Rafi - Exploring Side Projects and AI

Show Notes:

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Transcript:

Bekah: 00:05

Hello, and welcome to Season eight, episode eight of the Virtual Coffee Podcast. We're grateful to be sponsored by Level Up Financial Planning, who understands the importance of finding balance between having an awesome life today and being confident and excited about your future possibilities. If you want to take your financial confidence to the next level, check out levelupfinancialplanning.com and you can get that link in our show notes. I'm Bekah, and this is a podcast that features members of the Virtual Coffee community. Virtual Coffee is an intimate community of people at all stages of their tech journey, and they're here on this podcast sharing their stories and what they've learned. We are here to share it with you. Here with me today is my co-host Dan. Yo. What up Bec? How's it going? Yo? Excellent. How is it going with you? It is also going excellently over here. Um, that's not a word. Well, excellent is an adjective and so was, uh, you were, you know, using improper grammar there. So I'm an English major, so I know these sorts of things. Um, I doing. You were looking for an advert there. What excellently Right now. Okay. It's no longer going excellently over here and my job is done. Uh, anyway, we have another, uh, great episode for y'all. We, today we talk with Raffi. Uh, Rafi is a developer, mostly front end developer and JavaScript and, uh, big time, you know, tech hobbyist. Uh, and we had a, a lot of fun talking to him. Yeah, it was really cool to hear about his approach to side projects and the goals for that. I hadn't heard anybody really take that approach of just like, I'm just going to learn this thing. I'm gonna have some time. This is the amount I'm going to do, and that's my goal, to just do as much as I can in this amount of time. Yeah, totally. It, it reminded me a lot of my, my own approach with these sorts of things. Uh, and I don't have to the time to do that sort of thing anymore, uh, with. The advent of having children. Um, but I used to do that same thing. It, something would catch your eye and you just kind of, you just like dig in and, and start doing some stuff, you know? Um, and so there's not really, like, I think you'll, you'll hear he is, He doesn't have goals, right? He doesn't have, like with these side projects, right? They're, they're just more interesting hobby sorts of things. And I know I, he, he was a little cagey about it, but I know that he's learning things. Uh, while he do does them, but learning things is not his goal, you know, is not, his goal is not to make some sort of successful open source project or a business that he can sell, uh, or anything like that. He's just having fun. Uh, and it was really refreshing to hear somebody with that approach. I think that's probably the best way to learn, right? Like you go into it and your goal is not to learn, it's just to have fun, right? Yeah. Well, and I think another part of the conversation that was really interesting is his approach to using AI to help him jumpstart projects and to, um, kind of like enhance his knowledge base as he moves into these new things to be able to make quick progress. Totally it, you know, it was nice hearing the way that he uses AI for those sorts of things. And again, not like somebody who's like, I'm gonna dig into AI to become an ai, whatever, you know, it's just he, um, tool and he uses it to get things done. It's really cool. Yeah, it's always cool to see what tool people have in their toolbox. Well, we start every episode of this podcast, like we start every Virtual Coffee. We introduce ourselves with our name, where we're from, what we do, and a random check-in question. We hope you enjoy this episode. A random question of the day is, if you could have a non-tech job in any industry, what would it be? My name is Bekah. I am developer experience lead from a small town in Ohio. And I would be a writer, I think. Um, that's the thing that I enjoy doing most and close second is probably a trainer, so I'm gonna go with those today.

Dan: 04:18

Nice. Not, uh, surprising answers from, from Bekah, but you know, strong answers. Um, hi, I'm Dan. I am from Cleveland and I do web development and, um, yeah, I think, uh, I think I would want to be like, I. Maybe a park ranger or something. Not a park ranger, but like a naturalist or something. I don't know. I would like to be somebody whose job it is to wander around on trails and, you know, do things like I could do trail maintenance and, you know, making sure people are okay and stuff I don't really wanna deal with, you know, like policing people or, you know, picking up, uh,

Bekah: 04:57

Swanson in the last season.

Dan: 04:59

Right, right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna wander around. I don't wanna deal with politics or, or, or really people at all. Yeah. I just want to, uh, but like, you know, taking care of trails and stuff, there's, um, out in, um, we were camping in Canada a bunch of times up in Algonquin, kind of north of Toronto, a few hours. And, um, out there it's, you know, it's, it's very remote and you have to get, you know, you have to do canoes to like, And you have to like carry your canoes to get from lake to lake, things like that. But those, all the campsites and all the trails are really well maintained. And so I assume that somebody's job is, you know, to wander around and, and, and make sure everything's taken care of out there. And I think that sounds like very awesome and very peaceful. So I, I think that's gonna be my job, whatever that job is called. That's, that's the one I want.

