Frontend Feud: React Advanced Edition

Hello, and welcome to Frontend Feud. We are live at the React Advanced after-party. How are you all doing out there?

Lovely.

So good.

Really great.

Fantastic.

Super-good.

Excited!

We are excited as well. We’ve gathered together six amazing people to play Frontend Feud with us today. Let’s get to know our contestants. So we have two teams. Team one is Tara, Nick and Colby. Let’s start with Tara Manicsic. Nice to meet you, Tara. Thanks for joining us.

Very nice being here. I’m very excited… And it seems like I have the best team, so we’re off to a great start. [laughter]

Time will tell… Tara, to get to know you a little better, please tell everybody what is your favorite emoji.

Oh, it’s definitely the grimace. I don’t know what it’s actually called…

Same.

…but I make that face constantly, and it’s just like for every single thing that I awkwardly encounter. It’s always the grimace face.

Yeah.

So we do have the benefit of video with us today. Do you wanna give us a taste of what the grimace face looks like? [laughter]

Nailed it.

Awesome.

Perfect. Perfect.

Up next it’s JS Party regular, Nick Nisi. What’s up, Nick?

Hoy-hoy! Happy to be here.

Happy to have you as well. Nick, what is the strangest thing in your fridge?

Um, liquid aminos maybe right now… Which is a substitute for soy sauce. [laughter]

Okay… Never heard of it, so I guess it’s strange…

I hear ya. I’m with you on that one.

Alright.

It’s good stuff, yeah.

Rounding out team one, it’s Colby Fayock. Colby, would you rather be a fish or a bird?

I’d say probably a fish, so I can see all the cool stuff underneath the water.

Good answer, good answer. That’s team one. Team two, starting off with Brandon Dail. Brandon, thanks for joining the show.

Thank you for having me.

[04:13] And Brandon, the people really wanna know - how many tabs do you have open.

Um, like in the window that I have opened right now, or the dozens of other windows that I have?

The aggregate. Aggregate them for us.

Okay. 50 probably.

50. Not too bad.

Yeah, that seems pretty good.

We also have Yuraima Estevez. Hey, Yuraima, thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be here!

We’re happy to have you. We’d like to know, would you prefer a bicycle, a tricycle, a unicycle, or just a plain old sickle?

I mean, I play a lot of Stardew Valley, so I think a plain sickle is for me.

Alright. Awesome choice. And last but surely not least on team two it’s Michael Chan. What’s up, Michael?

What’s up?! Good to see you.

Good to see you again. And - curious… What’s your favorite text abbreviation?

Text abbreviation?

Yeah, you know, lgtm, iirc, brb, afk, wtf… The usual.

You’ve just rattled off a bunch of them. Um, I mean, favorite’s gotta be wtf, but I use omg a lot, too… So between those two, I’m pretty well covered.

Awesome. Well, that’s our panel today. I’m Jerod Santo, I will be your host. We’re playing frontend feud. This is a game all about matching the audience’s preference. So we have surveyed 100 JavaScript developers, and asked them various questions about React, about JavaScript, about development, about life… And aggregated the survey responses. The two teams are gonna try to do the best job of matching the most popular responses from the JavaScript developers who were interviewed.

What is the sample pool? Is it like – are we thinking like React advanced already, so are we skewing towards React, or…?

Yes. So we sent the survey specifically to the React advanced attendees, and then we branched out from there; we went from there to JS Party listeners, and then to the general Twitter people, and we’ve gotten a hundred great responses. So they’re all gonna be either React advanced folk and/or JS Party listeners, and then Twitter followers from there. So that’s your audience.

Okay.

Now, each round starts with a face-off, or an interface-off, if you prefer puns…

Yes…

…where one person from each team steps up and tries to guess the highest matched answer on the board. Whichever person gets the highest answer, their team wins that round and they get to play the rest of that board. You have three lives, so every time you guess a response that’s not on the board, you lose a live. After three lives lost, the other team can then confer and have one chance to steal all the points that are on the board, and take that round.

