too. I went ahead and requested for them to come up and speak. Hey, we got Theo in here as well, if he wants to jump in. Nick.
00:09:10 - Anthony Campolo
Taylor, what are you doing here?
00:09:13 - Josh Goldberg
He's not even at the conference. He's missing out.
00:09:16 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, for the FOMO. Make me feel bad.
00:09:21 - Eric
Taylor.
00:09:22 - Scott Steinlage
Feel bad. Yeah, yeah. There's Nick as well. Y'all can come up if you want to have a few words as well. You know, just express what it's like not being able to go. I mean, we would love to hear it. What are your thoughts on it? Do you feel like you've missed out at this point? Because I feel like a lot of that has happened. Sabin's giving a sad face. Thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs up. I'm only joshing.
00:09:50 - Anthony Campolo
We got Michael up here.
00:09:51 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, Michael.
00:09:52 - Anthony Campolo
Michael is the person who I did not know before the conference I've most enjoyed getting to meet. He is hilarious.
00:09:59 - Scott Steinlage
Yes. And Selena, like, for real, she is amazing as well. They are quite the duo, and I'm really excited for their talk coming up here, which is talking about pairing. So that should be a really cool talk to hear. And I'm sure they're going to bring their comedic selves during that conversation and that talk. So maybe kind of Americanize it with lots of hooting and hollering and tip jars, maybe. I don't know. I'm just giving you a little bit of maybe a sneak peek into it, but I could be completely wrong, so you just have to go see them. Michael, Selena, real quick, just on topic here, what do you guys have to say? Anything at all? Yeah, about the conference.
00:10:49 - Michael
I mean, the best thing is that I've just worked out how to turn my microphone on in Twitter Spaces, so thank you for introducing me to some new tech.
00:10:57 - Selena
And I would love to say something, but Michael's probably about to cut me off.
00:11:06 - Scott Steinlage
Jerk. Michael. Jeez.
00:11:11 - Selena
No. Oh. This is the one time he's quieter than me. Whoa.
00:11:16 - Michael
Well, I'm waiting for you to speak so I can start talking over the top of you.
00:11:19 - Anthony Campolo
Right?
00:11:19 - Selena
Can you just translate what I'm saying?
00:11:25 - Michael
Yes.
00:11:29 - Selena
No, I'm not saying anything.
00:11:30 - Scott Steinlage
Okay, Selena, please. This is the best awkward silence I've ever had in my life.
00:11:43 - Dax Raad
It's killing me.
00:11:44 - Scott Steinlage
Can we...
00:11:44 - Dax Raad
Can someone say something?
00:11:46 - Eric
Yeah.
00:11:46 - Michael
Yeah. Okay.
00:11:47 - Dax Raad
I can.
00:11:47 - Michael
I can go.
00:11:48 - Scott Steinlage
Can go.
00:11:48 - Michael
What Selena's wanting to say is for me to speak. No, look, this conference is amazing. Somebody mentioned the beach. That's all we've done for the last week. It's fantastic to be kind of coming over here. The great vibe from Australia, winter's kind of starting to settle in, but sitting here in our Australian 30-degree heat, I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it's a lot. It's just amazing. But, yeah, the quality of the talks is great. You always find new approaches, new ways of delivering content.
00:12:20 - Dax Raad
It's been great.
00:12:20 - Michael
It's been a really, really fun conference. And at the moment, I'm just a little bit nervous because I'm going to go up on stage soon.
00:12:31 - Scott Steinlage
Thank you so much for sharing that, Michael. Greatly appreciate it, and so glad that you guys made the trip all the way over from Australia just to have a little bit of a conversation with us Americans over here. I can't wait for your talk, for real.
00:12:49 - Michael
Is this where we ask for tips? Is this where we say, we're just volunteers here, and, you know, please leave your tip on the way out, because otherwise we'll stay here? Like, no way of getting out. We don't have a green card, so...
00:13:01 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, you heard it, folks. If you want to give Michael and Selena a tip so they can catch a ride back home to Australia, feel free to Venmo them at...
00:13:19 - Dax Raad
[unclear]
00:13:26 - Selena
Yeah, we don't have Venmo. Sorry. We're from Australia. We don't know. We don't even know what that is. But we do promise to be entertaining, though. We will make you laugh. Unless you don't get our jokes. We might not be high-energy enough, not sure. Americans seem to be super high-energy, like, no way, oh my God, oh, that's cool.
00:13:51 - Eric
Which is weird because Australians have such
00:13:52 - Josh Goldberg
good coffee culture too. You think you'd all be caffeinated up constantly.
00:13:56 - Selena
Well, I would have thought so, but they've taken the coffee away. We kind of maybe need another coffee. Yeah, that'll help. Michael will get a coffee while he's out for a run this afternoon. That'll happen during our tour. It'll be a great time. Maybe tonight we'll go out for some $50 tacos. I hear that's cheap here.
00:14:19 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, they're cheap. Only, what was it, like $60 Australian, I think? Yeah, that's not too bad.
00:14:29 - Selena
Yeah, that's insane.
00:14:30 - Scott Steinlage
Oh, my God.
00:14:31 - Selena
I bought a dress for, like, 10 Australian dollars and tacos for, like, 60 Australian dollars. You guys have got priorities.
00:14:38 - Scott Steinlage
All wrong. Food's where it's at. That's hilarious.
00:14:44 - Selena
Anyway, anyway, I'm super excited to be here as well. It's been great. Heaps of time down at the beach, working out on the beach, which is pretty cool. We don't have a lot of that in Australia, but, yeah, the weather's been awesome. I've got some sweet tan lines. Luckily, it's really cold when I go home, so no one's going to see that. But yeah, we're super excited for this afternoon to do our talk, and hopefully some of the jokes go down okay. Although, you know, we don't script our jokes. If you laugh, it's probably a mistake,
00:15:21 - Scott Steinlage
so don't laugh.
00:15:23 - Kathleen McMahon
No.
00:15:24 - Selena
Laugh, laugh.
00:15:24 - Scott Steinlage
You'll never know it's funny.
00:15:25 - Selena
It'll make it less awkward if you laugh.
00:15:29 - Scott Steinlage
Okay. I'll be the only one laughing in the audience. I'll do it really loud, too.
00:15:32 - Selena
Just make it really loud.
00:15:33 - Scott Steinlage
Traditionally American.
00:15:34 - Selena
Yeah, perfect.
00:15:35 - Michael
Perfect.
00:15:36 - Scott Steinlage
Absolutely fantastic. So, working out on the beach, I heard that you might do some Muay Thai boxing. Is that right? Is that what it's called?
00:15:49 - Selena
Oh, yeah, Muay Thai kickboxing, for sure. In Australia, I'm a professional kickboxer, state champion in Victoria. But I mean, like, our states in Australia are not that big compared to America, but it's still cool.
00:16:08 - Scott Steinlage
So it was, like, only out of, like, 10 people in the state, of like a couple thousand? Pretty much.
00:16:14 - Selena
I'm like, number one out of ten. You're right.
00:16:20 - Scott Steinlage
Only joshing, only kidding. But, no, there was a bag that you were hitting on the beach, right?
00:16:26 - Selena
Yeah.
00:16:27 - Scott Steinlage
You're getting some time in, right?
00:16:29 - Selena
Yeah, that's right.
00:16:29 - Scott Steinlage
Awesome.
00:16:30 - Selena
That's super cool.
00:16:30 - Scott Steinlage
And then you discovered that they put a freaking new bag up, like, every week or something.
00:16:36 - Selena
Yeah. What the hell?
00:16:37 - Scott Steinlage
Or they must.
00:16:37 - Selena
That's right.
00:16:38 - Scott Steinlage
That's so cool.
00:16:39 - Selena
Yeah. So basically, I come down to the beach and I'm like, oh, my God. There's a bag on the beach? What? On the sand? Holy. I go out there and I try to hit the bag on the sand, and it's so different on the sand to just, like, on rubber mats or even concrete, right?
00:16:55 - Scott Steinlage
And you have to really work because of your balance, like...
00:16:58 - Selena
Yeah.
00:16:59 - Scott Steinlage
And I see this...
00:16:59 - Selena
I see this dude out there, and he's doing, like, backflips on the sand and then, like, running at the bag and doing these mad moves, jumping up in the air and stuff. And I go out there and try to hit one punch, and I fall over. Oh my God. How embarrassing is that?
00:17:18 - Michael
There will be a little bit of...
00:17:19 - Scott Steinlage
There will be a bit of bag
00:17:20 - Michael
work in our actual presentation, but it won't be Selena punching the bag.
00:17:25 - Anthony Campolo
Not Selena.
00:17:26 - Scott Steinlage
Are you the bag, Michael?
00:17:29 - Selena
We do have some footage of that, too.
00:17:32 - Scott Steinlage
Yes.
00:17:32 - Dax Raad
All the footage.
00:17:33 - Michael
All the footage will come out. You have to be there.
00:17:36 - Scott Steinlage
Absolutely. I'm excited for it. Yes. So don't miss their talk. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing, guys, and we're so glad you came all the way over here. And feel free to speak up at any point in time during this here, right now. We'd love to hear more from you all, whatever it might be.
00:17:55 - Selena
No way.
00:17:59 - Scott Steinlage
No way. Yes. Yes way. Thank you, Dax. Hey, brother, so tell us how you're feeling about things.
00:18:12 - Dax Raad
This conference sucks. I'm not coming to it next year.
00:18:17 - Scott Steinlage
It was just completely, literally, as soon...
00:18:20 - Dax Raad
As I said that, Michelle, who organized the conference, has done a fantastic job, like, literally walked by me. I hope she didn't hear me say that.
00:18:27 - Scott Steinlage
That's so funny. I saw her walking over towards you.
00:18:31 - Dax Raad
Yeah, no, but seriously, it's been really great. I think I'm new to doing the whole conference thing. This is only my second conference I've ever even been to, first time I ever gave a talk. I think what I'm understanding is the reason everyone does these things is the talks are cool, and that's a big part of why people are here. But I think a lot of it is we just want to hang out with all these people that we only see in two dimensions and in text form online. And it's fun to just see everyone in person and hang out. And we're all connected by this common thing, so it's very easy to talk to everyone. And I'm not just saying we're talking about tech. I did not really talk that much about tech. But we just have a shared context, so we can kind of talk about literally anything, and it's pretty easy. Yeah. So it's just been great to meet everyone in person. Super excited to do this again next year, and it's only going to get better every single year, and hoping more people come out. We had a really good crowd here, but I want to see a lot more faces that I didn't get to see here this year.
00:19:36 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, man. Thanks so much for sharing that. Appreciate it. And thank you so much for taking the jump and deciding to do a talk and stuff.
00:19:45 - Dax Raad
I mean, it's been really cool to...
00:19:47 - Scott Steinlage
get to meet everybody.
00:19:48 - Dax Raad
I literally live 15 minutes away from the conference thing, so I was like, okay, I have to do this one, of all of them. If I don't do this one, I'm just being extremely lazy. But it is fun to hear everyone talk about coming here as a visitor. And then for me it's like, oh, yeah, you know, the place I live is actually pretty nice. It's nice to hear all you guys talk about it because you kind of forget when you just live there, you know?
00:20:13 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah. Well, Michael and Selena, they could probably tell you a few things that need improving.
00:20:20 - Dax Raad
We're not accepting feedback at this time.
00:20:26 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, like some of the boat tours and the craziness that goes on there. They might talk about it in their talk today. I don't know. Anyway, awesome. Anybody want to come up from the audience? Feel free. Remember, this is an open mic platform here. This is what we do. Whether you're a beginner developer, or you've been doing this for a very long time, or you're just now discovering you want to be a developer, whatever it is, we want to hear from everybody. So if you have any questions, opinions, facts, comments, whatever, come on up, request, and, you know, or you want to talk to one of the speakers, whatever, feel free. We love to have that conversation, and it just brings more value to what we have going on here because those good conversations typically develop from your guys' participation. So we'd love to hear from you. Awesome. Eric, what's up, man? I'll bring you up here. Eric, I haven't seen you in a minute. How are things going with you? As your stuff loads here, how have you been?
00:21:44 - Eric
I assume you're talking to me because I just asked, but it blinks out the audio for a while.
00:21:48 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:50 - Eric
Horrible technology. It's hard, it's hard. No, I just wanted to pipe up and say that Dax is exactly right, that the value of conferences is in meeting all the people. And the less you can talk about tech with those people, the more enjoyable it is because to see these other dimensions to these people that you know of as, oh, that's the person that wrote such-and-such library or whatever, is amazing. And I've got some major FOMO watching you guys. I caught a little bit of Dax's talk on the live feed and I...
00:22:39 - Scott Steinlage
Awesome. I already muted everybody. That was my bad.
00:22:46 - Anthony Campolo
I was trying to bring someone up and then stuff.
00:22:50 - Eric
No worries. I just missed the CFP, and I begged Michelle. I was like, please, can I? And she was like, all right, you can submit talks. If one of the other speakers drops out, we might choose you. And of course that didn't happen, but I definitely want to go to this one next year because it looks like one of the better ones in the industry, not just because of the weather, but just the faces that it pulls. So anyway, just wanted to say hi and absolutely wish I was there.
00:23:29 - Scott Steinlage
We wish you were here too, man. I haven't seen you since... I don't know, what was the last time we saw...
00:23:35 - Eric
Remix.
00:23:35 - Scott Steinlage
Jamstack Remix. Wow. Yeah, okay. So almost a year ago, so it's been a minute. Yep, yep.
