Kate:
Welcome to PodRocket. I'm Kate, the producer of PodRocket. And with me is Developer Advocate at JetBrains, Ebenezer Don. Hi, Ebenezer, how are you doing?

Ebenezer Don:
Hi, Kate. I'm doing great today. How are you?

Kate:
Thanks for joining us. Good to see you.

Ebenezer Don:
Yeah, thank you.

Kate:
Yeah. So, maybe tell us a little about your role and what you're currently working on at JetBrains.

Ebenezer Don:
Okay. Yeah. So, I'm a developer advocate at JetBrains, which means I do advocacy for developers. I get to create technical content about... The fun thing about my role as a developer advocate, is I can create content about basically anything I want in the front end, in the JavaScript universe.

Ebenezer Don:
So, even outside of JavaScript, still in web development, I get to create content about that. So that's fun about my particular role. So, I get to create technical content. I get to also give feedback to the product team, talk about new products and give back to the developer community. And yeah. That's basically it. I give talks, represent JetBrains, represent WebStorm too, and show them we talk about WebStorm and all the rest. So, that's basically what I do as a developer advocate. And it's really nice. I've been here for about four months and I've enjoyed every moment of it.

Kate:
That's awesome. That's exciting. I'm curious, how big is the developer advocacy team at JetBrains?

Ebenezer Don:
We're pretty big compared to the... JetBrains has over 1000 employees. So, yeah. Compared to the number of employees in general, we're big. We have advocates for different products. JetBrains has a lot of products, like WebStorm, we have PyCharm or we have the intelligent idea and all the rest. So, we have advocates for these different products. Right now, we are two advocates on the WebStorm team and then we also have advocates in the different teams. So, it's, yeah. It's fun. With the advocates teams at JetBrains, I'm like a member of the advocacy team and then each of us is a member of the different product teams. So, I'm a member of the advocacy team and I'm a member of the WebStorm team.

Kate:
Very cool. Yeah. Awesome. And can you just give a brief overview of WebStorm and what that is, how it works.

Ebenezer Don:
Okay. All right. So, yeah. WebStorm is the smartest JavaScript ID I've used. I've used a lot of products. When I started using WebStorm, it was difficult to go back to any other product. So, it makes a lot of things easier, speeds up development in general. So, even web development and backend, Node.js Development. So, yeah. WebStorm is an awesome idea and that's what I've been using, before I even became WebStorm developer advocate.

Kate:
Very cool. And can you tell us a little bit about the content you've created? You've written for LogRocket, and so I know you've written blogs and you have a YouTube channel. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Ebenezer Don:
Yeah. So, I create technical content. I create content about... The reason I'm a developer advocate is because first of all, I loved creating. I used to work as a full-time software engineer, but I wasn't satisfied with what I was doing because I wanted to create and create and create. And I didn't have time for both of them.

Ebenezer Don:
So, I started with writing blogs and articles on my own. I was writing technical articles, JavaScripts, Python, before I started writing for LogRocket. It's fun. LogRocket, I think, is the only external... Not internal blog, how do I put this. LogRocket is the only company I write for, outside of my own personal blog. And I've written articles about Rust, I've written articles about JavaScript, I've written articles about React, I've written articles about Python. So, I like to learn, I like learning a lot of things. And whenever I learn, I like to talk about it because I get to see what other beginners see, while I'm learning. And I don't want any other person to go through the same thing. So, whenever I learn anything new, I try to document it, so that it's going to be easy for other people to learn too.

Kate:
Yeah. That's very cool. And I was actually just watching one of your YouTube channels and you were talking about how to learn a framework fast.

Ebenezer Don:
Yeah.

Kate:
And it was really nice. It was organized very well. You talk about how to integrate it, how to look at components, authorization. I guess I'm curious, how long do you spend learning a framework?

Ebenezer Don:
So, how long I spend learning a framework. I would say, it's how long I spend building with it. So, because I don't learn everything, I only learn what I need to do, to build what I want to build. And that's my skill, that's my technique. I don't sit down and say, "I want to learn React" and start taking a five hour React course. Instead, I say I want to learn React. And I think about what I want to build with React and I start building. And while I'm building, I'm learning, going through the documentation, reading articles, watching videos, and I keep building what I'm building. So, sometimes it can take weeks, it can take days, it can take months, but it doesn't mean I'm going to learn everything about this framework. It just means I've got to learn the necessary things I needed, to build what I needed to build. And if I need to build something else that requires another skill level in that same technology, I learn and then I build. So, I wouldn't put this specific time range, to how long it takes me to learn a framework.

Kate:
Yeah. That makes sense. Do you a build project, complete it, and then you're like, "Okay, I want to make a YouTube video out of it." Or do you do it as... Are you like, "Oh, this would be a good chance to make the YouTube video." What's that process?

Ebenezer Don:
Yeah, it's both. So, sometimes when I'm building, when I'm participating and building a product, I encounter a problem and I'm like, this took me a while to solve. It means that there are other people out there who are trying to solve this problem, so I'm going to put a YouTube video about my solution. And some other times, I just sit down and think I have a content body where I think about I'm going to create and what I want to build and I write them down. So, even if I've not done them before, I then go and learn how to do it, and I build that product and I decide I'm going to create a YouTube video about this. So, sometimes I quit from what I've already built and sometimes I build to create.

Kate:
Awesome. Yeah. And you do have a segment, I think it's called JavaScript libraries. And you talk about what's trendy. I guess right now, if you had to build a project today, I guess, what would you pick and what stack would you have? What technology would you use?

