Sam Julien: JavaScript Teacher and Your Biggest Fan

Building a Learning System to Stay Sharp as a Developer Advocate

First Published: July 31st, 2020

It's no secret that dulling or even losing your production development skills is perhaps the biggest risk of moving from a developer job to developer relations (abbreviated as dev rel , sometimes called developer advocacy or evangelism ). As I wrote in Managing Time as a Developer Advocate , dev rel requires sharpening many skills outside of coding: public speaking, writing, video production…

How to Use Route Parameters in Angular

First Published: July 1st, 2020

We often need to pass a parameter like an ID to a route and then access that ID in order to call an API to get some data. In this article, we'll look at how to define a route with a parameter, how to use params with the routerLink directive, and how to use the route snapshot to use a param in a component. We'll also learn about subscribing to route parameters with an observable. Check out the…

Navigate Between Routes in Angular with routerLink

First Published: June 22nd, 2020

Once routing is set up, we can add a new route by adding a new component and adding a path to our routes array in app.module.ts . But how do we navigate between the two routes? In this lesson of Angular Basics, I'll show you how to use routerLink to switch between the routes without causing the page to refresh. Here's the video lesson: Add a New Component with the Angular CLI To create a new…

How to Add Routing to an Existing Angular Project

First Published: May 29th, 2020

When we first create an Angular app with the Angular CLI using ng new , it gives us an option to add routing. Sometimes we don't know whether we want to add routing yet, so we say no. What do we do, though, if we decide to add routing later? There's no separate CLI command to set up the routing for you. In this lesson, I'll show you how to manually add routing to your Angular application. If you…

Creating a Pinned Articles Component in Gatsby

First Published: May 28th, 2020

I wanted an easy way to pin articles to the front page of my website. It turns out Gatsby and GraphiQL make this process much easier than you'd think! First, I added a new pinned field to the frontmatter of the articles I wanted to put on the front page and set it equal to true . Frontmatter fields are great for splicing, dicing, and sorting your content however you'd like. I then fired up…

Finding the Path from AngularJS to Angular

First Published: May 28th, 2020

Migrating from AngularJS to Angular can be really overwhelming. How on earth do you figure out where to even begin? I reprised a talk I gave last year for the ngPittsburgh meetup group called "Finding the Right Path from AngularJS to Angular" that goes over a decision tree you can use to determine this. Here's the recording: You can also watch the original version from Angular Finland . The…

Refetching Data with RxJS Subjects in Angular

First Published: May 22nd, 2020

One of the things that drove me crazy when I was first learning RxJS in Angular was how difficult it seemed to reload a collection of data after I added or deleted an item. With promises, I could just use .then() and be on my way. What do we do with observables? Should we just nest another subscription? Even if we do that, since we're using the async pipe, nothing will happen. There are better…

Managing Time as a Developer Advocate (Without Losing Your Mind)

First Published: May 22nd, 2020

I moved from regular full stack web development (C# and JavaScript, mostly Angular) to the world of content, developer relations, and developer advocacy in August 2018 when I joined Auth0 . It's a lot of fun, but no one tells you just how much stuff there is to do. At any given time, I could be: Writing a blog post Answering questions on Twitter, Slack, Discord, or various Discourse forums…

Use a Proxy with the Angular CLI to Fix CORS Development Problems

First Published: May 12th, 2020

This week in the Angular Basics egghead collection , we're talking about proxying local servers for development. This was something that really baffled me when I was first getting started as a developer, so I'm excited to share it with you. When we first try to use a local server for our data in development, we get a rude error in the console and nothing works. What is that and why are we getting…

Write a Basic GraphQL Client for NgRx

First Published: May 8th, 2020

One question both Mike Ryan and I get asked often is whether NgRx is compatible with GraphQL . I think the confusion comes from the fact that many popular GraphQL clients can also handle local state management. The assumption is then that, since NgRx handles state management for you, you wouldn't use GraphQL alongside NgRx. In this stream, Mike and I walk through setting up a very basic GraphQL…