At the end of the game, whoever has the most points wins, and the winning team gets absolutely nothing… No, just kidding. [laughter] The winning team gets a chance to shout out anything they would like to shout out on the show to our audience. So that’s your –

Power. So any word? No, I’m just kidding. [laughter]

Yeah, just shout any random word.

You can then just yell at the end of the show.

Yeah, like “WTF!” would be a good one. So be thinking, if you win - maybe you have a favorite cause, maybe you have a developer you appreciate, maybe it’s a cool project, maybe you’ve got some wares you wanna sell… Whatever it is, good chance to shout it out. But you’ve gotta win first. Any questions about the game?

Alright, let’s play, shall we? We’ll start round one, and the two contestants facing off are gonna be Tara and Brandon. Please step right up.

Here we go…

Here we go, here we go, here we go!

The first question we asked one hundred JavaScript developers is to name a common file extension found in React apps. Tara, you will guess first. If you get the number one answer, you win the board. If you get anything that’s not number one, then Brandon will get a chance to guess.

Js.

Js.

Have you heard of that one? [laughter]

What is that again? Show me js. [win sound] The number three answer, with 13 responses…

[08:15] Three?!

…which means you did not get number one, and Brandon now has an opportunity to steal.

Oh, no…!

I’m gonna say jsx. Final answer.

Yeah…

Show us jsx. [win sound] But where does it fall? Oh, number one answer.

Ah…

So Brandon wins the interface-off, and team two takes the board. Team two, you will now rotate opportunities to guess. You cannot confer during this time, so you will be on your own to guess… And if you get the remaining two, then you get all the points. If not, three lives lost, and we’ll chance to steal. So we now go to Yuraima. Please, give us an answer.

I’m gonna say tsx.

Show us tsx… [win sound]

Yeah!

Number two answer, with 34 responses. You’re doing quite well. You have 1, 2 and 3 all knocked out, and there’s only one answer left. We go to Michael… What’s that number four response?

Tsx – I had that written down; that was the one I wanted to go with… So I guess I’m gonna go with .ts, round that out…

Let’s see if it’s on there… Show us .ts. [win sound]

Oh, yes!

That is correct. Very good. So without missing a single beat, you all just guessed the top four responses to the question “Name a common file extension.” I guess there’s only so many extensions out there… We have .jsx, .tsx, .js and .ts.

There’s no .mjs?

No… I’m sorry, Nick.

Wait, can you put jsx in a .ts file? Is that even allowed?

It’s a good question.

I don’t think so. I think TypeScript gets mad, because there’s some conflicting syntax…

But you probably have a lot of hooks.

Yeah. True.

There you go.

True. True. Fair.

So we award 92 points to team two. Award those points; very good. And we now move on to the next round, which is going to be Nick versus Yuraima. Step right up.

Okay.

We surveyed 100 JavaScript developers and we said “What is your favorite static site generator?” Now, team one went first last round, so we’ll go to team two. Yuraima, you get to guess first - what is your favorite static site generator? There are five responses on the board.

Okay. I like to think I speak for the people, and my favorite static site generator is Next.js, the static side of it.

There you go.

The static side of it.

The static half. There you go. That works.

Does the answer have a little star on there? [laughter]

Yeah. A little asterisk on there.

Let’s see if it’s on the board. Show us Next.js. [win sound] Number two answer, with 23 responses, so pretty good, but not at the top. So Nick, you do have a chance to take the board. What do you think people answered, their favorite static site generator?

You know, I am hoping that it’s number one, but let’s go with number Eleventy.

Show me Eleventy… [win sound] Number three.

Ooh. What’s number one…?

I know! I know.

So you’ve got a correct answer, but you’re actually lower, so team two once again gets to play this round. So we now go to Michael to name a static site generator.