Ebenezer Don:
Okay. If I'm going to build a product today. Yeah. I'll use Next.js, React, and Firebase for backend. So, Node.js, Firebase for backend, JS for React and yep. That's what I'm going choose right now. And that's because I've used a lot of technologies, even outside of JavaScripts, but I find Javascript to be the most straightforward, first of all. And then I find React to be the most flexible. So, I'm in total control of whatever I'm doing. I'm not saying that all the frameworks are bad, but that's just my personal preference. And yeah. And I tried out Next.js I've not been using Next.js for a long time, but I started using it recently. And I started wondering why I've not been using this for a long time. So, it's really a nice, fun framework. I'm actually creating the tutorial of Next.js, Currently. So, yeah. I've been enjoying it, yeah. I've been enjoying every part of Next.js, so far.

Kate:
That's great. We just had Guillermo Rauch on a couple episodes ago. And then since then, I feel like we keep talking about next and a lot of courses and a lot of content around it. So, it's very exciting.

Ebenezer Don:
Yeah. It is.

Kate:
What are you excited about for, technology wise, in 2022?

Ebenezer Don:
2022, I think, FlutterWeb. So I'm looking at Flutter Web. I want to get used to Flutter Web, but the problem right now is server side rendering and server side generation. But that aside, I think that in a few years from now, in maybe two years, three years, there's going to be a lot of opportunities for Flutter developers because we're going to need one application, or one framework for everything. So, I'm seeing Flutter Web... I'm also saying that, I'm also looking at WebAssembly. I think that, that's going to be... The community is growing and it's going to keep growing.

Ebenezer Don:
So that's also out there in the JavaScript landscape and Svelte has been rising. I think it's going to... A lot of companies that are going to adopt it next year. It's already a big framework currently, so it's going to keep growing. But I still think React is going to be there. React is still going to be there. And more people start using Firebase for backends, it's big already. But a lot of people are still wondering, "Oh, do I need to do this hosts, use server less applications." And all the rest. So, more people are going to be going there. Yeah. That's what I think.

Kate:
Yeah, totally. We actually just had Rich Harris on as well, that every one says going live soon, talking about Svelte, very exciting. One thing we did get into was, of course, comparing React and Svelte and the spectrum there is very interesting.

Kate:
So, tell us about New Dev and some of the communities that you're building.

Ebenezer Don:
Yeah. So, I started the New Dev community. New Dev community followed after my... I organized a bootcamp, a software engineering bootcamp. Which lasted for a while. And then after that I started my full-time job. And while I was working full-time as a software engineer, I needed to go back to doing community work, do something outside of just working, just writing code and pushing it to production. So, I started the New Dev learning community. Started with WhatsApp group and then we went on Slack and we started building products. So, I used the avenue to teach people what I knew. So, I taught people Node.js, how to work with teams too, because the focus is on new developers, first of all, before all the other developers. So, I know that there are so many people out there who are going to look for jobs, but they don't how to work with teams, professional control, how to communicate in teams and all the rest.

Ebenezer Don:
So, I use the avenue to teach people and help them contribute to open sources. So, so many people use New Dev to contribute to their first open source projects. And that was what we did, we were building and building New Dev. And I had to put the project on pause because I needed to work on other things too.

Ebenezer Don:
But I decided that, yeah. We've been doing these very serious writing codes and communication as a team and everyday stand ups and all rest. But we can have virtual conferences, maybe once a month or once in three months and all the rest. And we can have physical workshops. So, that's where we're at right now. We don't do so much coding anymore, but we still organize virtual workshops and physical workshops. There's one we just did in August, that was last month, yeah. It was a physical workshop and it went really well, where we taught people about accessibility, PWA, going back to the basics of web development and all the rest. So that's what we try at New Dev. And it's something that makes me happy because this time around, I get to give to a community without asking for anything in return.

Kate:
Very cool. And if our listeners want to get involved, I believe it's... How do they find it?

Ebenezer Don:
So, we have a Facebook group currently. I have a simple URL, I'm going to share with you. And then New Dev is also on Twitter. So, my New Dev handle on today is @NewDev. Yep. So, you can get that through the Twitter handle. You can also connect with me, send me messages. And I'm going to add you, directly.

Kate:
Cool. And we'll add all that in the show notes, as well.

Ebenezer Don:
Thank you.

Kate:
So Ebenezer, can you tell us about your bootcamp, Skilup Africa?

Ebenezer Don:
The Skillup Africa is not my bootcamp, but I'm a technical instructor and mentor at Skillup Africa. Currently, not participating as much as I used to, before I started my full-time role. But it's really an amazing bootcamp, it's an NGO. And when I taught my class, it was really interesting. Every day I spent one hour with the students and I helped... I got to see people grow from being beginners to getting a job as software engineers. So, people who didn't know anything about HTMLs or CSS, and every day we learned, made corrections, learned and learned and learned. And a lot of my students right now, are working as software engineers already, which is really amazing. So, that's what we do. And I'm really glad I'm part of the team there.

Kate:
Very cool. And Ebenezer, is there anything you'd like our listeners to know or go look at?

Ebenezer Don:
Yeah. Please check out my YouTube channel. I create technical courses, software engineering courses, tutorials, and all the rest. But besides that, I also create videos where I just talk, like the last one I created. And I have a Getting Started with Software Engineering Guide', where I get to answer some questions that bothered me when I was still learning how to code. And I work with a lot of new developers too. So many things I see, I talk about them there. So, if you're getting started with software engineering, you check out the 'Getting Started with Software Engineering playlist. I'm sure you'll see a lot of good advice for you.

Kate:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Ebenezer. It's been great and we'll see you around.

Ebenezer Don:
Thank you very much, Kate. This was nice.

Speaker 3:
Thanks for listening to PodRocket. Find us at PodRocketpod on Twitter, or you could always email me, even though that's not a popular option. It's brian@logrocket.