Scoped & Global Styles in Angular

First Published: May 5th, 2020

This week in the Angular Basics egghead collection we're talking about styling. In other frameworks, CSS modules and CSS-in-JS (sometimes referred to as JSS) are both quite popular. I've actually become a huge fan of using styled components in React (I'm using them with Emotion on this site!). One of the reasons for this is the ability to add scoped styling to your app. This prevents…

Use Cascadia Code with Gatsby

First Published: May 1st, 2020

I wasn't really enjoying the boring monospace font for my code blocks on this site, so I decided to use Cascadia Code from Microsoft. I love it! It looks so much better! Here's how to do it using Typography.js in Gatsby. (That link also covers how to set up Typography; I won't be doing that here.) First, go to Cascadia's releases page and download the font (if you don't like the ligatures…

Using Airtable with Gatsby to List Talks

First Published: April 30th, 2020

Historically, all of my previous talks and podcasts have been a big blob of markdown that I manually edit and add to. It's been that way for years. With the advent of Airtable , this can get a lot easier. I'm migrating all of my data over there so I can make the Talks page read in that data at build time. Airtable also allows me to add new talks or podcasts via their website, their iOS apps, or…

Use Single File Components By Default

First Published: March 27th, 2020

By default, the Angular CLI generates components with separate CSS and template files. It doesn't have to be this way! Let's learn how to use the CLI to generate single file components. Check out the video here: And here's the code: Got other ideas for the Angular basics collection? Something you're struggling with? Reach out on Twitter any time.

Angular Basics: Create Your First Angular App

First Published: March 25th, 2020

I love Angular . I'll admit that one reason I love it is because of the way it impacted my career, but that was only possible because of how amazing the Angular community is. It's friendly, supportive, and collaborative. I wrote more about that in my retro post about 2018 . Aside from the community, though, I do love the Angular framework for its power and scalability. You can build massive…

Keynote Animation Basics

First Published: November 26th, 2019

By request of Dan Vega , I did a stream on Twitch today on Keynote animation basics for developers. Check out the video below. We cover: Magic Move, the #1 animation tool you'll want to learn Shape and image animation basics Text and code animation Various pro tips along the way that I've learned Enjoy! If you've got other topics you'd like me to teach and/or learn on Twitch, hit me up on…

Automating Screencasting with Keyboard Maestro

First Published: November 8th, 2019

When I was recording the videos for Upgrading AngularJS , I was using a Windows 10 laptop. Every time I wanted to shoot a video, I had to remember to hide the taskbar, hide my other windows, open up my editor and browser, and probably other things I'm forgetting. It was really tedious. When I switched to Mac when joining Auth0, I started researching how to automate different pieces of my writing…

RxJS Live 2019

First Published: September 4th, 2019

Thanks for joining Mike Ryan and I at RxJS Live 2019 ! We hope you learned a lot about the groupBy operator, as well as when to use exhaustMap , switchMap , and concatMap ! Here's the video: Here are the slides: What Groups By in Vegas, Stays in Vegas And here is the sample code: rxjs-groupby-basic There's a branch for mergeMap , concatMap , and switchMap by themselves, as well as one…

Speaker Stuff No One Tells You About: Applying to Conferences

First Published: July 3rd, 2019

I hate “hand-waving” in technical articles. You know what I’m talking about. You try to learn how to build a prototype with a new framework, or use a new feature of a language, or set up the latest and greatest build system, and the tutorial says this: Do a couple of trivial things. ??? (“This is out of the scope of this tutorial…”) BAM finished! That drives me NUTS! The whole reason I’m on your…

Asking for Help: My #1 Lesson from 2018

First Published: December 31st, 2018

2018 turned out to be the best year of my career so far: I released my first video course after a year of writing, editing, and filming over 200 videos. I was on several podcasts like Adventures in Angular , MS Dev Show , and RealTalk JavaScript . I spoke at my first conferences, like Angular Denver , AngularMix , and AngularConnect (my first trip to London!). I became a Google Developer…

