James Long is the creator of popular code formatter called Prettier. He is a software contractor who loves new user interface techniques, studying programming languages, and building things out of wood.
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Thank you for all the great questions! Feel free to hit me up on twitter (@jlongster) if you ever want to ask me something else. I had fun!
Hey James, What stacks of frameworks and languages are you using for development?
If you had a startup, which framework you would choose? (React,Angular,Vue,Ember...)?
Where to start: ES5, ES6, TypeScript, AtScript, Dart, Babel, ... or where did you? :)
Hi James, I got one more question for you.
There are many engineers who believe they do good work: brainstorm features, design and ship them. When they go home, they sleep happy (unless of course they get paged that PROD is broken :P) with a sense of achievement.
That being said, I've always believed that one should never stop learning.
I have not contributed to any major open source projects so far and I sometimes feel like I haven't done my part yet as a programmer. I do learn things on a daily basis from my colleagues, but I would love to learn more and try to become a better developer than I'm today. Would you say that open source contribution are an absolute must in the journey of becoming a better developer? What are the other ways you would recommend to keep improving the way one writes code?
Heya James :) I'm trying to get a remote job atm. I'm sitting in the DomRep and trying it via various platforms, mostly angel.co/stackoverflow-jobs. However, it seems really difficult. To the east often the timezone issue is a problem, to the west it's either US and they don't do non-US-citizens, or Latin America/Canada where very little is happening. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for all your work, James.
Why frontend?
Seems like you're such a skilled programmer with a deep understanding of many CS areas. I'm curious why you chose frontend as your focus profession. Just as an example, you could have done some crazy distributed systems, ML, low level virtualization etc.
Hey James
I'm thinking about creating a tool similar to prettier but for a language we use internally in our company, and I'm thinking about using Scheme to develop the tool. I just started to learn Scheme so I'm wondering whether or not such tool could be created using Scheme ?
Hey James, thanks for the AMA! Favorites programming paradigm, programming language, tools, etc?
How many people are working on the product on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7EGJrwI27Y and if it is only you, why did you choose to work on it by yourself?
Hey James,
I really enjoyed watching you code and listen to your insights in the last two screencasts you published on youtube.
I like how you actually work on a product and allow others to watch. There is so much to learn. The best take away for me though, is that I get to see how other people really work. I tend to be really hard on myself and think of myself as a shitty programmer. Watching you debug and your messy code (dont get me wrong you are a way better programmer than me) was just good for my mental health. Hope you understand ☺️
Will you be doing more?
Hey James,
1) How was your experience with clojure?
2) What are its coolest features?
Do you consider Javascript Framework fatigue a big problem?
Hi James,
What's your personal opinion on AngularJS? Have you tried it? Would you recommend a beginner to try AngularJS in 2017?
Hi James,
What are the pros and cons of freelancing for you? What would you recommend someone do if they want to be a successful freelancer?
Hi james, How can we improve the code quality ( maybe in python, C++, or JavaScript )
Hi James,
I would like to know how do you start architecting a software when starting from scratch, do you think of maximum requirements at first and build accordingly or change as per requirement comes or something else?
Also, should someone redesign the code when they feel they could do better than the current one, given redesign can be costly for the company ?
What was the first project that made you really confident about your abilities as a programmer?
In your blog post about becoming a better programmer, is there any reason why didn't you list Haskell as a great language to learn? Or are you just not familiar enough with it?
Hi James, I am java developer and for 4 years now I am mostly working on backend application based on spring batch, spring framework. I have also worked on Webservices in Java however I was looking to move into fullstack development. Currently I am refreshing my JScript skills, how should I move ahead now ? Any tips?
Hi James,
First of all thank you for all your OSS work obviously 😀
My question is : What made you stop working for others and create your own company ? Was there a trigger ?
Thanks for the AMA, James.
What does your workspace on your machine look like? What OS do you use, and what are some applications which have helped you stay productive over the years as a developer? :)
James Long
James Long
James Long
James Long
Chris Geirman
sweat the small stuff
const { tabs-vs-spaces, vim-vs-emacs, inheritance-vs-composition, javascript-fatigue, ...rest } = opinions.james-long;