00:23:43 - Eric
So anyway, I just want to say hi, and safe travels to all the speakers. The ones that I saw did an amazing job.
00:23:50 - Scott Steinlage
Thank you. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Yeah, Kathleen actually just joined us here up on stage. She was a speaker here as well, and she did her talk yesterday. But Kathleen, you want to just give a quick introduction yourself and then maybe tell, like, what did you like most about the conference here, and what was the thing that you loved most? And then also maybe what was something you weren't expecting that you liked a lot, or just something like that? It doesn't have to be exactly that, but yeah.
00:24:29 - Selena
All right.
00:24:30 - Kathleen McMahon
Well, hi, I'm Kathleen McMahon. And all right, so... all right. I'm trying to remember all the things because you just asked three things, and I think I remember two.
00:24:43 - Scott Steinlage
So first thing. Yeah, so just the first thing is, I'll break it down. No worries. So first thing is just, you know, who you are, and then you know what you do, and then I'll ask the next question after that.
00:24:54 - Selena
Okay, cool.
00:24:55 - Kathleen McMahon
So, okay. And now I remember all three. So I... God, it's been a long week. I am Kathleen McMahon. I'm a senior design systems engineer at Northwestern Mutual. I gave a talk here at React Miami called Design Systems Carnival: One Accessible Component, Many Pretty Masks. And what I love about this conference is the diversity and the different types of talks here. It's just very vibrant. There's diversity in speakers, diversity in content, and you just learn something new every time you walk into the ballroom. It's not just JavaScript talk after JavaScript talk. The content is so rich.
00:25:44 - Selena
I.
00:25:45 - Kathleen McMahon
My mind was blown away by Una's talk, for example, this morning. I am a super CSS fan, but just all the new things that are coming out in CSS right now are fantastic. Seeing Ken Wheeler's talk yesterday, I've honestly never seen one of Ken Wheeler's talks ever. I'm excited to see Rashmi's talk this afternoon. She was giving me a quick little run-through of her machine learning talk, and I think y'all are in for a treat. And I saw Danielle Maxwell's talk earlier today about micro frontends. Really love that. And I, yeah, I can't... yeah, I'm just going to start listing all of them. So I think I can't pick a favorite. I just can't pick a favorite right now. So, yeah, I'm having a hard time with it. Yeah, it's just an amazing conference. Michelle really knows how to curate a good lineup. And one thing I really love about this conference is this is one of the conferences where it's not just one talk about accessibility. There is always accessibility woven into more than one talk.
00:27:11 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, that's your bread and butter, right? You love accessibility, for sure.
00:27:16 - Kathleen McMahon
I love accessibility, and I love that here it's not just, oh, we just kind of throw it in one talk and, you know, just walk away. So it's pretty cool.
00:27:26 - Scott Steinlage
That is awesome. That's very cool. Thank you so much for sharing that, Kathleen. What's another thing, maybe that's kind of just around the area here or something that kind of took you by surprise, or something that was just nice, you know, in general, to experience, maybe besides just the talks and stuff?
00:27:49 - Kathleen McMahon
That took me by surprise about Miami in general.
00:27:54 - Scott Steinlage
Sure. Or just this event in general.
00:27:56 - Kathleen McMahon
Sure, this event in general. Let me see. Well, the community is amazing down here. When I was down here last year, because I came for the inaugural event last year, I'm like, look at this tech community. This could be a really cool place to relocate. And I was considering it, so that's one thing to think about. There is a really hoppin' tech community down here. So that's one thing that took me by surprise. And I don't know why I was surprised, but that was the first thing that I thought about. But that's super sweet. So there you go.
00:28:39 - Scott Steinlage
That's awesome. And I think that's very true, because there's a lot of tech people out here, especially in South Florida, including Michelle, that are trying to really advocate for creating a tech hub around here. And in fact, I think Michelle is part of some sort of tech hub organization. I think she's on the board or something like that. I can't recall exactly what it is, but yeah. And so they're trying to really make that even more of a thing, right? Which is awesome, which is attracting folks like yourself, Kathleen, to maybe even want to consider moving down here to contribute to that community, which is phenomenal, right? It is a really cool area, for sure. I mean, it's just gorgeous outside today. It's like 82, 83 right now, but there's a constant breeze because you're on the ocean, right? So it's just very doable. It's really great. Such an exciting time.
00:29:38 - Kathleen McMahon
It's definitely where it's at down here. Yeah, there's just a lot, a lot of skills down here. And yeah, I love it. It's fantastic.