Where (Else) to Find My Technical Writing

First Published: December 31st, 2018

Howdy! I now mostly write technical articles on other blogs and use this site for personal writing. You can also check out my talks page for interviews, podcasts, and conference talks. Reach out on Twitter any time if you can't find what you're looking for. Here's where to find some of my technical writing: Auth0 Upgrade Your AngularJS Authentication Service NgRx Authentication Tutorial…

QAs Doing Cool Things: Matt Nobles

First Published: May 14th, 2018

Hello, beautiful humans! Welcome to QAs Doing Cool Things, Fourth Edition . This series features one of the members of my Super Cool Newsletter for the Quietly Ambitious with what they're doing and learning. SCNQA (and this series) is meant to be a cheery bright spot of positivity in the middle of the gray cloudy sky that your Social Media Overlords want you stare into hour after hour. (If you…

QAs Doing Cool Things: Chelsea Torres

First Published: April 27th, 2018

Welcome to QAs Doing Cool Things, Third Edition . This series features one of the members of my Super Cool Newsletter for the Quietly Ambitious with what they're doing and learning. SCNQA (and this series) is meant to be a delightful spot of positivity tea ( positivitea ) in the middle of the doom and gloom your Social Media Timeline wants you to live in. (If you're not getting the newsletter…

QAs Doing Cool Things: Ashley Cortez

First Published: April 6th, 2018

Welcome to QAs Doing Cool Things, Second Edition . This series features one of the members of my Super Cool Newsletter for the Quietly Ambitious with what they're doing and learning. SCNQA (and this series) is meant to be an oasis of useful positivity in the middle of the horrible desert of despair assaulting your eyeballs daily on the news and social media. (What? You're not getting the…

QAs Doing Cool Things: Alex Bornstein

First Published: March 23rd, 2018

Welcome to the very first edition of my new series, QAs Doing Cool Things . This series features one of the members of my Super Cool Newsletter for the Quietly Ambitious with what they're up to and what lessons they're learning right now. We've got writers, teachers, moms, software developers, professional musicians, and more on this list, and we've all got tons we can learn from each other…

The Feedback Loop: My #1 Lesson from 2017

First Published: January 20th, 2018

I began 2017 standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and making a decision to be wildly optimistic and obnoxiously grateful, both publicly and in my own mind. I let that dazzling beauty work its way into my heart and decided to let that moment dictate the rest of the year. It worked - but not just for my own well-being. I received lots of messages and kind words over this year about how badly…

10 Life, Money, and Business Lessons from James Altucher

First Published: November 3rd, 2017

Over the last few months, I've been burning through a lot of material by James Altucher, including two of his books , his Altucher Report newsletter , many of his special reports, and numerous episodes of his excellent podcast . The guy puts out an insane amount of content on a daily basis. James is by and large a pretty likeable guy. He's really big on vulnerability; in fact, I first heard of…

13 Lessons I've Learned about Starting a Business from Ramit Sethi

First Published: October 20th, 2017

My friend Justin recently asked me about my experiences with Ramit Sethi and his courses. I was already planning on writing up an article about this stuff, but now I owe it to him to follow through on it. I've been following Ramit Sethi for six years, beginning with reading his book I Will Teach You to Be Rich in 2011. It was targeted at young, single people, but since I was working in…

8 Lessons About Change I Learned from PT

First Published: September 6th, 2017

I've had a dull, aching pain in my right knee for probably a decade. I always figured it was due to being overweight (it was), but I assumed that once I lost all that weight it would just go away (it didn't). I decided to see a doctor about it, and he referred me to a physical therapist. A really effective physical therapist. I've been spending a lot of time recently reflecting on how I've…

I've stopped caring about finding my purpose.