Okay. Well, I was gonna guess Eleventy, because I love Eleventy, and I was just gonna guess it, because I like it… But I’m gonna go the opposite direction and guess Gatsby…

[12:01] How is that opposite? What are you trying to say? [laughter]

Oh, I mean… [laughter]

Let’s see if that opposite direction paid off. Show us Gatsby… [win sound] It sure did. And it’s the number one answer, with 33 responses.

Yes!

So of the five responses on the board, we have numbers one through three taken, Gatsby.js with 33, Next.js with 23, Eleventy with 11. There’s still two answers on the board, and now we go to Brandon.

Those are all the ones that I know. This is tough.

Yeah.

It gets harder from here, doesn’t it?

Is Hugo one? Am I thinking if the right thing?

Yeah.

If that is one of them, then that’s my guess.

Alright, show us Hugo. [fail sound] Oooh…

First wrong answer.

First wrong answer.

I liked the preface on that, “If that is one, that’s my guess.” [laughter]

It was a conditional one.

So we now lost one life, and we’re back at Yuraima.

Oh, man, I also don’t really know… I’m gonna go default. Plain old HTML, I guess.

So human static site generator. I like that. [laughter]

Pioneer.

Yeah, the old trick question. “My favorite generator is no generator.” I guess “Show me no generator…” [win sound] What?!

What?!

No way…!

Seven people.

Wow. Well played.

Well played. Seven people said “None” or “Handwritten”, or “Plain old HTML.”

Bravo!

Wow…

Amazing.

Anybody out there just rocking HTML for their content sites?

It’s not even number five. That’s incredible.

Nope, number four. We still have one more out there. You have two lives left; you’ve lost one life… Or have you lost two lives? Remind me. Brandon missed. Did Michael miss?

Just one.

Yeah, just Brandon. So you have two lives left, and we’re on Michael.

Oh, gosh… Okay. I just have to go with – I don’t know, I’m kind of confused at this point; I’m just gonna go with where the hype is right now, and I’m gonna say Astro. There’s gotta be at least 2-3 people that said Astro.

Show us Astro. [fail sound]

Aww… Sorry, team.

I will say you’re partially correct, because two people did say Astro, but you have to get five or more to make the board. So it was stated, but it’s not on the board. There is something with five, we just have to find it. You have one guess left, and we are back to Brandon.

I mean, what’s less popular than nothing…? [laughter] So handwritten, I guess that would include hand-rolled… I don’t know. What is another one? I legitimately can’t think of one. I guess – this is a tough one. Maybe I’ll just say like Create React App. It’s not a static site generator, but… Maybe some people think of it.

Right… Remember that you’re not trying to get the correct answer, you’re trying to guess what people said. So you never know. Let’s see if it’s on there. Show us Create React App… [fail sound] Oh, I am sorry, but it did not quite make the list. It was mentioned one time, so somebody did say it.

Okay.

But that is three lives lost, which means team one now has the chance to steal the board. Team one, you can confer amongst yourselves, and discuss, and together pick one answer which will steal the board if it’s on there.

So I was thinking Gridsome or Nuxt…

I was thinking Jekyll.

I was originally thinking like SvelteKit.

Jekyll… I didn’t think about Jekyll.

Any thoughts on Svelte?

Nobody thinks of Jekyll… [laughter]

Probably not a good sign, Nick.

Yeah. [laughter]

Well, yeah, SvelteKit… Hm.

I could agree with going with that one.

Sure. [laughs]

[16:14] Colby, what are you thinking? You’ve been pretty quiet up there.

Yeah, I think SvelteKit is interesting. I honestly thought that was gonna be higher, because I thought it was kind of growing… But I don’t know.

Yeah, I thought Gridsome or Nuxt, but it’s more Vue-centric than React-centric, so…

Yeah…

Yeah, let’s roll the dice with SvelteKit…?

So far, team two has 74 points in this round.