00:29:50 - Scott Steinlage
Awesome. Alexis, I know you're in the audience there, and maybe you are not able to speak, but if you'd like to, feel free to come up. I'd love to hear from the perspective of someone who's at their first conference and, you know, coming here, what did you get out of it so far? What did you like the most? What did you maybe not like as much as you thought you would, or what did you like more than you thought you would, kind of thing? Feel free to request to come up, or I can even just give you an invite here to invite you to speak. But if you don't feel like it, you don't have to at the same time. But anyway, thank you for being here and listening either way. But yeah, this has been a really good time, and I'm just so glad that we're able to get some of the speakers on here to chat with everybody. And so if you're listening to this and you're not here yet, or you're not here for this time around, just remember there will be recordings of all this React Miami event here, which is great because, as you heard from Eric there, he was watching.
00:30:53 - Scott Steinlage
He watched, I think, Dax, he said, live on the stream. So there is a stream currently as well, but everything will also be recorded. However, as you have heard from several of the people here, including myself, this is something you don't want to miss. I mean, if you can't make it, obviously, React Miami's intent is to provide great value and content to everybody, and so they're releasing these recordings, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure, right, for free, for everybody. So you'll be able to get that value from this event. But if you want to come in person, obviously you would have to pay for a ticket, but it's totally worth it because just meeting one person that could help you with something, or just a friendship, I mean, it's almost priceless, right? So it's totally worth the cost. Most of these events, what they charge, what they're asking for, is very worth it in every aspect.
00:32:03 - Scott Steinlage
I feel like there's multiple variables that you could think of, things that are making it worth that cost. So don't forget next year coming up here. And I think, I'm pretty sure, maybe I'm wrong, but Michelle may start selling tickets for next year early so that you can get a ticket, early-bird special maybe. You're...
00:32:29 - Anthony Campolo
saying that the early bird is gonna get the worm, the worm being tickets to next year's React Miami.
00:32:36 - Scott Steinlage
I don't know. She's standing right here, and she was looking over at me like, did you say my name? I don't know. She's conversing with someone right now. But anyway, yeah, so just be on the lookout for those, you know, if that's the case. Or if you're wanting to speak here next year, [unclear].
00:32:57 - Anthony Campolo
Are you gonna speak next year, Scott? What, you talking to me about?
00:33:01 - Scott Steinlage
Oh my gosh, what if I did? How crazy would that be?
00:33:04 - Anthony Campolo
Talk about being a technical community manager.
00:33:09 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, yeah, maybe. Maybe I could. If they'd accept that, sure.
00:33:16 - Anthony Campolo
And then technical communities.
00:33:19 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, and maybe do a song or two up on stage. That'd be fun. Get everybody going. Oh, gosh, that'd be great. All right, well, if you're listening to this right now, feel free to come up, ask any questions, you know, state your opinions or whatever. Feel free. You have several of the speakers here. Eric, I see you're about to say something. Let's hear it.
00:33:47 - Eric
Yeah, just to anyone in the area, I will be coming to Miami next...
00:33:54 - Dax Raad
Month? Oh, message me.
00:33:58 - Michael
I live here.
00:33:59 - Dax Raad
So message me. I'd love to catch up.
00:34:01 - Eric
Yeah, with a conference called InfoBip Shift Miami.
00:34:05 - Dax Raad
Oh, you're going to InfoBip?
00:34:07 - Eric
Yeah, yeah. It originated in Croatia, and I've been there a couple times, and they're expanding outside of Croatia for the first time. And so, like, the topics that are covered, it's typical JavaScript front-end stuff. My talk is on...
00:34:35 - Scott Steinlage
as.
00:34:36 - Eric
As a React developer who has learned a little bit of Solid, I'm going to be teaching Solid to React developers, like coming at it with all of our preconceptions about what re-rendering means and stuff like that, and how Solid is different.
00:34:55 - Anthony Campolo
But that'll be fun.
00:34:57 - Eric
Yeah. It took me until about a week ago to actually prepare the talk, but now the talk is prepared. And it's one of these times where, to any speaker, if you are told you need to talk for 20 minutes and then you start preparing your talk and you're like, how can I talk for 20 minutes about this. About this thing? And then you get to this inflection point where you realize how can I only talk for 20 minutes about this thing? But I misread something and I was prepared for a 40-minute talk and it actually has to be — so I prepared a 40-minute talk and it actually has to be 25, so. Oops.
00:35:35 - Anthony Campolo
But easier to cut it in half than to bloat it.
00:35:39 - Eric
Yeah, exactly. So anyway, if anyone is around for that, Dax, I'll shoot you...