Bekah: 05:44

We went camping last week with the kids and. Was maintaining those bathrooms. Is that your job too?

Dan: 05:51

Oh, bathrooms. Yeah. No,

Bekah: 05:53

write you a letter?

Dan: 05:53

ba I dunno about bathrooms. I think that's gonna be somebody else's job. I'm gonna delegate that one. Uh, but I would, I would note, you know, I would note and then send somebody else to clean up the bathrooms. Yeah. That's a, yeah. Yeah. Uh, in Canada. Yeah. So, sorry. But again, in, in Canada, once we get out there, there's no, like bathrooms, there's basically boxes, uh, on top of big holes, you know, uh, when they have like toilet seats and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, they, they take care, good care of them, and so they rotate them around, you know, if, if one gets whatever. Um, so I don't know. I don't, I would dig a hole, like, that'd be fine. I'd be fine with that. You know, I.

Bekah: 06:34

gonna be my go-to next time. It would've been better.

Dan: 06:40

All right. Uh, anyway. Uh, go ahead. Go ahead, Rafi.

Rafi: 06:43

would actually prefer to be a librarian. Uh, I mean, you get paid and you're like, you know, you get to read books, like why not? So, yeah. Uh, yeah, I actually didn't go to my intro. Like, I'm Raffi, uh, I'm a developer from Bangalore. Uh, I mean, what do I do? I just do web, web stuff, I guess.

Bekah: 07:04

All right. You and Dan both do web stuff. Excellent.

Dan: 07:08

I'm so glad to hear other people say that.

Bekah: 07:11

Welcome to the podcast. Um, we're happy to have you here and we always like to get started with everyone's origin stories. So how did you get to this point in your career?

Rafi: 07:23

Uh, actually, I mean, like I started with. I mean, computer's pretty early actually. So, I mean, I didn't own a computer, but then, you know, like my uncle owned one, so there was like some computer in the home, like the old one with the Doss. So that was there. And then like the first thing that I actually got to do with the computer after that, I mean one with the UI was road rash. Uh, you know, the, all the road rash games.

Dan: 07:54

Things are awesome.

Rafi: 07:56

Yeah. So the other day I was actually trying to run the road rash game. Apparently it still works, which is surprising. I mean, yeah. But after that, I mean, what I've been doing, uh, I've been doing some sort of freelancing during my school and college days, uh, for a pretty long time, and I kind of ended up. You know, majoring in, you know, uh, electronics communication sort of thing. So, ended up in that electronics field, did some, uh, internship for a while, and then I decided to switch to web dev, uh, yeah, that, that was I guess, 2015 or 16, I guess. Yeah, it's been a pretty long time.

Dan: 08:45

Awesome. What made you decide to switch to to web dev from other things?

Rafi: 08:52

Uh, actually don't, I mean, like, there's no like specific reason, to be really honest. It's more along the lines of, like, you know, your, as you call, like, you know, the embedded programming kind of became boring and, uh, I mean, I was pretty early on the career, so I like decided to give this as a try. I think like other than that, Of course, since I've been doing freelancing, so I had some experience here, so you know, why not just give it a try?

Dan: 09:21

awesome. I'm, I'm a big fan of following, you know, just kind of following, uh, whatever the random path is, ends up being. It's cool.

Bekah: 09:29

So what are some of the early projects that you started working on?

Rafi: 09:34

So I actually started, uh, my web dev, I guess with backbone js like the old, the first version of the backbone, jss. And, uh, then I actually did work on couple of things with Angular one, the, you know, the one before, like two, uh, And, uh, did some like, uh, what do you call, did some projects there. Uh, there were like some, uh, dashboard sort of thing going on, and then it was Angular too. Then of course, you know, it became React. I guess I've been doing react for a pretty long time after that.

Bekah: 10:13

That's really awesome. One of the things that, uh, I'm always impressed, I feel like you do these weekend projects, you are like, oh, I just threw together a Chrome extension this weekend. Like, whoa, that's really awesome. It feels like you're always learning something new. Can you talk. A little bit about, you know, how you learn new things and how you just decide to throw together a Chrome extension one weekend.

Rafi: 10:35

Uh, I mean like, It's actually not about learning, to be really honest. It's more along the lines of, uh, just to keep me sane, uh, like just to keep, you know, something happening. Uh, I mean, just building things out, uh, even if it's like random or useless, it doesn't need to be, you know, useful to anyone. It can be like something that just did, it doesn't literally do anything. It just does some random stuff. Um, you know, building, um, Something basically, you know, helps me like calm down. Like it just keeps me focused on things. So it's more along that, and rather than not like intent for like Exactly. Learning. Learning. But yeah, that, that is that,

Bekah: 11:21

Okay, so how do you decide what you're going to throw together?