I love how confident we are. [laughter]

The last item on the board is five points. So if this is correct, you’ll steal 79 points from team two and be right back in the game. Show us SvelteKit. [win sound] Hey-hey! That’s correct!

Yes! [applause]

Team one steals the round…

That one hurt.

…and all points…

This is how I do team projects in general; I have everybody do all the work and then I sweep right in there. [laughter]

Well played.

That cuts deep…

So after two rounds, we have a very close game. Team one with 79 points, and team two with 92 points. Let’s move now to the third round, which is an interface-off between Colby and Michael.

Let’s go!

Go Michael!

Team one gets to guess first. We asked 100 JS developers “Name a protocol that all web apps rely upon.” Colby, to you.

HTTPS?

Show us HTTPS. [win sound] Number two answer, with 16 responses.

Number two answer…?

Number two?!

That means number one is still out there, and can be taken by Michael if you can guess it.

I’m gonna go with HTTP, no S.

Oooh…! Despite the Letsencrypt folks’ best efforts… [laughter]

The web is still insecure…

Still a lot of sites out there using plain old HTTP… But is it the number one answer? Let’s find out. [win sound] It is. Overwhelmingly so, with 71 responses.

We’re so insecure…

I would have said HTTP as well…

Yeah, not HTTP/2.

I was trying to be too best practices… [laughter]

Right? So there are three responses on the board. You already have two. Team two is gonna play this board. We’re gonna go to Brandon. Remember, that third one is usually the trickiest, so we’ll see if you guys can make it before you lose all three lives.

We believe in you.

I’m gonna say – maybe there’s a few more low-level-minded folks; maybe TCP?

Show us TCP. [win sound] Oh my goodness, you drilled it!

Yes!!

Low-level-minded folks sounds like such an insult. [laughter]

You know, people who just think about TCP all the time.

Right. Five people said TCP/IP, even though those are two separate protocols, but let’s not pick a nit here… That’s correct, so yeah, you guys drilled it; this round was swept by team two, with lots of points available.

No one’s doing FTP anymore? Is that what I’m hearing?

FTP is dead. [laughter]

It appears that my scoreboard is busted; look at that, it says 179… That can’t be right for this round.

I mean, we’ll take it.

It’s rigged, it’s rigged.

We accept, we accept.

I call cahoots!

It’d be 71+16 – I mean, it has to be less than a hundred, because there’s only a hundred people surveyed… Ah, who coded this thing…?! So let me do a hard refresh real quick and see what happens. This might fix it. Team two… 71+16… Yaay, that’s much better!

There you go.

I might have to hard-refresh each round. We’ll see how this plays out. This is interesting. Alright, we’re gonna award those points to team two… And now they lead, after three rounds, with 184, team one pulling up their rear with 79 points… But don’t worry, there’s lots of game left to play.

We now move to round four, and our interface-off is between Tara and Brandon. Please step up. We surveyed 100 JavaScript developers and asked them to name a character trait that many successful developers have in common. There are five popular responses on the board. Brandon, you get to guess first.

I’m gonna go with curiosity.

Show us curiosity. [win sound] Number two answer, with 15 responses. So you’re quite high on the board, but not at the top. Tara, if you can steal it… Guess that number one response.

Part of me wants to be a smart aleck and say coding, but… [laughter]

But how many smart alecks are out there?

I know, but that is probably one top developer trait in itself. Um, so maybe – um, perseverance?

Show us perseverance. [win sound] So now you managed to pull it off. Number one answer

Oh, nice!

Wow. Okay.

I was a little nervous, since my job basically is me trying to know what developers are.

There you go.

I do developer experience for a living, so bleh

You must be good at your job.

What even are developers…?

I know… [laughter]

This covered a range of words: grit, persistence, perseverance, stubbornness… All those words are basically wrapped up in that response. So Tara has won the board for team one. There are three responses left. We have one and two taken, three, four and five are still available. We go to Nick. Name a character trait that many successful devs have in common.

