Welcome to DejaVue, the Vue podcast you didn't know you needed until now! Join Michael Thiessen and Alexander Lichter on a thrilling journey through the world of Vue and Nuxt.
Get ready for weekly episodes packed with insights, updates, and deep dives into everything Vue-related. From component libraries to best practices, and beyond, they've got you covered.
Hey, everybody, and welcome to DejaVue.
Michael Thiessen:Your favorite Vue podcast. You just don't know it yet.
Alexander Lichter:With me is Michael Thiesen.
Michael Thiessen:Hey, everyone. I am Michael. I do view content and education and all sorts of things like that. And joining me is Alex.
Alexander Lichter:Yeah. Hi, everybody. I'm also a content creator, doing some YouTube videos around Vue. Js and Nuxt. I'm also part of the Nuxt team.
Alexander Lichter:So if you see myself or, like, a a feature, a little GitHub picture here and there saying, oh, yeah. That issue. Can you please provide a reproduction? Do so. That's always helpful.
Alexander Lichter:But, yeah, that's, not what this episode is about, not about how you make a correct reproduction in GitHub, though. That's also a very, very good topic for another episode maybe.
Michael Thiessen:One day.
Alexander Lichter:I hope so. Today, we'll talk about a conference that happened a little bit ago, which is Vue.js Amsterdam.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. You're gonna have to cure or or make me feel better about the, the FOMO that I, that I had, because I think since 2018, I've been telling myself that, yeah, I'm gonna go next year to Amsterdam. I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna get to see that giant screen. I'm gonna be there with everyone.
Michael Thiessen:But just like every year, just something different comes up. Can't make it. But I will make it next year.
Alexander Lichter:Awesome. I'm I'm really looking forward to that because it is it is an amazing conference, and I'm more than sure, that next year will be the year where we'll all finally meet there together. But, yeah, to say the FOMO, let's say it's somewhat justified. And, unfortunately, I I wish I could, like, cure if, like, oh, yeah. No.
Alexander Lichter:It's not a big thing of a deal, but it's it's always amazing because it is it is the biggest Vue.js conference, in in the world. And they're, like, really big of it's it's not even like a a class meeting. Let's say it's really more of like a big family happening where they see people around the Vue community, no matter if you're, like, other speakers or they're coming there to join talks, you talk with them. All the Vue.js developers in on one place, listening to to people from the industry, listen to core team members of the Vue, Nuxt, Vite team, and so on so on, and having really good time in in the theater where, as you said, there is a huge, huge screen.
Alexander Lichter:Like, when you stand in front of it, it's a bit surreal. And they like, it's really cozy. It's it's it's a pretty amazing vibe that's lots of other conferences, especially bigger ones don't really have because they're more like with, like, clinical expo feeling. There's really more like, that's cozy. It's nice.
Alexander Lichter:And, let's have some chat. Just the popcorn is missing. That's that's the only thing.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. Well, maybe next year, we'll get some popcorn in there.
Alexander Lichter:Maybe a good suggestion for the for the organizers.
Michael Thiessen:So what is it like giving a talk in front of that giant screen, in front of how many people were there?
Alexander Lichter:1,300, something like that, if I remember. Definitely over 1,000. Yeah. And it was packed this year. Yeah.
Alexander Lichter:It's it's definitely different. Like, if you used to, like I mean, we we both do public speaking for a bit now. And if you used to go in front of people being at the meetup or the conference, It's it's still a bit different if you're, like, on a on that of a huge ass stage with, like, also a single track that's also important to mention. So all these 1,000 people are there to to watch you. And, yeah, you go up there.
Alexander Lichter:The screen is gigantic, and it's really a different feeling. And I had the honor to be on stage for the 3rd time, this year. So last year, I didn't give a talk. I, MC'd, so, obviously, announced the people from the community, all the the core team members and so on, which is also a very nice moment because, then you have some maybe some jokes and some inside stories you can briefly tell. I remember last year, I announced Debbie O'Brien, and we said that recently we met in person at 2019 at that conference, and yet, we shared a stage again and, how she dreamt about working at Microsoft, and then she did it and all these all these nice scenarios.