00:35:46 - Dax Raad
Yeah, I think I actually have tickets to that. I just totally forgot that that was happening. What are the dates for it again? Do you remember?
00:35:53 - Eric
It's like May 22-23, something like that.
00:35:57 - Dax Raad
Gotcha.
00:35:58 - Scott Steinlage
Cool. Well, speaking of upcoming events, hopefully it'll be warmer then. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty warm actually here lately, but I was joking. Yeah, okay, gotcha. Totally didn't catch that one. Speaking of upcoming events, since you're talking about that, we do have Remix Conf coming up here. Kent is in the audience right now, but I think he's on his way to the airport, so probably not able to converse because I think he's actually riding his onewheel partially to the airport, like a significant way, so we don't want to distract him too much.
00:36:42 - Eric
Plus, he has hardly anything to say about Remix, so.
00:36:48 - Scott Steinlage
Oh, my goodness. But yeah, I was gonna say.
00:36:51 - Dax Raad
Can I say something? So everyone talking about how warm it is here, I just need to prepare everyone. You actually will never be colder anywhere else in your life than Miami, because if you go indoors anywhere in Miami, the AC is freaking blasting and it's freezing inside everywhere. I'm literally walking around outside right now to warm back up. It was, like, affecting my talk too. I was, like, cold while I was talking.
00:37:13 - Scott Steinlage
It's so true. Yeah, I'm pretty chilly sitting here right now.
00:37:21 - Eric
Yeah, the Southern US is crazy about that. I'm originally from North Carolina, and whenever I come in summer, it's like I have to bring sweaters.
00:37:31 - Scott Steinlage
So, I get it. Yeah, I hear you. You're dressed for the weather, where if you're inside most of the time, you should probably dress for inside, you know, instead of for the weather and just sweat for a minute on the way over. But then you might even get colder because you've got all that sweat. I don't know. Whatever. I'm thinking too hard about this.
00:38:00 - Anthony Campolo
We got Kent anyway. How's that onewheel going, Kent?
00:38:08 - Kent C. Dodds
Oh, it's good. I actually stopped here at a Burger King. This is where I'm switching from my onewheel to an Uber. So I have to, like, unpack my bag, put my onewheel in it, and figure out how to fit all my stuff around it. So that's what I'm up to right now. But I'm super excited about Remix Conf, and glad that y'all are coming to that.
00:38:31 - Anthony Campolo
Sweet. Yeah, Scott, he's out of Burger King right now, in between onewheeling and Uber. You might need to hop off and back on if you can't hear.
00:38:41 - Scott Steinlage
I know. I heard something in the last second that he said, but I'm glad y'all are coming to Remix or something, I heard. Awesome. So you are onewheeling right now? Yeah, I am.
00:38:53 - Kent C. Dodds
Well, I was. I've got, like, two miles left on the onewheel, and so I decided, yo, I'll just stop now and switch to Uber.
00:39:05 - Scott Steinlage
Well, that's awesome, though. Go ahead, Dax. I'm sorry, what?
00:39:11 - Dax Raad
You can't make me repeat the joke. I'm not gonna say it again.
00:39:15 - Scott Steinlage
But I will say this, I will say this: Dax got to try Kent's onewheel just a couple hours ago.
00:39:22 - Dax Raad
Oh, did you see that?
00:39:24 - Scott Steinlage
You may not be aware. You may not be aware, but I'm going to embarrass you further because I recorded you doing it, and now I'm gonna put it on Twitter.
00:39:35 - Dax Raad
Little did you know, I'm never talking to you again. Literally, I'm never gonna talk to you again, brother.
00:39:42 - Kent C. Dodds
It is, actually...
00:39:43 - Scott Steinlage
It's actually really cool, actually. Really cool shot. I got a slow-mo version of it, so it looks like you're going super fast, so don't worry.
00:39:52 - Dax Raad
Oh my God. Okay, so here's the...
00:39:54 - Scott Steinlage
Here's the context.
00:39:55 - Dax Raad
I have an electric longboard. I've been riding it for years, so I wanted to try Kent's, like, you know, different concept of a similar thing. Man, it's quite different. It is very different, but it was cool.
00:40:09 - Scott Steinlage
Oh, yeah, I'm sure.
00:40:10 - Dax Raad
I kind of want to get one now.
00:40:14 - Scott Steinlage
That's awesome. Yeah. They should freaking sponsor you if they don't already, because I swear, you're such an advocate for it. Every event you go to, you're always using the onewheel.
