X_Change: Recent Episodes

The XTists

Seasoned, Nerdy Technologists and Developers discuss a wide range of topics in front-end application development, taking cues from their own experiences. Think upbeat experience technology conversations.

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This is the second part of a two-part series.

This episode is hosted by AnuRock. In the last episode we were joined by Rakesh and Gautam to talk about micro frontends. We discussed the origins of micro frontends and dissected its various integration approaches. Today we will continue our discussion with Rakesh and Gautam.

Topics:

  • Micro frontends as default for all modern web projects?
  • Micro frontends decision framework by Luca Mezzalira
  • Horizontal vs vertical splitting
  • Communication between micro frontends
  • Pitfalls of using micro frontends
  • Monorepos
  • Sparse checkout
  • Tools to manage micro frontends: Nx, Lerna, Yarn Workspaces, Gitlab
  • Jade
  • Libraries for micro frontends: Webpack 5, Piral, AWS Serverless Micro Frontends@Edge
  • Special advice

Quick Snip:

Microservices with Nest.js (by Prashi Kapoor)

Side Bytes:

  • Masala Labs (a book on culinary skills)
  • Model-based testing
  • The Code Breaker (a book by Walter Isaacson)
  • Blockchain Revolution (a book by Tapscott brothers)
  • Luca (a movie by Pixar)

Transition music courtesy https://mixkit.co

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This is the first part of a two-part series. To be continued in Ep. 5.

This episode is hosted by AnuRock. Today we are joined by Rakesh and Gautam to talk about micro frontends.

Rakesh Menon is a Senior Experience Technology Architect and a polyglot developer who specializes in JavaScript. He works with different teams to implement and enforce engineering best practices and modern standards. He’s perhaps best known for consulting on GraphQL and Micro frontends.

Gautam Chadha is a hands-on Senior Experience Technology Architect, specialized in building high-performance web applications. He has architected enterprise applications for Financial, Retail and Hospitality clients. He has also worked in multiple implementations of micro-frontends and microservices in Node.js and demand driven design using GraphQL.

Topics:

  • What is a micro frontend?
  • Micro frontends vs. library of components
  • Independent deployability and testability
  • Different approaches to stitch together micro frontends to create a unified application: client-side composition, server-side composition, edge-side includes
  • Routing
  • Communication patterns
  • State management
  • How to compose a page with a couple of components from Frontend A, one from Frontend B, another couple from Frontend C, and so on
  • Microservices as an inspiration model
  • Core/Platform vs. Domain teams
  • Backend for frontend (BFF) strategy

Quick Snip:

Real-world case study of micro frontends including challenges (by Sudhir Madaan)

Transition music courtesy https://mixkit.co

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This episode is hosted by AnuRock. Today we are joined by Manish to talk about performance. Manish is a Senior Architect Experience Technology. He is currently part of a digital transformation project in retail domain for an Australian client through an omni-channel solution to improve time of market of features across brands and channels in both B2B and B2C market space.

He joins us to talk about performance, an often ignored topic in web development but one that has the potential to make or break your business.

Topics:

  • Why is it important to make a website fast?
  • Business/revenue impact
  • User engagement/retention
  • Customer acquisition
  • Perceived vs. actual user experience
  • Google WebVitals
  • How does one make their website fast?
  • Culture, mindset, shift-left
  • Platform/framework level optimizations
  • JS/CSS/Markup optimization
  • Third parties
  • Framework specific Issues and optimization – React, routing etc.
  • Server side improvement during SSR
  • Caching Strategies – redis, node in-memory
  • CDN
  • Tools to measure performance: Lighthouse, WebPageTest, JMeter/Load Runner, Gatling
  • Important metrics: LCP, TBT, CLS
  • Lab vs. field data testing
  • Reference web applications

Side Bytes:

  • What the Buddha Taught (a book by Walpola Rahula Thero)
  • The Psychology of Money (a book by Morgan Housel)
  • Family Man (web series)
  • Sport season (Euro Cup, French Open, Wimbledon)

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This episode is hosted by AnuRock. Today we are joined by Venkata Giribabu Jeedigunta to talk about Flutter. Giri is a manager experience technology with a diverse skillset and experience across the full stack. He’s been a Flutter enthusiast and advocate ever since finding it and falling in love with it a couple of years ago.

He joins us to talk about why Flutter is better than the competition and share practical tips from his own experience in developing Flutter apps.

Topics:

  • Flutter introduction
  • Pixel perfection
  • Flutter vs. React Native
  • Tooling
  • Dart
  • Best practices for creating Flutter apps
  • Design to code - Adobe XD
  • Where to learn Flutter

Quick Snip:

Why you should write functional components with hooks in React over class components

Side Bytes:

  • Scam 1992: Harshad Mehta Story
  • Webpack 5 module federation
  • Nx - devtools for monorepos

Transition music courtesy https://mixkit.co

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This episode is hosted by AnuRock. Today we are joined by none other than Sailesh Raghavan. Sailesh is a Senior Director Technology who currently leads the Experience Technology domain comprising of React, Angular, Node, and Full Cycle developers for Publicis Sapient in India. He has also been involved in setting up the India XT domain and community and seen growth from a team of just 60-odd in 2009 to more than 1000 XTs today.

Sailesh joins us today to discuss web accessibility, a topic very close to his heart. He has personally overseen the development of several fully accessible enterprise web solutions. We are glad to have him share his thoughts and viewpoints about the much ignored yet critical topic.

Topics:

  • Guidelines: WCAG, ATAG, UAAG
  • A, AA, AAA conformance
  • The three a11y buckets – Design, Code, Content
  • Testing tools: WAVE Toolbar, AChecker, Pa11y, React aXe
  • Screen Readers: JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver
  • A11y Auditing Organizations: Level Access, EqualWeb
  • No Mouse Thursdays
  • A11y Experts @ PS: Dinesh Kaushal, Alison Walden
  • Sailesh's Accessibility blog: https://medium.com/engineered-publicis-sapient/accessibility-the-mandatory-nice-to-have-620f35346dcf

Side Bytes:

  • Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth (John Doerr)
  • The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals (Chris McChesney, Jim Huling, and Sean Covey)
  • The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni)
  • The Innovators by Walter Issacson
  • Syntax Podcast

Transition music courtesy https://mixkit.co