Rafi: 11:26

uh, it's more along like, so actually, um, It's more along the lines of like, what, um, I happened to come across at that time and what time I can afford to, like, for example, let's say if it's just two weekends and I don't have anything to do for the whole, you know, like weekend, then I basically decide to build whatever I can during that time. But, Like, if it's just like four hours, I have some time to kill. It's more of like, just do whatever I can in that time. Uh, yeah, like that's, that There's no process in deciding, literally, it's just, just going along with it literally.

Bekah: 12:11

I kind of like that idea though. I feel like the, a lot of times people put a lot of pressure on, like, I've gotta scope this whole thing out and I've gotta think about all of these different things. It sounds like you're just kind of jumping into the process. Is, is that, is that accurate? I.

Rafi: 12:26

Yeah. Uh, because, um, especially like, uh, planning a project and, uh, you know, Taking it, working on it for months together and, you know, then shipping it first, that requires like a lot of work to just do the meta work. Right. And I'm actually pretty bad at it. Um, like doing it for a, you know, like. Other than work just doing it for your own thing, right? Um, probably for a week I can do it, but then after a while, probably the motivation will just go down. So rather than that, just pick up whatever I can build during that small duration. Build it. If it find traction, you know, you can anyway, go back and try to iterate it over. If not, just, you know, kill it. So why you bother?

Dan: 13:13

Yeah, I like that a lot. I like the, I like that you're kind of open and comfortable with that idea of, just sort of experimenting and, and messing around without. Uh, it can be easy to fall into the trap of, okay, I have this thing, maybe it could be useful. And then you end up spending three or four extra weekends making a good read me and adding docs and, you know, all this stuff, right? For, for something that maybe not nobody is ever gonna even look at. Um, and I think that, um, the idea that you said about if it gains traction, if people are interested, then you can always go and improve. Everything around it. Right. Um, I think that's a really healthy way to, to go about it. And you said you weren't like learning, you know, specifically from it, but I'm sure every time you do a new project, you learn something. I mean, I, at least I do. Uh, does that sound, does, does that sound right?

Rafi: 14:00

Yeah, but the intention is like not exactly learning. It's more along the, of like, then like, you know, when something happens, you learn with it rather than like, you know, basically trying to learn something. Uh, yeah.

Dan: 14:15

Yeah. Yeah, that's what that, that's pretty much what I was trying to say too. Right. You're not going into this thing like, I'm doing this to learn X, or I'm doing this to, you know, whatever, teach y. But my point was just that, along that path, like when you're messing around, when you're experimenting, when you're building stuff, you're always, I would imagine learning things. I don't know, accidentally or whatever, you know, uh, like, uh, I'm sure you just like picking things up as, as you go. Um, whether that's not, you know, whether that's not the point,

Rafi: 14:41

Yeah, what, rather whatever is required to do, uh, like, you know, the thing that you're trying to do, so,

Bekah: 14:47

I like that. I kind of like that approach a lot. I think that it, there's a low pressure. Um, approach to doing something new and not having these lofty goals for things in learning something along the way just because that, hey, like this is something that you wanna do, you're interested in doing it, and then you go and do it. Um, and that seems like a really great way to. Grow and, and like you said, to de-stress. 'cause I think that, you know, I, we talk to a lot of people who really enjoy coding but then get jobs that make them really not enjoy that experience. Right. And I think it's a lot of kind of what you were talking about, um, like the meta work, maybe you called it, uh, where you're doing like that planning, the scoping and meetings and that kind of stuff. And I think that. A lot of folks really enjoy the process of coding and getting going and moving forward, but in so many jobs, you're held up and you aren't able to do those things. And then that just kind of like sours the experience for people.

Rafi: 15:50

Yeah.

Bekah: 15:51

Yeah.

Rafi: 15:52

I mean, like, especially for a side project, like a planning, it, it's, it's side project itself is like a side thing. Like then you do planning or it sounds a lot of work. Yeah. I'm, I'm a pretty lazy person. Like, I try to do like the least amount of work to, you know, achieve whatever I'm trying to do, like in my side things, uh, so that it gets things done and like, you know, at least I can see the result quickly and move, move on with it.

Bekah: 16:20

So what have been some of your favorite projects that you've worked on? Side projects.

Rafi: 16:24

Oh, actually, um, so there was this time, uh, where all of no reason actually I started learning blender. Um, I mean, because I thought it was cool. Then I guess I spent like, around a couple of weeks on it, basically build some, uh, cool things with it. Then just give it up because like it was not, uh, worth, uh, ing after that. Um, what is did I do, actually did like a couple of mobile devs before, um, with, um, your Android and, uh, actually ionic before that, like when Ionic was a thing,

Bekah: 17:06

So much experience like so your focus is as a React developer, is that right?