00:40:26 - Kent C. Dodds
Yeah, dude, I just love it. It's super fun. I have places around town that are, like, a 20-minute walking distance, or even a 40-minute walking distance, and that's like a 10-minute onewheel ride. And it's a blast. Like, I was riding on the beach this morning. So may as well have a good time.
00:40:55 - Scott Steinlage
That's awesome. How does that thing handle in the sand, man? I guess that big onewheel just, like, makes it easier, huh? Yeah?
00:41:04 - Kent C. Dodds
If the sand is really loose, then it does not handle the sand at all. I've definitely fallen off in the sand. But yeah, lots of the beaches in Miami, at least, have got vehicles driving along them for whatever they're doing on the beach. And so that pounds the sand down pretty firm. So, yeah, I can go for a ways before I run into any sand that's too soft.
00:41:32 - Scott Steinlage
That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. It's quite compacted in certain areas, I imagine. Yeah.
00:41:38 - Eric
I have a question for Kent. What's the furthest you've had to carry your dead onewheel because you got too far out?
00:41:48 - Kent C. Dodds
Sorry, what's the furthest of what on...
00:41:50 - Dax Raad
A onewheel that you had to...
00:41:52 - Eric
carry your dead onewheel because you went too far?
00:41:56 - Kent C. Dodds
Okay, so maybe my Internet connection's bad because I couldn't really understand. But I'm gonna guess that you were asking what's the furthest I've taken my onewheel? I've gone 80 miles on a one...
00:42:07 - Scott Steinlage
wheel in one day. Oh, wow, 80 miles. No, he said, what's the furthest you've carried it? Can you hear that? Because it died. The battery died on it because you went too far.
00:42:18 - Kent C. Dodds
No, I...
00:42:23 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah. Okay.
00:42:27 - Eric
Well, the Wi-Fi in Burger King is not that good.
00:42:30 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, I think so. Yep.
00:42:37 - Josh Goldberg
Let's see.
00:42:40 - Scott Steinlage
All right. I think he said, I'll see you later. Yeah, I think that's what he said.
00:42:47 - Anthony Campolo
We'll have to ask him at remix time. You got to go to remix, find out the answer to that question.
00:42:52 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah. Yes, that's good, that's good. We'll leave it open-ended for sure. We also have Will Johnson in the audience there. Let's bring him up. I just want to get his input on what he liked most about the event, and what was the most surprising thing for him as far as maybe the thing he liked the most, or maybe the thing he didn't like the most, or that he was expecting, you know, and then obviously, you know, the community in general. But yeah, let's hear it. You want to give a little introduction to yourself and maybe then also tell us your title for your talk and how that went. And then go ahead and go into that question of, you know, what did you like most about the event?
00:43:41 - Will Johnson
Yo, yo, what's up everybody?
00:43:44 - Scott Steinlage
What's up, Will?
00:43:45 - Will Johnson
Yeah, so my name is Will Johnson. I'm a senior developer advocate at Auth0 by Okta. And the talk that I gave was called Look, Mom, No Passwords. And it's basically talking about the WebAuthn API and how we developers can use that to stop using passwords for authentication. It's outdated, and we need something new. So, yeah, that's what my talk was about. And somebody told me that they liked my talk because of my energy. He was like, I was complaining about so much stuff. He was like, you sounded just like my dad.
00:44:31 - Anthony Campolo
I loved some of your slides. There was one where Jason Lengstorf was like, I'll be damned if someone's gonna make me change my 69 password for so-called security.
00:44:43 - Scott Steinlage
I was cracking up about that.
00:44:46 - Will Johnson
Yeah, I DMed all those people. I was like, yo, can I use that in the conference talk? Because they're, like, perfect for how I feel about passwords. But so, yeah, that was fun. I also liked how last year when I spoke, I did, like, the Apple thing where you talk slow and use hand gestures and pause a lot at last year's React Miami. But this year I just completely went up there and decided to just be myself. I didn't really like last year's presentation. I had a lot more fun up there yesterday, so I'm happy about it.
00:45:23 - Anthony Campolo
I'm glad. I really don't like when people do the, I was taught how to give a talk in school just like this, so I'm gonna give a talk like this. It's just much better to speak naturally like you would if you're having a conversation. I think that comes across a lot better.
00:45:40 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah. Just let it flow, man. Be yourself. Yeah, I love it when people are themselves. You feel the authenticity. You connect more with the speaker, and you just get more from the talk because you're connected and not, like, thinking about all those other things. And you're in agreement with a lot of stuff. So I like that. You did great, man.
00:46:01 - Will Johnson
Thanks. I appreciate it. You said, like, my favorite thing about the conf...