Alexander Lichter:So it's definitely a special moment. It's in a way, it's surprisingly different than what you usually do when you go up on stage.
Michael Thiessen:Right.
Alexander Lichter:But in a way, it's also the same because as soon as you start giving your talk, I feel because you can't see all these people necessarily unless you ask the people's like, okay. Can we get the house lights up? Then then you see that there are really, like, 1,500 people staring at you and be like, oh, if you do live coding, don't make a mistake. Yeah. But, and also this, of course, is just a joke.
Alexander Lichter:Like, I did that 2 years ago, 2020 1, 2 no. 2. 2022, I think, where, yeah, I I gave that was the the very last talk before the after party. That's always a tricky spot, because people like, some people had to catch trains or flights, and other people are like, oh, up for beer, up for food. And I did some live coding.
Alexander Lichter:In the end, I I rickrolled everybody. Her video is, is also still up, linked in the show notes. So there there, I really messed up online. I was like, oh, no. It didn't work, because also I didn't have access to speaker notes for some technical reasons.
Alexander Lichter:And then somebody in the audience is like, oh, yeah. There, that line. And this is always super helpful.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. That's that's one of the best part of that feedback that you can get is just live debugging in front of, you know, you got 1500 people to help you find
Alexander Lichter:At least some of them. They they will know for sure. Yeah. And then also, like, with with all the other experts sitting there and, people just, like, pointing out I remember, like, Daniel Roe, who is the the lead of the Nuxt team, like, once watched Talk and something worked. He's like, oh, you shouldn't be structured there.
Alexander Lichter:Like, oh, yeah. Thanks. So that's that's always really nice. But, yeah, all all in all, like, it's it's really worth it. Of course, the the CFP is hard because it's a single track in 2 days.
Alexander Lichter:That means you can't fit, like, 100 plus people in there.
Michael Thiessen:So competition.
Alexander Lichter:Yeah. Exactly. And, of course, we have to face reality there too. There are some slots for people that are there every year, which makes sense. Like, for example, Evan You.
Alexander Lichter:No questions. Like, he he is sat there, and he's live in person there, which is also great. And, also, of course, if, people from the Nuxt team will join talking about Nuxt, that's almost always a sad thing too, because, of course, lots of people are there to to figure out the newest things, about the ecosystem and to meet also these people that you maybe only see online or other videos. So, it's also very much understandable. But I think they do a really good job of, like, balancing it out with, like, new faces, versus recurring ones.
Alexander Lichter:So you also don't have, like, the same lineup at every single conference around with with regards to Vue. So it's also good.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. That's great. Maybe maybe next year, I'll be one of those new faces.
Alexander Lichter:Yeah. Please. Honestly, submit submit to the CFP. I'm I'm more than sure, that we'll see each other there.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. One way or another, I'm gonna be there, and, I think it's gonna be great. So do you have any highlights from from this one? I mean, you shared a couple couple things already.
Alexander Lichter:Yes. So I I think let's maybe split up. There are, like, some talks, some talk highlights for sure. I watched quite some, not all of them though, because then it's like, okay, you talk with the audience, of course, like people in there. You you have friends running around, and sometimes you're just in a speaker room talking with some other people too that you don't see throughout the year.
Alexander Lichter:So that's in a way understandable. And also that's, for for all you out there, the videos will be out soon as well. So if they're not out already, otherwise, it's linked in the show notes. I know, I talked with with Jos of the organizers and said they bring it out in the next couple weeks. But, yeah, let's, let's see where it happened.
Alexander Lichter:All the talks were recorded so you can witness that. But to the highlights, I think, of course, Evan's, Evan's talk is always a nice start. And there, because it was the the 10 years anniversary, it was a real nice, like
Michael Thiessen:Oh, yeah.
Alexander Lichter:History lesson, let's say, and also a little leap into the future of, like, okay. What's the plan?
Alexander Lichter:How how did Vue evolve eventually? And at that point, there's also important to mention. There was a meetup before the conference. Actually, there were multiple ones. There was one in in Utrecht, which is a city nearby where, Anthony Fu, Daniel Roe, and and Matthias and Julian went.