Rafi: 17:12

Yeah, I mean basically I'm a full stack there sort of, but uh, but main focus is react next Along those lines.

Bekah: 17:22

And then you're experimenting with all of these different technologies on your side projects, is that just to kind of like break it up or just you're going where your interest is? Um, is it something like, do you ever think, well, maybe I don't wanna do React anymore. I would rather pivot to one of these other technologies that I've been working with.

Rafi: 17:42

Uh, I don't know. Like, I mean, I. I really don't think about it like that. It's more along the lines of just doing it. So like one time I actually wanted to learn Ruby on Rails because like, you know, like one of my friend was trying to learn it, so I like, cool, let's learn together. But then, uh, I actually am pretty bad at tutorials. Like if I, I can't like, sit through any tutorial, like more than an hour. It's, it's just like, uh, it's very, what do you call, very tiring. So what I did was, um, I guess like the dev two rapport, right? So that is, I guess, built on, um, Ruby on Rails. So like figure out some issues that they had started contributing to it. Just learning enough to do those issues just for fun and keep going on. And after a while I had enough knowledge to actually like, you know, do something on my own. Again, there was no any goal in mind. It's just like, no, and not just do it for fun.

Bekah: 18:49

Oh, I love that. And I think open source is a really great way to experiment with that. Like to already dive into an existing code base and kind of see what's going on there, um, and learn from that experience and then like, hey, you've accomplished something in the end. Um, so side projects are a great way to do that, but open source is too. you know, as you are experimenting with all these different things and as a React developer, so I think you have like a pretty good grasp of what's going on in the tech world out there. What are the things that you're most excited about?

Rafi: 19:23

are the things that I'm more, most excited about? Um, you mean in terms of specific tech or is it like a general thing that you're talking about?

Bekah: 19:33

Yeah, I would say in in tech.

Rafi: 19:37

ah, like, I mean, uh, So there's a lot of stuff that is happening around ai, I guess. But, um, there's a lot of, uh, stuff that people are doing, you know, the AI on the cloud and so on and on, but I'm pretty excited about on device ais, uh, as in like, you know, things that can actually work on your phone or on your laptop, but then it doesn't have to connect to the server. Um, that seems pretty interesting actually. I. It could actually do, I mean, it could actually do a lot, uh, than like what your traditional ais could do. And of course you could also build things with that. No, with half the cost of it.

Dan: 20:23

So have you, how much have you dug in to the a i s stuff with your, with, you know, with, with work stuff?

Rafi: 20:31

Uh, you mean in, in the work or like in the side hustle? I mean, I've been

Dan: 20:35

Oh, I guess either, I guess either, you know, like anything you've actually dug into.

Rafi: 20:39

I've been trying out a couple of, uh, things actually. Uh, I mean, I did first try to run like a couple of models locally on my, uh, system. It kind of work. Then I tried to run, uh, you know, like the model on my iPhone so that it can actually run there offline. I mean, it is okay-ish, but then, I mean, it can be better. Uh, yeah, I mean like basically trying to, uh, get things running on the phone like properly. Uh, I mean, kind of experimenting with it. Nothing much other than that.

Dan: 21:17

It's, I mean, it, it's an area, obviously lots of people are interested in it, or at least paying attention to it, you know? Um, and as a developer, it's, it's always cool to hear about developers kind of thinking about this sort of thing and, and starting to use AI tools and, and ai, I don't know, pack, whatever you wanna call it, um, in their, in their workflow. Um, have you messed around with. Using AI like, like, uh, copilot or any like AI developer helping tools.

Rafi: 21:45

Yeah, I mean, um, so like the other day I had to, I mean, I wanted like a small app. You know, that does something right. Um, but I couldn't find anything, you know, on the store. But I. Um, it's been like pretty long time that I've actually touched anything react native or swift or anything. So I wasn't like, I mean, I do, do I have to go back to the docs and read it? Like that's, that's a lot of work. Like, there's so much I have to, so much that has changed since I, you know, last checked it. So,

Dan: 22:17

Oh yeah.

Rafi: 22:18

so I decided to basically, you know, um, I use whatever I know, like the patterns that I know and kind of. Got help of like a little bit of chat G PD here and there and kind of hacked together something quickly for myself. That was interesting. It actually, I guess, serves as a, like a way to easily move across different spaces that you are actually not comfortable with or like you haven't touched in a while. Uh, that seems interesting though.

