That's my JAMstack
Bryan Robinson
Podcast
Episodes
Listen, download, subscribe
REMIX - James Q. Quick on Auth, working on what makes your code special, and Jamstack services
Quick show notes Our Guest: James Q. Quick What he'd like for you to see: Developer's Guide to YouTube His JAMstack Jams: Next.js | FaunaDB His Musical Jams: Rod Wave | Jason Aldean This week's sponsor: Auth0 This week, we've got Auth0 as a sponsor. While their prowess at authentication is important, they're also releasing a ton of new tutorials and courses on their YouTube channel, including a free course on building a full-stack Jamstack app with Next.js. Transcript Bryan Robinson 0:12 Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of That's My Jamstack the podcast where we ask the time honored question, what is your jam in the Jamstack. I'm your host, Bryan Robinson. And this week we have our first ever. That's My Jamstack remix. We talked to today's guest about a year ago. And we're bringing him back to catch up. Bryan Robinson 0:32 When we last met James, he was a software architect at FedEx doing Jamstack things on the side. Now James is a Developer Advocate Auth0 bringing auth flows and Jamstack education to developers everywhere. Bryan Robinson 0:44 Before we dive into the episode, though, I want to thank this week's sponsor who happens to also be Auth0. We'll talk more about their amazing educational content at the end of the episode. But if you're curious about that, Jamstack and auth education, head on over a0.to/tmjyt. Bryan Robinson 1:17 All right, James. Well, thanks a lot for coming on the show again. James Quick 1:20 Yeah, yeah, I am super excited to be here. I know, we haven't gotten to see each other in a long time now that we're not in the same city. So at least we can hang out and do a podcast together. I feel like it's probably the best alternative. Bryan Robinson 1:31 Exactly. And for those listening that don't know, James not used to both live in Memphis, Tennessee. He's still down there. But I've since moved to the to the frosty north of the US, Michigan. Yeah. James Quick 1:43 I was just gonna say like, I miss our, like, kind of planning meetings, we would have like every month, but just kind of checking in and see what each other was working on and bounce ideas back and forth. Bryan Robinson 1:51 Yeah. And that also would have been different nowadays. Anyway, cuz we used to do that at coffee shops. And I'm not sure we would have any more James Quick 1:58 zoom for the when I guess. Bryan Robinson 2:00 Exactly. Which also means that we can do that, you know, anytime. James Quick 2:03 Yes, that is. Bryan Robinson 2:04 So So longtime listeners will be familiar with you from the old episode. This is a remix episode where we're catching up with you. So let's catch up. So last time you were on. You were jamming, I would say in your spare time. But you were working as a software engineer at FedEx. So I know a lot has changed for you. So let's catch up. What are you doing now? In terms of work and on the side and all that good stuff? James Quick 2:25 Yeah. So I think when I went on last time, was in October, November of last year, so it's been eight or nine months. But shortly after that is when I decided to leave FedEx. And I really was I just wanted to get more into dev really type stuff. So doing video content, speaking at conferences, and just joining like a an exciting, like younger startup II feel to a company. So anyway, all of that kind of came to fruition for me to join Auth0 back in January of this year. And I think I did, I did one trip and two conferences, and everything stopped. So we had a big transition to we talked a lot about this personally, but doing live streams on twitch and creating more YouTube content and that sort of stuff. So it's been a little bit of a transition. But it's been that way for everybody. I think. So anyway, yeah. I have been working for SEO now for however long it's been seven months. And it's been going really well. Bryan Robinson 3:24 Nice. And so it also you said, you know, you're you're you're getting more into dev rally type stuff. So what do you do as a dev REL at all? Zero? James Quick 3:31 Yeah. So if people are familiar with the idea of developer advocates, in general, it's, or my definition is really just like earning trust and respect in the community. And that can take shape and a lot of or take form. And a lot of different shapes take shape in a lot of different forms. There's a lot of it would be like speaking at conferences. So again, that's kind of on hold for the time being at least in person, it could be being at meetups in person, again, that's on hold, or at least virtually for the time being. And then in addition to that, is creating content that people enjoy, we are specifically looking to grow our YouTube channel and Twitch channels, get an ambassador program that Sam julene on my team is working on to help get some people to kind of represent our brand and help them kind of grow some of their skills and public speaking and content