First Published: August 17th, 2017

I don't care anymore about finding my purpose, finding "my passion." I don't think there is one monolithic "life work" I'm supposed to accomplish. Instead, I've shifted my focus to building side projects and businesses. Each of these side projects will help people in some different way by providing a service they need. It might be freelance work, video courses and screencasts, or writing a book…

The Painfully Shy Developer's Guide to Networking for a Better Job (Without Being Creepy)

First Published: July 7th, 2017

Look, I get it. A bunch of web developers, recruiters, and vendors standing around in a room eating pizza or drinking beer and making small talk might sound like complete and utter death for you. There may be a million things you'd rather be doing. "Uhh, don't I have a dentist appointment that day? At least then I won't have to talk." I get it. I'm an introvert, too. I get drained by being around…

How I Lost 60 Pounds

First Published: May 8th, 2017

A bunch of people have asked me how I have lost so much weight, so I'm going to save some time and write it all down. I grew up a heavy kid and struggled with weight my entire life. Without boring you with my life story, I was always that kid who was teased relentlessly and avoided pool parties and beach days at all costs. The most annoying thing, though, was that I started trying to change that…

Productivity Experiments

First Published: May 8th, 2017

I've been working on hard on continuing to improve myself and design my ideal lifestyle (location independence + meaningful work that contributes to others). These days I've been doubling down on my day job work while also putting in time on side projects and businesses I'm building. To that end, I've been doing the following experiments to boost my productivity: Ditching as much stuff as possible…

Audio: My Found Connection Between Physical & Mental Health

First Published: March 12th, 2017

Note from Present Day Sam: While the things I talked about in this recording in 2017 really were transformative for me, I feel like I didn't do a good job of acknowledging that addressing deep depression needs the guidance of a doctor and often medication. You should know that even at the time of this recording I had seen many doctors and used many medications in my life, so please never interpret…

How Living in an AirBnB Changed My Life

First Published: February 26th, 2017

It's New Year's Eve. I'm drinking champagne from my camping mug in front of a fire I built (gotta put those wilderness skills to good use). I'm roasting s'mores with Justin and Lexi, the young couple from San Diego staying at the campsite next door. Joanna, my friend from LA who has become my kid-sister-adventure-buddy, hands me a beer. We had gotten lucky - the previous night, a couple in the…

Run JavaScript on Cheap IoT Boards with Flasher.js

First Published: February 8th, 2017

Last year, I did a couple of posts and several talks on IoT and functional reactive programming, and I always demo'd my little Arduino photoresistor theremin as a good example of how they work together. Up until now, all of my work on IoTReX has been using johnny-five , which sets up a client-host relationship between the computer running JavaScript and the device running the Firmata firmware…

Choosing Relentless Joy

First Published: December 19th, 2016

So we're coming up to the end of 2016, which, I think, comes as a relief for a lot of people out there. Outside of the craziness of this year on a macro scale, I've been spending 2016 trying out a lot of new things and writing about them from time to time. I've started learning woodworking, welding, blacksmithing, and a bunch of outdoorsy skills. I got back into yoga and martial arts. This year…

Lessons in Rewilding from a Wilderness Immersion Program

First Published: December 17th, 2016

In September, I started a nine month wilderness immersion program to learn more about bushcraft and living outdoors. Once a month, I go camping with about twenty-four other people on a property an hour outside of Portland. The culmination of the program is a week long trip in May where we only bring things we've made or traded for, nothing purchased. My original plan was to write about every month…

Wonder, Meaning, and Woodcarving

First Published: November 24th, 2016

I spend a lot of time and energy running away from who I am - or who I might be if I fully embrace who I am. I'm always trying to measure myself against some arbitrary standard of where I should be in life, and feel the need to segregate different areas of my thought and writing. The more I live through contrasts of joy and pain, though, the more motivated I am to become a more integrated person…

A Floridian's Guide to the Outdoors (Pt. 1)

First Published: October 1st, 2016

Or: what to do in places where people can go outside without dying of heat exhaustion. Okay, so you want to get started with hiking or camping or something else outside of the four walls in which you eat and sleep and watch Game of Thrones (or Daniel Tiger, depending on your status in life). You start googling, you pull up some web sites, you get inundated with a barrage of information and…