Dan: 22:53

I mean, that's, that's, I feel like a, um, a good use of, of AI tools with, you know, with regards to, to being a developer. And lots of times that I, I, like, I have copilot on, in, in VS. Code, right? It's like, or Microsoft's, you know, whatever. And I use, I forget about it a lot, right? I mean, it does a little like insertions and stuff that I, that I'll. Sometimes accept and sometimes ignore, but, um, there's, there's so much more that it can do. And, and same with, you know, chat G p T. You can just, I mean, it has similar, you know, model stuff. Um, and that idea of translating from one language to another or one framework to another, I think is, I think is one that, uh, is, is where an area where, um, AI tools can help a lot. And I think, I think that's like a really cool. That that was your first go? 'cause I think I would, I've just forgotten about it again. And did either, did what you said, like go back to the docs and start just reading this tutorials again. Or, you know, give up and decide not to do it. Um, and it, and I, I think that's cool and I think that, um, your, it sounds like your nature is to just kind of dive in and, and keep moving forward and, you know, find ways to, to keep working. And I think that's really neat to hear.

Rafi: 24:07

Yeah. Yeah. I, I hate like reading through, uh, tutorials and so on, and then all the theory and then like figure out, hey, this is how you place a button. Uh,

Dan: 24:21

Exactly. I I can't stand it. I I, I'm always trying to jump ahead and then, you know, when you do jump ahead, this is like, not, not with AI tools, but like just in general, you know, I jump ahead and then like I'm banging my head against the wall on something and then I realize like it was. Just something that they noted in the tutorial that I just skipped over that happens to me a lot is, you know, like refuse to read the directions and then get mad because I can't figure out how to do a thing, you know?

Bekah: 24:50

It is hard to, I know that there are some people out there that. Say like, oh chat, G P T and AI tools aren't always up to date. And they don't always tell you the right things, but like docs aren't always up to date. Tutorials are not always up to date. Right. And we talked a little bit about this with I think Josh and his episode of, Hey, like sometimes things go outta date and, and the writers not updating their blog posts can impact people who are using those tools. But you know, I think that it, it. All goes to say that. It's important to understand what you're working on and being able to make those decisions and recognize that like, hey, that's not foolproof 100% of the time. You still have to know what you're doing. And I think that's one of like the biggest arguments about people. Uh, I hear for using AI for coding, things like, oh, well you're, you don't know what you're doing. Well, you know, you have to know what you're doing at some point, or you are gonna be making mistakes and it's not going to work out. So can you dig in Rafael a little bit more to how you use chat G P T? Like what kind of things were you asking it as you were working through that project?

Rafi: 26:03

Uh, I mean like basically, I mean, since I know certain concepts and react. Um, I actually wanted to try out Swift for that particular app. I mean, why not of the, of all possible things. So like, it's more along the lines of mapping, um, a concept in X and react to like concept Y and Swift. For example, let's say you wanna maintain a state, uh, let's say you will probably use U State in React. So what do you do in Swift? Like, I guess these tools are pretty good at granular level. Like if you give it like very specific problem like that, it can like exactly translate to, you know, something else. I think they are pretty good at that, but of course, like you can't give it the whole thing. It'll probably give something completely out of place.

Bekah: 26:56

I really like that idea. So it's not necessarily writing code for you, but helping you to figure out, um, Okay, this is what I know and how does this translate to something else?

Rafi: 27:08

Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Yes.

Dan: 27:11

One thing to Have you ever run into it being wrong or out of date or

Rafi: 27:17

No, definitely, definitely. Uh, there's a lot of cases where, uh, it's, it's just plain out wrong. But then, I mean, that's why people are there. Like when it's plain out wrong, you, I. Try it. Of course it won't work. So what you do, you Google it or do something else other than the thing. So like you'll like, you'll eventually come across something that says that, Hey, you should introduce this. So that'll.

Dan: 27:43

Yeah, that's, that's, that's one. An area. And, and so I don't know, I, I've, I keep meaning to look into this, but you know, so the co-pilot versus Jet G P T, for instance, um, they use different models and Jet G P T is, and I'm sure you could find. The date on copilot. But you know, the chat g p t is very clear on what, like, when their model stopped learning, right? Like when their cutoff date was. And they have, different versions. And the version four, I think is the latest one that you can get access to. And even that one is what, a year old, at least at this point. Um, something like that. And I, I, I feel like, uh, when you are in, in our industry, especially like front end stuff, sometimes a year can make a, a large difference, uh, in, in things. And I'm not sure how much, like you were mentioning that you use this for, um, you know, react native for React native, you know, um, setup and it, that's, that's probably like

Rafi: 28:36

I'm familiar with just for trying out.