creation and that sort of stuff, too. So yeah, that's that's the kind of activities that we're doing. And I've done lots of virtual events and conferences and stuff, which has been interesting, but I would definitely love to be back in person sometime soon. Bryan Robinson 4:30 Yeah, definitely. Like like the the virtual stuff can be a lot of fun and you can reach a lot of people but nothing quite beats. The random interactions you get when you're at an in person event. James Quick 4:40 I'm sorry, the hallway track is what exactly what a lot of people refer to and it is it is a very powerful, powerful and enjoying or enjoy mint fun track. Bryan Robinson 4:52 Yeah, exactly. It's, it's just it's nice to hang out and just have have just random asides with people. So So Let's talk a little bit about the Jamstack at all zero also like just how you're utilizing Jamstack philosophies now professionally and personally like in the in the first episode, you're primarily doing it in your spare time. FedEx not having done a whole lot in that world yet. But what what's different? How's the house Auth0 pursuing had the Jamstack? And how are you changed in the way that you pursue it personally now? James Quick 5:25 Yeah, I think on the personal side, it's, it's kind of similar, although I've done a lot more. So still still running my youtube channel doing a video a week, and a lot of the recently has revolved around the Jamstack. So I've done a Jamstack Crash Course, actually two Jamstack crash courses, I've done things on serverless functions, getting into next js, which is pretty exciting. For me, I've been kind of putting that off for a long time, because I'd use Gatsby and serverless, functions and Netlify. Now with that stuff kind of all tied together. And actually, this is really interesting. So that personal stuff is not that different. Although I've got more experience, and I'm doing more content, it's still the same, like I'm working on it on my in my spare time. And then for Auth0, when I started in January, we had kind of some targeted audiences that we really wanted to get more engaged in. And we had been really engaged in the angular communities, I think we had two or three people at the time that were Angular experts, I guess, like gdds, on the angular side, I guess, is what what that is. And so they had like really strong relationships there. But we didn't have relationships, and like react and view and and really the Jamstack in general. And so with that being mentioned, to me as focuses, it was just kind of an opportunity for me to really lean into it. So again, like creating content around that I just released a next j. s and austero video on the SEO channel on YouTube. And that's a lot of where our conversations, lead. And the activities and things that we do is like in this Jamstack world that is is different than what a lot of people are used to, how do we do authentication. And that's been kind of fun to dive in and create some demos, and explore with these different technologies and the Jamstack and then tie that back to zero and kind of figure out how these pieces fit together. Bryan Robinson 7:13 Yeah, definitely. I feel like there's there's a perception in the world. And obviously, there's been hot drama in the in the Jamstack world recently with, with WordPress and all that good stuff. But there's, there's this feeling that the Jamstack has certain limitations to it. Now, those of us who are in in the world and using it regularly know that we can do most things with it. But one of those big limitations would be around the personalization, the authentication area. And it seems like all zero can be a big player and circumventing the issues that might come with statically generated sites. James Quick 7:47 Yeah. And I think this is where the idea of static statically generated sites or static sites, it's it's that misnomer, right that, like you said, people that aren't like intimately involved, think of it as being just literally like, just HTML, right? But we forget that Jamstack includes JavaScript, so we can basically do anything in our JavaScript that we want. And that's kind of where all zero is fitting in here, we've done some work with integrating all zero into Gatsby. And a year or so ago, we actually had a guide. And this is an approach that some people still take, where you can have certain pieces, certain routes, for example, inside of Gatsby or other frameworks that are protected. And you do something differently with those where you kind of like override the built in routing in Gatsby. And then you add your logic to those specific routes. Everything else just kind of acts as is. But the interesting thing with Gatsby is it has this hydration aspect to it, where they I mean, you can do whatever you want, right? Like with Gatsby, you think of them and you hear them as a static site generator. But it's really I forget exactly what phrasing they prefer to go with. But with the hydration process and react, you can do whatever you want with a regular react
That's my JAMstack RSS Feed