Alexander Lichter:So, like, the the Nuxt gang and, and Matthias from Vite. And there was one in Amsterdam, where where I was going to, and Evan also was there. And, eventually, we also talked about the 10 years, anniversary in, like, a little discussion round of, like, okay. Some impactful moments. So that was also really, really nice.
Alexander Lichter:But this just as a just a side note, it just I just just reminded it like, oh, yeah. There was one more thing beforehand.
Alexander Lichter:But, yeah, the the talk from Evan was really good because he was he was very honest, in that one, also saying, like, yeah. Look. Like, he also had some doubts or, like I don't know.
Alexander Lichter:In social media, always like, oh, everything has to be perfect and so good and never, like, doubting. So and there, he was really honest by saying, like, yeah. Some things really didn't didn't work out the way. Or, like, hey. Okay.
Alexander Lichter:If you publish Vue 2 and you're like, okay. Let's let's see where things go. It's not the moment where you always strive for, it will definitely be successful. It's like a big question mark. And, I mean, we are where we are now, but, yeah, that was that was really nice to see that, the creator of such a big framework that's in the end made lots of lots of people happy, built a community, and even, I mean, with Vite having another project that benefits the ecosystem, it's really it's really nice to see where everything put together and where everything is now, but also the, let's say, the negative points as in the what ifs, like, oh, what if it doesn't work?
Alexander Lichter:So that was a big one for sure.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. That's that's nice. It's nice when people share those those hard moments because it is tempting to just, even for myself, it's tempting to just put out all of this like positive stuff about how things are going well. And, like, you want people to think that you've got it figured out or that, like, things are going well, but it's not always the case. And, like, it's usually not the case that, you know, it'd be like, this is not how life works.
Michael Thiessen:And you, especially with big, big frameworks, there's more people use it, there are more challenges and like transitioning from Vue 2 to Vue 3 and then all that kind of stuff. How do you navigate that? Like, no matter what you do, people are gonna be upset and it's gonna be challenging. And so I think that all is handled well, but, like, there's always challenges and you can never there's no perfect solution, you know? And so it's yeah.
Michael Thiessen:It's it's nice to see that that honesty.
Alexander Lichter:It's also really nice to see the learnings out of that, I think. For example, if you do to your free point of, like, okay, there was, like, a a big a big change, but it was good in a way. But, also, if you would do it again, maybe there would be other ways to to do so. And for example, right now, with with what the Vue team is adopting, it's like, okay. Let's release features behind the flag.
Alexander Lichter:That's like, okay. Sure. You start. You deprecate maybe other things, and then you gradually phase them out. But I think especially especially for Vue 2 to 3, it would be very, very difficult also given how everything developed.
Alexander Lichter:Right? It's not like, oh, you have all the knowledge there with with what you have right now. You might do different, decisions, but back then, it was like, okay. Let's figure out a new API. And then it was not the first decision to backport it to Vue 2.
Alexander Lichter:It came later on, and that helped already. But, of course, with with all the knowledge gained, it was a bit easier than saying, okay. We start with the new API in Vue 2. Maybe that would have led to a total different result. So, yeah, all in all, it it was really nice to see, how things go there and also, like, vapor mode, of course, with a few more, like, few bits of information here and there about that, but also that the repository is public now and people are working on that.
Alexander Lichter:I'm very, very curious how that will turn out in terms of performance in the future.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. Vapor mode has been teased for for a bit now, and so it's it's nice to see progress on that. And it's I mean, it takes a while, these things. So
Alexander Lichter:Yes. And it's so it's really good. It's open source. Like, the repository is there. Even the playground, you have, like, an option to enable it now.
Alexander Lichter:Of course not. There's no feature parity yet, but, yeah, people people are working on that. And it's also it will be very interesting to see how that will influence, once again, the community decisions because, of course, you can opt in per component, but how yet another way of writing components well, it's not exactly writing, but, like, another way of components will will influence, the the whole community. That will be that will be done to see.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. That'll be interesting.
Alexander Lichter:But, yeah, one one more highlight. So Evan's talk was on on the first day straightaway, the the first one. I was always there a bit bit earlier, because I shared some of my stickers, put them on around it, a little bit of marketing there with, like, some some thumbnail pictures. Maybe the one or other I saw that on on Twitter. It was like it was a very random idea.