Dan: 28:39

Right, right, right, Yeah, yeah. Totally. And I like, I'm not like, and this. I think that's a great idea, but I, I was just wondering if you have any, like, I don't know, things you check or, or, or ways that you verify that what it did, aside from just looking at the screen and seeing it not working, you know, uh, is, is ways to check if things are accurate or not. Right. Um, that, to give you an example, um, you know, I, I do a lot of work in n jss and they released their like app router setup. Um, I mean, it became public. Recently, it's been in beta for a while. Um, and chat g PT knows nothing about it, you know, so anything you ask about, uh, ask Chat, g PT about next js, um, it's, it's producing old code and like, it probably works, but it's working on the old, the old system, you know? And so I wondered if you had any like, um, just instincts or, uh, Things that you check, you know, when you have it, generate some code for a new framework that you're maybe not familiar with to like, I don't know, do you like look at it and then compare it to something on the docs, or you just kind of like, if it works, you're good, you're you, you say good enough, and that's fine. If that's the answer, you know, for, for, you know.

Rafi: 29:47

More along the lines of like, um, you check if it is working, of course, like you try to make it work with whatever, try to google enough to make it work, then like you'll end up with something that is working, but then it is utter garbage. Uh, like if, yeah, you don't know, like the language or that tool or something. And then like you go back and you read more about it. Saying that, Hey, uh, this is what I did. This is what I did. Like, how do you like refactor? Then you go back to the docs at that point because you, at this point, you have the dopamine hit to say that, hey, like what it did actually works. So like now you go back like, so you will have enough motivation to go back and read the docs or do anything else.

Dan: 30:27

I like that it's just, Uh, it's always, I dunno, this whole thing is very interesting. The AI stuff, I feel like it's, it's so fresh and, and potentially powerful. You know, it's, it's good to hear people talking about it and, and not being just afraid of it. You know? You know what I.

Bekah: 30:43

Yeah, I know that there are companies out there that ban the. Use of it for their developers. And so then you really are limited to what your side projects are. And I, I understand like the hesitancy to incorporate it, but I think that, um, with the increased efficiency and productivity that you can have, that it's something that's worth like really evaluating pretty quickly. Um, I don't know. Rafi, do you use it for work and side projects or just mostly when you're working on these side projects?

Rafi: 31:15

I mean, uh, I do use it a lot inside projects because like in work it's mostly like reading the code and doing things like, uh, what do you call The things that you do are like, you don't. Do some things, some completely random like this, right? You don't like decide on a date or, Hey, I'll try to do Swift or React native or something. It's like that is different than the thing that you like generally do in the work. So I mostly use it for the side projects, but sometimes if, if like if I try to explore something, I'll probably do it on the work.

Bekah: 31:53

Yeah, I think that's a really good approach. Um, it would be interesting to see that incorporated more into, um, blog posts or content that's out there. Like, Hey, how to get started using. AI to brainstorm or to navigate through some of these changes. And I know like sometimes if I don't necessarily know what's going on in a component, like I can look through that component, um, or I can ask Chad g p t to explain some things to me. Um, and actually I think that. Co-pilot will write information, or you can ask it questions now too. Um, just to get a quick overview of like, okay, this is what I'm looking at now I can dig in a little bit deeper. Um, to have that, to get you started. I think that, you know, it puts you ahead of where you would've been had you just jumped in by yourself.

Rafi: 32:45

Yeah, actually like, um, I've tried both co-pilot and, uh, charge G P T. I actually like the, the interaction of the charge g pt much better than the co-pilot because co-pilot just. Puts things on your face. I don't want it to want to complete, uh, like I just want it to leave me alone so that I can ask it, you know, when I actually want it, for it to, you know, answer something to me.

Dan: 33:11

Has I I, I totally agree with you and I, I think I've gotten used to it, you know, but, um, it, now it might be a beta still, but they have a copilot chat and so it's like you, in VS code, you can get a little window that. You can just, you know, you can chat with it as it, as you, you know, as people are used to with, with chat G p t, um, et cetera, which is kind of cool. But the, the, um, it's aware of your environment and things like that, I think. And so you can ask it questions that are maybe more specific without providing as much context as sometimes you need to do with, uh, with chat G P t, um, for, you know, for a specific question. Um, and so I think you can turn. I haven't tried this 'cause I'm kind, I'm kind of used to like the auto insert stuff, you know, but I know you can turn that off and I think that you, without turning the extension off, you know, so I think you can turn that off, but have the chat window, you know, enabled. Um, so it might be something to check out. I'm not, this isn't like sponsored, this isn't sponsored by Get over or anything like that. It's just, uh, you know, uh, might be, might be of interest to you. Um, if you wanna check it out in the.

Rafi: 34:16

Yeah, sure.