I am out of ideas here… Is tired a character trait? [laughter]

Do you want me to test that one, or are you joking?

No, I’m joking… [laughter] Am I? Am I joking?

I know I’m tired, but am I joking…? [laughter]

Um… I’m going to say… Everything I think of falls into those two categories, so… Um…

[23:56] Just do your best, Nick…

Look inside yourself and say “What am I?”

Tired. [laughter]

Do you wanna test “tired”? I’ll test it for you. I have the tools at my disposal.

Yeah, test that one.

Okay, let’s see.

It’s only one incorrect…

Yeah. Show us “tired”. [fail sound] No, of course not. Because it’s not a characteristic trait. But it’s definitely a status…

It’s definitely what we all are, yeah.

Okay, so that’s Nick we have one lost life. Colby, it is your turn. What’s a character trait that many successful devs have in common?

Let’s go with creative.

Oooh…

Oooh… That one’s like – let’s see, should I fit that in or not?

I like it.

Show me creative. [win sound] Number four answer; that’s intelligent problem-solver, creative… People said “thinking outside the box”, so it’s all those kind of things. Right on the fringe of in there with intelligence, but we’ll include it. So that’s seven points. You now have numbers 1, 2 and 4. You’re missing 3 and 5. And we go back to Tara; you have one lice loft – one… I’m tired. [laughter] You have one life lost.

You are one life, yes. Would innovative fit in that intelligence problem-solving one?

Yes, I would say that’s grouped in.

Son of a gun. Okay. Does hardworking fit? Or that would be in persistence.

Yeah, I would group that one in as well.

Um… [laughs] Okay. Sorry, do I have a timer on me?

Well, if Nick is any indicator, no, you don’t. [laughter]

I mean – okay… So let’s see. Teamwork? Is teamwork in any of these that’s already there? I have to admit, this white font on yellow has hurt me a bit. I keep squinting at the words.

Teamwork is not currently listed on the board.

Teamwork? Collaboration? Yeah, teamwork/collaboration(ish).

Okay, that’s a good guess. Show us good collaborator.

You made the words better.

[fail sound] Sorry, but that was not one of the top five.

So we’re looking for 10x developers.

Is that saying something about successful developers? [laughter]

That’s what I was gonna say. Are we looking for 10x-ers here? Is that what is happening? [laughter]

So we have grit/persistence at number one, we’ve got curious and inquisitive at number two… At number four we have intelligence, problem-solving, thinking outside the box, being creative… We’re missing 3 and 5. You have two lost lives already. Colby, this is your last chance. Can you name another trait that is on the popular board?

Just to be clear, wasn’t it Nick who’s next? Or am I next?

No, you’re right, it’s Nick. My apologies.

I see what you did there. [laughter]

I was just trying to help your team out.

I don’t wanna be the one to blame…

Alright, Nick…

You’re feeding my imposter syndrome, and that was what I was gonna go with. They’re imposters.

Ah, show us imposter syndrome. [fail sound] That was definitely mentioned, but it did not score five or more points. So team two now has an opportunity to steal the board. You can confer amongst yourselves and decide; you have two opportunities. If you can match either number three or number five, you steal these points.

Oh, boy.

Okay, so is this quote about laziness being one of the characteristics of a developer? I’m kind of feeling like that’s one of those two, just because it’s such a popular

I’d +1 that.

Yeah. That’s worth a shot.

For sure.

Let’s do it.

[28:02] Show us laziness. [win sound]

Yes!

What?! [laughter]

Team two steals the round.

That’s what a successful developer is. He is lazy! [laughter]

Lazy, but not tired…

What is that saying about us? [laughter] I call my team a team of effective procrastinators, or successful procrastinators, functioning procrastinators…

Yes, high-functioning procrastinators. Love it. [laughter]

Are we gonna know what the other one was? I’m really curious.

