Hello friends,
TL;DR - We're reorienting ourselves around junior React developers, with a scaffolded progression of increasingly powerful backend tools.
I started this month by pushing the Compose-as-React-hook prototype we came up with last month, and then building the "real world" Medium clone with it. Demo here, and source here.
Sadly, I didn't enjoy using the tool. This was a big bummer. Most of the friends I showed it to were also very negative on it. "But how does it X, Y and Z?"
Given how far we pivoted from our original dream, I started seriously considering scrapping this entire approach, and starting over. There are so many competitors (dozens!), that I started a thread of threads to keep track of them all. How can we hope to compete?
Luckily I had Alexander Obenauer to help restore my confidence, and Geoffrey Litt to help me see a path forward with people learning to code. It meant a lot when he said something like, "My cousin is learning React now, and this tool is how I'd want him to learn backend." Finally, my parents pushed me to stop procrastinating, and start talking to some users!
Thanks so much to the brave souls who gave me an hour or two over video chat to review various Compose prototypes!
https://twitter.com/stevekrouse/status/1449756258626674693
Call #1 Take-away: We absolutely need a 1-click way to try it out. Need to better communicate what's happening, and why it's better than just Firebase, via a diagram:
Call #2 Take-away: Need to simplify it further from useRealtimeReducer for users who aren't familiar with Redux: