React just released their new docs at https://react.dev/. While it looks great and packs a lot of improvements, one section that caught the community’s attention is “Start a New React Project”. The strongly recommended way to start a new React project is to use a framework such as Next.js, while the traditional route of using bundlers like Vite or CRA is fairly strongly discouraged.

Next.js is a great framework, and its rise in popularity is due in a large part to the return of SEO optimization via Server-Side-Rendering (SSR) within the collective developer conscience. And it definitely does make sense to use a framework that provides SSR for static sites and pages that rely on SEO.

But what about typical Single Page Apps (SPAs)? Dashboard-like tools that live behind the auth (and don’t need SEO at all), and for which React was originally designed, still very much exist.

Intro​

What to expect​

In this blog post, I will explain how I created the Phrase Tutor app for learning Italian phrases using two different technologies. I will share some code snippets to show what was required to build the app with both Wasp and Supabase.

As a senior full-stack developer with experience in building many side-projects, I prefer a quick development cycle. I enjoy turning ideas into POCs in just a few days or even hours.

We will examine how each technology can help when building a full-stack app and where Wasp and Supabase excel.

Ok, I have to admit, these aren’t really Truths, but rather some opinions I’ve formed over my journey switching careers from Educator to Developer.

It’s well known at this point that software — especially web — development is a viable option for someone looking for a new career without going the traditional education route. Due to this, and the fact that salaries tend to be very good, I think a portion of people making the switch might be doing it for the wrong reasons.

And once you get into that career, as a Junior it can often be difficult to know what you should be doing to advance your career. There are a ton of opinions out there (including mine) and juniors tend to develop a lot of misconceptions, as my colleague and I discussed in our recent Reddit post and follow-up video.

So, I put together this list of things you should consider when starting out a career in tech:

1. 👎 If you’re doing it solely for the money, you’re not gonna make it. True, you don’t need a degree or anyone’s permission to advance in this career, but you need ambition and mental stamina. A genuine interest is needed to maintain them.

2. 😎 You don’t have to follow the trends. Follow what interests you. Like I said before, you need mental stamina in this field of work. Following your interests will keep you engaged and help avoid burnout.

3. 👩‍💻 You don’t need to know a piece of tech inside and out, contrary to what some devs might want you to believe. The truth is, you are always learning, and there will always be gaps in your knowledge. Your confidence in being able to fill those gaps is what matters.

4. 🧱 Start building, ASAP. Find a problem that interests you and build the solution yourself. Contribute to Open-Source projects that you use. A portfolio of unique work speaks volumes about your abilities. Plus, there’s no better teacher than experience.

5. 😱 Be fearless and seek feedback. Put your work out there and be ready to have it criticized. If you can stomach it, you’ll come out the other side a much better developer.

6. 🧐 You should have a firm understanding of what you’re doing. Don’t copy-paste someone else’s answer (or GPT’s) to your problem and call it a day. Question why things work, and figure it out for yourself.

7. 🏋️‍♀️ You have to do the grunt work, unfortunately. Don’t expect high salaries from the beginning. And you’ll probably want to improve your portfolio by working on side projects in your free time, or you might stay a junior dev for longer than you wish.

8. 🧗‍♂️ Challenge yourself. Don’t let yourself get too comfortable. If you do, you won’t improve. Offer to take new, difficult, and daunting tasks at work or with your personal projects. You’ll be surprised what you can achieve.

9. 💰 You don’t have to pay for boot camps or courses. In fact, you’re better off tackling problems on your own and only asking for help if you’re truly stuck. There’s a wealth of free resources out there, and when you’re on the job, these might be the only things to assist you.

10. 🗣 Programming is definitely not the only skill you’ll need. Being respectful, communicative, conscientious, ambitious, and humble will put you in a different league and make you a valuable asset in any tech team.

TIP: Looking for some inspiration? Feedback? Motivation? Join us over at the Wasp Discord server, where we've got an active, friendly community of web developers of all skill levels that build side-projects, share their experiences, make memes, and chat about life

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Hey Wasp acolytes (Waspolytes?) 🐝,

What's kickin'? We at Wasp spent the whole month thinking of the coolest features to add to our next release and we can't wait to share it with you!

High code quality only indirectly affects users. The main purpose is to keep development velocity high which benefits all stakeholders   — zoechi

We recently asked the web dev community on Reddit.com what the most common misconceptions are amongst junior developers, and we got a ton of great responses -- more than 270 to be exact.

Because there was so much to discuss, Matija and I decided to summarize the replies and give our own opinions in a longer-form YouTube video, which you can watch below.

You can also continue reading further for a summary of the main concepts.

I guess it was less me having an idea and validating it, and more a valid idea coming to me and biting me in the ass, and me thinking ‘oh hey…’   — Erlis Kllogjri

Erlis Kllogjri, a computer engineer and the creator of Amicus.work, went from idea to paying customers in just one week 🤯! In this interview, he tells how sometimes the best ideas come looking for you, and how moving quickly can help you stay inspired, motivated, and pull in your first satisfied customers.

The web app framework you choose doesn’t really matter. Well, it matters, just not as much as others would like you to believe.

The fact that so many libraries and frameworks exist in 2023, and that the best one is still hotly debated, proves my point. It’s the web developers biggest “first-world problem” — a problem that’s not really a problem. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Developer Needs, it’s definitely near the top (ok, I made that up 😅)

We are developing an OSS web framework in a form of a config language (DSL) that works with React & Node.js. Getting developers to use a new tool (especially a web framework) is a pretty hard thing to do. We wished there were more stories of how today's mainstream tools got adopted that we could learn from, so that motivated us to document our own.

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Want to stay in the loop? → Join our newsletter!

Hey Wasp tribe 🐝 ,

Happy New Year! I know you're probably already sick of hearing it, but hopefully we're the last ones to congratulate you 🔫 👈 (that's pistol fingers emoji in case you were wondering).

To finalize the Wasp Beta launch week, we held a Beta Hackathon, which we dubbed the “Betathon”. The idea was to hold a simple, open, and fun hackathon to encourage users to build with Wasp, and that’s exactly what they did!

As Wasp is still in its early days, we weren’t sure what the response would be, or if there’d be any response at all. Considering that we didn’t do much promotion of the Hackathon outside of our own channels, we were surprised by the results.

In this post, I’ll give you a quick run-down of:

• the hackathon results 🏆
• how the hackathon was organized
• how we promoted it
• the community response