00:46:09 - Scott Steinlage
Sure. And not necessarily just, like, the speakers or conference, or who your favorite speaker was, or any of that. It's more like just, yeah, what in general, generally speaking, do you like the most about this conference, and why? What would you miss if you hadn't gone? You know what I'm saying? That kind of thing.
00:46:24 - Will Johnson
Yeah. I think probably my favorite thing was the developer health thing that we did this morning. So the beach volleyball, somebody took a run, some did yoga, you know, because number one, it's hard to be active when you're traveling for conferences. Some people make it happen, but, you know, it's the easiest thing not to do. And, you know, being active is in general good for you. So I think it was cool to be able to have people come together as a community and, like, do something active together and sweat and kind of go on whatever journey that is together. I thought that was, like, really, really cool and something that I've never seen at any other conference. So I'm really glad that that came about.
00:47:18 - Scott Steinlage
That's awesome. Yeah. So it's so funny you were talking about that because, like, I literally just saw Henri pass by me, and he was like, what's up? And he ran. He did the run, right? And then you did the volleyball, right? And yeah, yeah, I'm not sure. I don't know who did the yoga, but I know of those couple things. So that's awesome. Yeah, you're right.
00:47:37 - Will Johnson
I think it was Michelle's sister who did the yoga.
00:47:42 - Scott Steinlage
Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Very cool. That's awesome. So, yeah, there's some great opportunity there to be doing that, you know, something that you can take advantage of, even if you aren't, quote unquote, someone who's wanting to work out per se. You guys made it fun, right? Like sand volleyball, you know, it was just a fun game of volleyball. It wasn't like... and I think the run example as well, like Henri, I don't think he was pushing for, like, this is gonna be breaking records, right? It was just, let's have some fun and go for a little run, right? So, yeah, yeah, which I think, I believe, Henri could help you probably break some freaking records, if I understand correctly. The guy's a crazy runner, right? So, yeah, yeah, that's cool. Awesome, man, thanks for sharing that. I greatly appreciate it. I'm glad that I got to see you and meet you here and, you know, experience everything that's been going on with us. So looking forward to more events in the future here with all you guys. So it's been great.
00:48:59 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah.
00:49:03 - Scott Steinlage
Yeah, yeah, buddy.
00:49:06 - Scott Steinlage
Can't stop, won't stop. Get it, get it. But yeah, I think, you know, like I said a few minutes ago, Remix Conf is coming up and then Render ATL is coming up. We're going to both of those. So if you're going to be there, let us know. Hit us up, JavaScript Jam. We would love to connect, and we're going to continue doing these kind of co-promote slash just fun, value-driven things here where we just speak with the speakers prior to the event as well as during and at the event live like this. So yeah, looking forward to being able to deliver more value. And if you have any ideas, or if you see something, some way we could deliver more value with these... I wouldn't call them partnerships. It's more like collaborations. There we go. That's what I'm looking for, with these collaborations that we're doing with these events. And feel free to ping us, DM us, whatever. I'd love to add more value to your life and to what you want to partake in.
00:50:13 - Scott Steinlage
So, yeah. All right, cool. Well, it's coming up on an hour here. I think that's probably pretty good on the time. We could continue, but I feel like we got a lot of great advice in, we got a lot of great feedback in from the speakers...
00:50:32 - Anthony Campolo
and if anyone up on this stage brought you value, make sure to follow them.
00:50:37 - Scott Steinlage
Absolutely, yes. Right, you've got it. If anybody on this stage has brought you value, please feel free to click on their face. Follow them if you're not already. Because I'll tell you what, you're going to get value from them in other places, so you want to be following them. And you know what, give JavaScript Jam a good follow too. By the way, speaking of JavaScript Jam and following things, if you go to javascriptjam.com, we do have a newsletter there that Anthony works very hard on to put out every single week and delivers massive value to people's inboxes. And typically it talks about things that we're going to be discussing during our JavaScript Jam Live, which is every Wednesday at 12 PM Pacific Standard Time. So be sure to go ahead and register for that newsletter right now so you don't miss out on the next episode coming out next week, which is going to be talking more about Remix and some other things. So, all right, y'all, thank you so much for joining us here at React Miami. We brought the heat, that's for sure. Next time you better be here if you're not.
00:51:44 - Scott Steinlage
And if you are here, you know what I'm talking about. The heat has been brought in. All right, we love y'all. Anybody have anything else they want to say? Please feel free. Any questions, burning desires, requests, demands? All right. Three, two, one. Forever hold your peace. Okay, thank you all. We love you so much. Here we go. We'll see you in the next one, huh? Always a good time. Thank y'all. Love you. See you in the next one. Peace.