Bekah: 34:18

I just feel like, um, using VS code and co-pilot and all of the tools, I just haven't got a good feel for how to utilize them. To get, like, I don't know, the, the built-in the UI I guess for me is it's overwhelming. There's too much going on in VS code and makes it much easier to navigate things with chat G P T. But definitely like having that access to your code base makes it, um, super useful.

Dan: 34:51

Yeah. No, I mean it's all, this whole thing is just so, it's so new. It, you know, I feel like in a couple years it's all gonna look totally different anyway, you know? Um,

Rafi: 35:00

I think the FA will die off and after the fad dies off, the actual thing stays. It's like the night internet where there's like internet. You people said internet will do like so much things, but then it turned out to be very thing, something very different, so,

Dan: 35:15

Right. Different but essential. Right. Yeah, it totally, I, I totally agree with that. I, the, when everybody's excited about it and, you know, brainstorming all this stuff, it's, you know, it's like a, it reminds me I was, I actually had this thought, um, I don't know, at some point in the past, recent past, but um, in the fifties and sixties, there was all of this like stuff about nuclear power, you know? And, you know, oh, every, every family is going to have a reactor in their living room. And you know, like all of this stuff, you know, you know what I mean? And because like most people didn't quite know, and the science hadn't gotten far enough to really understand what was going on either. Um, and then everything calmed down and now there's like, you know, specific usage of it and. And, and also all the other stuff that doesn't make sense is just falling away. And we've stopped even worrying, you know, worrying about it. So, I dunno, it's a not very well thought out, uh, you know, analogy.

Bekah: 36:09

Think is interesting too. I mean, even if you look at web three, web three was super big in the last couple years, and I saw, hmm. I don't know where I saw it and whether or not this is a reliable resource, but they said something like, um, With all of the stuff that's happened with AI recently, there have been, um, like a huge number of new products and companies built with AI in the same way that of Web three, you know, there's like this big boom of Web three companies, except the differences, the drop off for AI companies is much steeper and much quicker than Web three stuff is. And I, I don't know if that. That they provided context or if it was because like, okay, now there's tons of these companies, but also AI is progressing so quickly. So, you know, people were building, uh, UIs for chat, G P T essentially, and then everybody was building them, or it was already out there in some way. But it's in, it will be interesting to see, okay, like what does end up sticking? Like what are we, what is ahead even a year from now? And we even see, companies like tech companies incorporating AI into their products, right? Um, whether that's to ask questions. About their documentation, write their documentation to help developers write their PR descriptions, that kind of thing. So there's all of these little ways that it's being incorporated. That I wonder too, like in a year from now, are we gonna take these things for granted? Is this something that we're going to put into our workflow? Or is there enough skepticism out there that it's gonna take longer than that?

Rafi: 37:51

Hmm. I mean, like, I guess like even if AI or all these new tools, you know, become part of the workflow, like there'll be like all these, these standard. Things, right? Your, uh, I don't know, the dot nets and Java of the world, like those things will always be there and like 30 years from now and like when, like everyone is talking about the, I don't know, like hundred hype thing, uh, this whole thing will always be running, I guess.

Dan: 38:23

It's, it's good to remember, you know, and I, and I feel like some of that stuff is, it's not exciting, you know, but it is. It's just like you said, it's always, it's always there. It's always going to be there. And some companies, you know, well, like if a thing has been around for 20 years, it makes it more attractive to companies that want the stability and the dependent, you know, dependability, I suppose, of those sorts of systems. Um, less exciting for side projects and things like that. But,

Rafi: 38:47

Yeah.

Bekah: 38:51

Well, I mean, we still have these, um, side projects and the technology that are, that we're not using. So, um, in your day-to-day work, what technologies are you using?

Rafi: 39:02

I mean mostly next. Um, and little bit of Python here and there, but mostly next.

Bekah: 39:10

And Nexus had a lot of changes in the last couple years too. Um, what do you, how do you feel about that?

Rafi: 39:18

Uh, I mean like, do you need like an opinionated opinion or like opinion? So, I actually don't like the app thing at all. Um, I mean, un until it becomes good enough, because the dev time, especially like for a huge project, when you clone it and you know, run it, it, it is actually not great. Uh, but the rest of it is actually good. Um, the whole, uh, you know, I guess next recently launched their own database thing. Um,

Bekah: 39:50

Okay.

Rafi: 39:51

I guess. A couple of Postgres, I mean, virtual launch, their own Postgres support. Uh, I guess there were like a lot of things that they did, uh, in the serverless space, which is actually interesting. But usually, um, the only reason I tend to go with the next, uh, for most projects, if I'm doing React, I mean, or anything even in my side projects, is because it, you know, it's, it's less stuff for me to think about. It's like, I can just do it and if I really anyway, want to explore whatever, I will do it anyway. But if I really want to do the side project for the sake of side project, like for the sake of the idea or whatever, I'll just do with, you know, go with the next or whatever tools that I'm familiar with.

