👋 Hey, I'm Max, one of the founders of Spectrum ! We're big fans of anybody trying to make the web a better place for communities, and while we do view Hashnode as "competition" there's nothing but love and respect between us. (especially excited about the big launch today, congrats @fazlerocks and crew!) Big fans of what the team has achieved here so far, and I haven't heard anything other than nice things from them about Spectrum either! TL;DR: It's a friendly competition, much love for Hashnode! 💜

It's Just JavaScript™️ ! (I should really make this our official tagline…) Define your variables like any other module // constant.js const constants = { primary: '#000' , lang: 'en' } export default constants and then in your components just use that module // Button.js import constants from '../constants' import styled from 'styled-components' export default styled.button ` color: ${constants.primary} ; ` No magic to be seen here!

Submitting a first, WIP Pull Request with some API so we can get a feel if we want to include this feature or not would be a great help! It's always a bit hard to judge without having actually used the feature in discussion 😊

react specific That's a temporary limitation that won't exist forever. We went with React first to get a feel for the API and seeing if people like it, but we will probably expand in the future. (you heard it here first, but don't tell this to anybody yet) a lot of repetition: not-DRY + every component has its own specific CSS The whole point of having components in the first place is reusing them throughout your application. If you find yourself having a lot of repetition of CSS in your components, you might want to think about how you're structuring your component system, how you could split up big chunks of JSX into multiple, tiny components etc. That being said, I love Tachyons and think it's great—what works for you works for you, don't change a running system if you don't need to!

The great thing about styled-components is that you don't need to rewire anything to work with third party component libraries. Example: import styled from 'styled-components' ; import { RaisedButton } from 'material-ui' ; const StyledButton = styled(RaisedButton) ` > button { background: papayawhip !important; color: palevioletred !important; padding: 0 0.75em !important; } ` ; ( live demo ) What styled-components does under the hood is pass in a className to the RaisedButton. As long as that className is attached to a DOM node somewhere inside the RaisedButton it works perfectly! 🎉 (see the styled-components docs ) Specifically material-ui is a bit of a pain because it uses inline styles and has lots of wrapper divs, but nothing a !important and some nesting here and there can't remedy.

I'm good friends with Guillermo, who is one of the Zeit team. I love what they're doing with Next.js, and I know they're solving an unsolved problem! (in fact, we're using Next in one of my latest projects, https://daybook.co ) The difference between react-boilerplate and Next.js is that react-boilerplate has always been focussed on apps. On the spectrum between websites and webapps Next sits in the middle, it allows you to easily build a hybrid, whereas react-boilerplate tries to be the best starting point for webapps. (which is also why the SSR integreation has been such a challenge) I can't tell you yet when the react-boilerplate SSR PR will be merged, as it'll need serious real world usage before we can consider shipping it to every user. Please use it and let us know how it goes!

I've talked at length about the architecture part during this talk: https://vimeo.com/168648012 In terms of breaking things down into components, it's super valuable to go as small as you can. Build tiny, tiny lego blocks that are super simple, and then almost all you have to do to build a complex application is compose these tiny lego blocks together. Because you understand the tiny pieces, you also easily grasp the whole app without big trouble. It's amazing!

Tell them Max Stoiber is speaking 😉 Just kidding of course. The best way to convince your company to send you to a conference is to be accepted to speak, that's free PR for them! (and a great way to hire new developers) Submit CFPs to all the conferences you think are awesome, even (or especially) if you don't think you have anything to say, and believe me, many will accept you. See http://weareallaweso.me for some tips about CFPs and public speaking, and http://mxstbr.blog/2016/12/a-dream-come-true/#conferences if you don't believe that I know what I'm talking about.

The React community is a huge part of what makes it awesome. Everybody is experimenting and trying out new things, with new ideas making the rounds every single day. No matter what drawback or issue you find, somebody's already found it and is working on a solution, guaranteed. It might not be the right solution for your use case, but you can always just experiment on your own. It's super exciting to be a part of this amazing group of people!

I tried studying twice, and gave up both times because there was almost 0 overlap with my interests. (see http://mxstbr.blog/2016/12/a-dream-come-true/ ) I'd still encourage everybody to try it, as you'll never get an easier way into a lot of knowledge about the topic. (especially if you come from a HTL, since you'll already have a bit of basic knowledge and interest in that direction) I don't think not having a degree has really negatively impacted me, apart from the fact that I'll never be able to work in the US. (which I don't really want to with the new president, anyway) I'm learning the things I missed by not going to university as I go along and need them (e.g. algorithms and data structures), and I don't think I'll ever stop doing that!