Alexander Lichter:Yeah.
Michael Thiessen:I saw that on on Twitter. Yeah. It was great.
Alexander Lichter:Did did you like it? Yeah. What do you think? I I was like I was I was evening I overheard some conversations. Like, yeah, I don't know who that guy is, but looks looks funny.
Alexander Lichter:And I just popped up. I was like, hi. But, so so that was nice. I think, like, there there were really lots of lots of good talks. Of course, I enjoyed all, all the Nuxt.js talks like Daniel's talk about the state of Nuxt, Pooya for release a new version of Nitro, and eventually also Sebastian checking out or like showing all of us what Nuxt Hub is, which is basically a toolkit to build Nuxt applications on the edge, tightly coupled with Cloudflare right now.
Michael Thiessen:Right.
Alexander Lichter:And in addition to that, there's, like, a console which improves the developer experience a lot. That is a paid product, but Nuxt Hub itself is free to use and open source. And, I'm I haven't tried it out yet personally, but I've seen lots of amazing things built with it, and that would be that would be really fun to use.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. I saw that one, and I checked it out a little bit too, and it looks very interesting. I I have to to, dive into that one more for sure.
Alexander Lichter:I've seen, like, people saying, oh, yeah. That basically cut my my business logic code, is is still there, but everything around is cut in half, which is, like, it's it's amazing if you can use all the things plus deploy an edge, and that also means it's not that cost intensive, right, to build amazing applications. And it's I think it's a really good step in in that direction. So Edge is is, of course, here to stay. And And, of course, I don't mean a browser, but the the platform.
Alexander Lichter:Yeah. So, it's definitely worth trying out, especially that's that's open source and that you can just go for it. And, of course, Nuxt Hub uses Nitro under the hood and so on and so on to connect with, like, the KV Store to use a database. So, yeah, worth worth checking out. And that was live released on stage.
Alexander Lichter:In general, like, live releases were once again a big thing. I still remember Nuxt 2 was live released in 2018 in at Vue.js London. And while the team, team is still doing it, I thought that was fun.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. It's crazy. It's, it's, it's like taking live coding to the next level of craziness and you're like releasing and so many things can go wrong. But Yes.
Alexander Lichter:And then, like, oh, the 2 factor authentication is also classic.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah.
Alexander Lichter:But what I what I really liked, Pooya was was showing, like, a super similar simple chat application, basically. And, like, it was also livestreamed. Right?
Alexander Lichter:So people connected from all the world, but also in there, like, posted some ASCII art and, like, some hearts and so on. And I still remember, like, I was watching from the side, and he was he was so happy about all the messages and all the interactions and how, like, people enjoy that. And that was very a very genuine nice moment just seeing, like, okay. Lots of people are really happy about the the software building, the talk, and that was that was really cool. So it's definitely definitely worth it, like, as one of one of the highlights.
Alexander Lichter:Also there, as soon as the recording's out, worth watching.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. Yeah. That's that's neat to have have that community aspect, like, pulled into your talk like that.
Alexander Lichter:I also I think, like, in general, having some and, like, engaging in some way with the audience is a really good thing. I really like to do that as well, but I'm more of the person asking questions, like, oh, yeah. Like, raise your hand or do this or do that. But, for example, Daniel does some votes with with Partykit, for example, and, yeah, the thing that how Pooya did it with, The Chats. It's, it's pretty cool.
Alexander Lichter:I think lots of people have their own way of incorporating, the audience, the people watching, but that also helps to, like, let's say, keep their attention up there, on on the other hand, to show what's even possible.
Alexander Lichter:I think that, like, there were there were lots of other good talks. Let's, like, a tiny, tiny speed review of a few more. Like, Tim Benniks was playing, on his guitar to wake us all up in the the second day. That was also very amazing.
Alexander Lichter:I I listened to to that kind of talk of him beforehand, I think, 2 times before. And now he, like, used the the, like, the big screen fully, not only, like, let's half it on the middle one because, like, they're 3 separate parts. So that was pretty fun and also nice to get waking up to and, like, start into the day.
