Sponsors

• Netlify

• Sentry use the code “devchat” for 2 months free on Sentry’s small plan

• Triplebyte offers a $1000 signing bonus

Panel

• Lucas Reis

• David Ceddia

• Leslie Cohn-Wein

With special guest: Glenn Reyes

Episode Summary

Special guest Glenn is a software programmer based in Vienna, Austria and has been working in programming since 2013. He is the creator of the Graphpack library. Today the panel discusses how to choose between picking a 3rd party or handcraft component in React. They discuss the popular notion to avoid “reinventing the wheel” and always using 3rd party components. Glenn gives advice on approaching the decision between 3rd party components or making it yourself, including considering time constraints, risks of using premade components, and the popularity of the library and how up-to-date it is. It is also important to understand the big picture of your project and know what already exists that could be of use. The panel discusses different indicators of how well kept up a library is. 

Glenn talks about situations when his library Graphpack would come in handy. He advises listeners to always test software before purchasing it. The panel talks about the issue of being able to change a component later if it doesn’t work. They agree that it’s important to consider the end goal and what other people on the team need when choosing whether to use 3rd party or custom make your code. Some decision will be your companion for years and years, like what language your project is written in. Glenn suggests that when you are trying something new, try it out in a clear and isolated  experiment, something React is very useful for. Last, it is important to leave notes for future developers as to why you made the decision you did

Links

• Lodash

• Moment library

• Graphpack

• Elm

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Picks

David Ceddia:

• boringtechnology.club

Leslie Cohn-Wein:

• The Ladybug Podcast

• Big Green Egg

Lucas Reis:

• Top 20 CSS Navigation Menus

Glenn Reyes:

• Lydia Hallie Instagram

Special Guest: Glenn Reyes.