The Beauty of the Grind

First Published: September 22nd, 2016

Wow, somehow it is already mid-September. The summer completely flew by, but it was full of adventures. The above is a picture I took while backpacking and camping on Mount Hood. I started this year with the goal of shifting my focus and actions from consuming to making. So far, that thread has pulled me along through many corridors. It's made me contemplate a more minimal life, it's pushed me to…

Read Analog Data Wirelessly with the Feather HUZZAH and Johnny-Five

First Published: May 10th, 2016

Want to get into IoT development but not sure how? Got a shiny new Adafruit Feather HUZZAH with the amazing ESP8266 chip? Want to control it with JavaScript? Well, thanks to the fine folks on the Firmata team, now you can. I got my Feather HUZZAH from the kind people at Losant in one of their builder kits and got inspired to try to re-purpose their temperature sensor circuit with the stack I…

Wild Edible Plants & Minimalism

First Published: April 16th, 2016

March brought with it a sort of turning point. A shift in perspective. I've had a fun and busy few months since I went all-in on my plan to turn my life into an adventure of crafting instead of consuming, but March was a whirlwind. After traveling for a week, I returned home to a visit from some good friends from New York and Seattle. The next day, I took a wild edible plants class (more on that…

IoTReX: Developing a New Platform for Hardware with Observables

First Published: March 24th, 2016

Some of my neighbors keep plastic dinosaurs on display in their yard (because Portland). I was starting to type out a title for this and realized that with the combination of IoT and RxJS it would just be irresponsible of me not to title it IoTReX. Plus, look at that symmetry, it's beautiful. Back in January , I wrote that I realized reactive programming would pair really well with IoT when I…

February

First Published: March 2nd, 2016

It's been a while since my last update, but it certainly hasn't been for lack of stuff to talk about. In addition to seeing both Talib Kweli and Godspeed You! Black Emperor in the same weekend and taking a quick trip to LA, I made some good progress in the rest of January and February on all of my making and crafting endeavors. To start with, I finished up the blacksmithing basics course I was…

Down the Functional Rabbit Hole

First Published: January 21st, 2016

One thing I'm discovering is that transforming data is easier to think about than maintaining state. Dave Thomas A few months back, in the wake of wrapping my head around observables and RxJS (still a work in progress), I spent a bunch of time digging through resources on functional programming. I left this compilation sitting in my drafts folder for a while, but then last night I stumbled upon…

Turns out mid-January is the perfect time to learn survival skills.

First Published: January 18th, 2016

So I've been pretty busy since I posted my Crafting Manifesto a couple of weeks ago. I made a few more lights blink on my Arduino, this time in relation to temperature changes. The Makey Makey kit arrived and I started tinkering with it and seeing how I can make music with it. I took the safety orientation at ADX and got to use a chop saw and a table saw. Oh, and I started blacksmithing, and man…

Crafting

First Published: January 5th, 2016

I've been thinking a lot about crafting - making things, both in tech and in the real world. I went to Node Interactive here in Portland last month and was really inspired by the Internet of Things talks. I've begun to play with an Arduino Uno starter kit, which has given me all kinds of ideas. I've already made my silly little spaceship interface that makes lights blink, which, as I understand…

Observables Resources

First Published: November 3rd, 2015

That image comes from this deck by Rob Wormald . At the end of September, I watched Rob Wormald give a talk on observables and RxJS entitled, "Everything is a Stream." This talk, along with some advice Rob's given me on an Angular Slack channel, sent me down a rabbit hole of learning about observables, reactive programming, and RxJS. I thought I'd share some of the resources I've found on the…

Welcome

First Published: November 1st, 2015

I'm glad you're here. This is my spot to chronicle and document for myself my life as a recovering Floridian in the magical PNW. I'm probably going to cover a wide swath of topics ranging from tech to hobbies to business to social justice. Thanks for coming along for the ride.