Michael Thiessen:I remember seeing that one live in, in London last year. And that
Alexander Lichter:Yes, Yes, exactly.
Michael Thiessen:It was really good. Not only is he a great developer, but he's also a fantastic guitar player. And I like the whole thing. The whole performance is like, it's like he should go on the road with it. You know?
Michael Thiessen:It's like, it's so good.
Alexander Lichter:I mean, that like, that he he played in in bands before. Right? So that's, it's basically like a basically, like, a nice combination. Also explaining the technical side of, okay, how that whole thing works, how, like, the the the guitar presets for the for amp offset and so on. It's it was really interesting.
Alexander Lichter:Yeah. Also, like, who comes up with that idea?
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. It's yeah. It's it's wild, and it was so much fun. And, yeah, again, another interactive one where people can send in their votes for for the next song and all that. So
Alexander Lichter:Exactly. So so that was that was definitely a really nice one. Matthias' talk about weed, for example, was was really good. I unfortunately have to still rewatch half of that as soon as it's available because I had to go out in in the middle, because, like, some emergency bug that has to be fixed, as it's a classic classic thing. And but I think besides the talks, they're they're, like, way, way more.
Alexander Lichter:A really a really lovely thing to see was really getting in touch with the audience, like, talking to people, because, obviously, I I knew a few people here and there from the community. I met some people I have never met before, only, like, online on Twitter. I met some people that I never met before in general. We just had a genuine conversation about an Nuxt and Vue. And, like, lots of lots of like minded people at one spot that are all nice and friendly and welcoming, I think that was also one of the the best things.
Alexander Lichter:In general, why I go to conferences. Like, of course, speaking is fun, but connecting with the people. So, of course, the speakers too, but also the audience is, is a key point, and that's worth for everybody.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. Really, it's the best part of conferences. And the one year at VueConf, I actually VueConf Toronto, I actually just skipped all the talks basically and spent the whole time just chatting with people.
Alexander Lichter:Yes.
Michael Thiessen:And catching up and seeing what people were working on and what, what things they were excited about and all of that kind of stuff. And for me personally, it's the, the best part because like you can watch the talks afterwards online. It's not the same thing, especially if there's like interactive live parts of it, but it is something you can do if you, if you missed a talk or whatever, but you can't, you know, you can't do that with the, with the conversations and, and, that sense of community. And, especially I think lots of us are working remotely or from home and I'm just like, you know, stuck in my basement here by myself and I don't get to chat with people about Vue, except, you know, with you, I get to chat with Vue.
Alexander Lichter:Every week.
Michael Thiessen:Every week. So so that's great. But it's just Yeah. It's a totally different thing when you can, be there in person with a whole group of people like that.
Alexander Lichter:And I think, as you said, like, you these, like for first of all, the real life social interactions are always different, and then you get so many different perspectives. Like, oh, yeah. They're, like, I don't know, team leads. They're, like, junior, mid level developers having so many different cases. And
Michael Thiessen:Oh, yeah.
Alexander Lichter:It's it's really refreshing because you also get so many, yeah, different angles on topics. Or, like, oh, I remember, 1, yeah, one one guy was, like, saying, oh, yeah. I have this annoying bug, with, like, oh, yeah. It's always have to do a hard reload. So to get, like, new data from Nuxt.
Alexander Lichter:I was like, oh, yeah. Did you enable route rules? I'm like, no. No. I didn't.
Alexander Lichter:And then, like, 5 minutes later, he came back and was like, oh, yeah. I did enable them and also in dev mode. And then they're cached. Like, yeah. Yeah.
Alexander Lichter:I can do this, this, that. So, like, fixed it with him on the spot, and then it was like, oh, amazing. Cool. So also these things, like, people are there not only to see the talks but also to talk to the speakers or maybe, like, ask some questions. Right?
Alexander Lichter:And that's why, like, I I'm a big fan of, like, being available for people if they wanna talk. Right? I don't wanna force upon me, like, hey, what I talk about to Vue? What I'm gonna talk about Nuxt? More like, okay, just joining.
Alexander Lichter:If there are interesting topics, be part of the conversation.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. Trying to be there and and help out and, yeah, have conversations. It's that's
Alexander Lichter:that's the way it goes. Yeah. Yeah. Same. Same.