Dan: 40:33

I think that's important to do that because you're trying to concentrate on the thing that you're trying to do, right? And so anything that you can get out of the way of your main idea, you know, is going to be good. Uh, and I agree. Next, next is a. There's so much stuff that it does for you that you don't have to think about anymore. You know? And if that's not, like, if the way that something is generated on a server is not the thing that you're caring about at that moment, then might as well not think about it at all. Right? Uh,

Rafi: 40:59

Yeah.

Dan: 40:59

hopefully never have to think about webpac in my entire life again. That's the dream anyway.

Rafi: 41:07

Yeah, I, I actually forgot about Webpac, even though I've been using it for a very long, like it's

Dan: 41:11

Isn't that so nice?

Rafi: 41:13

all these.

Dan: 41:16

Pec, good and valuable and important tool that, uh, I never want to think about or see ever again in my life.

Bekah: 41:25

So, uh, with all of your career, so you've been in tech for a while now. Um, are there anything, have there been any technologies or approaches to things that we've left behind that you're happy that you don't have to deal with anymore? Like web tech?

Rafi: 41:41

Uh, there's a lot of it. Uh, Ever since, like when I started with Angular one, um, you had this, you know, binding thing going on where like an angular one, like, you know, whether if you wanna make something change when some model is change and so on, like that was very pretty painful. It's a nice concept, but then like when you actually do it on scale, it's pretty painful. Uh, yeah. Glad that is actually done for once and for all. I also got to work with jQuery a couple of times, even though jQuery is nice, A small scale. Yeah. When you like do it in a little bit, medioc, medium sized project, it's, it's, it's very painful. Uh, like if, if you have to keep track of everything and do things with it, but yeah. I've never interacted with Jake very for a very long time. Glad I didn't.

Dan: 42:38

Yeah, jQuery. jQuery is, is a great example of this sort of thing that we've been talking about where it, it changed everything when it came out, um, because things, you know, and I, and I think you were developing before jQuery was, but I definitely was, you know, and like writing JavaScript and trying. Do a lot of this stuff. And it was, it was like groundbreaking, you know, the, the things that it would let you do and you could do all this stuff, but it was huge pain, right? And so it made things that were pain easy and then that let you, and let other developers think about harder things, you know? And that's how we ended up with like the mess. And that's why everybody hates jQuery. But you know, they like, they. Don't hate it, but like, you know, uh, because you come across a site that was trying to do a ton because Jake Ware let you do all this, you know, it made a lot of the s like the pain, the things easier and so freed you up to try to do more. And then Jake Warrior wasn't set up for that, right? It was set up for solving those initial problems, the base level problems. So, um, yeah, I agree. I mean, like, I agree. It's nice to not have to worry about jQuery. Um, And also like the browsers built in a lot of the tools that jQuery did for you. Now, you know, they, they actually were inspired by jQuery, which is cool too. But yeah, jQuery don't wanna, don't really wanna mess with sites that have jQuery going either. with you.

Bekah: 43:53

Rafi, we wanna thank you for being here with us today. We appreciate you spending this time with us. Um, are there any last things that you want to share with our listeners or maybe something cool that you want to shout out?

Rafi: 44:09

Hmm. Yeah, I mean the whole, uh, I mean, I, I would definitely shout out for the whole BC community, um, like, I mean, it's actually, I. One of the places in internet, like, I mean, that is actually what you call, where people are actually not screaming at each other. So yeah, like definitely shouted to the whole VC community. But yeah, uh, I guess nothing else, but yeah. Thank you for having me too.

Bekah: 44:36

Awesome. Thanks so much. We, we really appreciate that we try and keep it a welcoming space, so we're really glad to have you here as part of that.

Dan: 44:43

All right. Thanks Rafi. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Virtual Coffee Podcast. This episode was produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hawrot Weigel, and edited by Ashley Mulder. If you have questions or comments, you can hit us up on Twitter @VirtualCoffeeIO or email us at podcast@virtualcoffee.io. You can find the show notes, sign up for the newsletter, buy some VC merch, and check out all of our other resources on our website, virtualcoffee.io. If you're interested in sponsoring virtual Coffee, you can find out more information on our website at virtualcoffee.io/sponsorship. Please subscribe to our podcast and be sure to leave us a review. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.

The Virtual Coffee Podcast is produced by Dan Ott and Bekah Hawrot Weigel and edited by Dan Ott.