Alexander Lichter:But, yeah, I really think also after these well, it was more or less for me. It was, like, 4, almost 5 days because I located the meet up before. Then we're 2 days, Vue.js Amsterdam. There was one other day of a different conference. It was part of a 3 day ticket, which is called Dev World, which is more, a general focus on, on, like, engineering general.
Alexander Lichter:So there were, like, back end, DevOps, engineering managers, hawks, but also front end. And the 3rd day, I luckily only had one single responsibilities besides giving a talk in at future events and MCing. I I had the honor to be part of a panel as as the host with people from, different front end frameworks. So we had Anthony from Vite, of course, also Nuxt, the new team members, Daniel, and then we had Shai from Quik. We had Minko, who is part of the Angular team, and we had Ryan Carniato from Solid.
Alexander Lichter:And that round, that was, like, that was super interesting. Plus picking the right questions to, like, not get into too spicy topics, but also make them more interesting, That was tough, but it worked.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. Are there are there recordings of that that are gonna come out?
Alexander Lichter:Yes. Same. That's also recorded, and it it will also come out soon. Link in in the show notes. If it's not there yet, then, the link is, of course, not available yet.
Alexander Lichter:But it also should come out around the same time because I remember, like, lots of people were interested in that panel. It's also, like, it was it was meant for an hour, so that went pretty well too. But in the beginning, I thought an hour of time. I'd write down 20 questions or something. Then it was, like, more realistic, yeah, probably more like 10, but I think we didn't go even go through half of them because, like, as soon as the flow is there, people are talking, then you don't wanna, like, interrupt necessarily or, like, jumping in, and be like, okay.
Alexander Lichter:Then we have to do next question, next question. Just like, okay. Let let them talk, and where it fits, maybe slide in another one. And time passed so quickly. It was it was insane.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. I can imagine that that would be very interesting talk with with the that group of people and not, not a group of people that end up in the same room very often. And so
Alexander Lichter:Never before, never before on stage like that. So that was a premier.
Michael Thiessen:Great idea to to have a panel like that. And, yeah, I'm gonna look forward to looking forward to that that recording coming out because, yeah, I I wanna check that one out for sure.
Alexander Lichter:And there is I can I can give a little spoiler? Everybody hasn't, hasn't had the chance to see it yet. So at the end, there everybody, this one feature of their framework that they if they would have to build, like, a new super framework, it has to go in there. So, also, these answers are really interesting, and you could you could clearly see even if you wouldn't know if you wanna know, okay, people from frameworks, you would have guessed who is part of which team, based on these answers. So it was it was also really fun.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. That's a great question.
Alexander Lichter:It I came up with it. I've came up on the spot actually, mainly because I started basically the panel of, like, oh, yeah. Let's create all the super frameworks together, like, fun and so on. And then we jumped into some questions, and it was like, okay. Let's have a nice frame around it and just, like, have a have a quick one for the end.
Alexander Lichter:So, yeah, definitely worth worth checking. Yeah. And I think, other than that, like, that was a really rough overview about the Vue. Js Amazon conference this year. And there will be, of course, more conference coming up with, like, VuConf, you ask soon.
Alexander Lichter:Vue.js Toronto will probably be in in the late part of the year. There's Vue.js Berlin or VueConf, Germany coming up, in October, where I also submitted a CFP and hopefully will be part of it, and more and more and more. So, I'll hope to see you at some of them, Michael, and also some people of our audience are there.
Alexander Lichter:So I would, if if you're there at some of the conferences, spot either of us, please definitely say hi. I heard that one story of saying, oh, yeah. You look too busy. Just say hi. Like, we are there, as you just heard, to talk with the people, so do it.
Michael Thiessen:Yeah. My my entire reason for being there is to to talk with other people. So if I look too busy, then that just means that I'm trying to find other people to talk to. That's what I'm busy with.
Alexander Lichter:Perfect. Alright. I think that's a that's a great wrap up. So I would say, hear everyone, next week or in one of our previous episodes if you haven't checked them out yet. And other than that, I would say have a great week and talk to you soon.
Michael Thiessen:See you.