Yes, I need to –

Oh, sorry.

I need to do this score here, because I hit the wrong button. Give me a second.

10x? It’s 10x, isn’t it?

Is it communication?

Oh, gosh…

Didn’t we already try that?

Nope. Wrong team. Right?

That’s right, team 2 stole it. Yeah. I definitely have a bug in here, and I’m trying to debug it as we go. So the number 3 answer, with 8 points, was –

Debugging should have been a trait.

…effective communicator.

Communicator, yeah

So who was that – was it Brandon that said that?

Yeah, that was gonna be my guess if I had another chance, so…

Yeah, that makes sense, that collaboration would fall into communicator…

Right, because that’d be like writing skills etc. Collaboration - you know, these things are related, but it’s tough to group them effectively. A couple of people – this is funny… So a couple of people said “humility”, and then one person said “incredibly good looks.” I thought that was a nice pairing, with humility… [laughter]

Clearly.

And then we did have a response that said “Complaining about HTML being a programming language or not.” So there’s your funny person trying to hop in there. [laughter] We’ll leave that one right on the table, and we now move to round five. Round five is gonna work differently than other rounds…

Oh. Okay…

This is what we call the inverted round. So instead of having a face-off, we’re going to have the teams rotate back and forth, guessing answers, and you’re trying to guess the lowest answers on the board. There are six popular answers, but the points get higher and higher the further down the board. So what we try to do is match things that are on the board, but not number one, two and three, because they’re worth less points.

So we asked 100 JS devs “Which day of the week do you get the most coding done?” and there are six answers on the board. Let’s go ahead and start with the losing team, which is team one, and we’ll start with Colby. Which day of the week do you get the most coding done? There are six potential answers.

So it has to be – because they’re six, and seven days, so it’s not the least, right? So the second-least… Let’s go with Saturday.

Show us Saturday. [fail sound] No, you managed to find the least…

So it’s not even on the board…

Dang…! [laughter] You over-succeeded, you overachieved there, Colby… [laughter]

Come on, isn’t that bonus points?

You’ve found the one day that didn’t even make it. Alright, we now go to team two. Let’s go to Michael, for a chance to score here. Pick a day of the week.

Okay, I’m gonna go with Friday – um… Friday.

Show us Friday. [win sound] Well played. Number five answer, which is 25 points. 11 people said Friday. It’s the second least popular that’s better than Saturday. [laughter] Alright, we go back now – let’s score those here… We go back to team one and Tara.

So I’ll go with Sunday.

Show us Sunday. [fail sound] The plot thickens…

What?!

What?!

[32:15] Sunday did not make the board, so neither Saturday, nor Sunday.

I guess these are people’s responses, right?

These are people’s responses.

So they don’t have to be – yeah.

We go back now to team two… [laughter]

And we know dates are hard, right?

Yeah, we struggle with these things. [laughter] Alright, back now to team two. Let’s go to Brandon.

Okay, so the weekend isn’t even on here. I guess I’m gonna go Monday.

Show us Monday. [win sound] Very good, right in the middle.

Oh, okay.

20 points awarded. You are fourth-highest response, with 12 responses. We’re gonna award those points to team two. We go back to team one, and now we’re on Nick.

Hm. So there are not days of the week, but other answers in here… [laughter] I’m gonna say meeting days.

Show us meeting days. [fail sound] I like that guess.

Hey, this team is consistent, I’ll tell you that. [laughter]

Thinking outside the box. Very creative; you’d be a good developer. [laughter] Alright, let’s go to Yuraima.

I feel like this round makes absolutely no sense in my mind anymore… I’m gonna go with Wednesday, because those are my no-meeting days, and I always have meetings on those days.

So which day of the week do you get the most coding done? The guess is Wednesday. Is it on the board? [win sound] It sure is. It’s the number two answer, meaning it’s only worth ten points… But yet, still points. So you’ll take it, right?

We’ll take it.

We award those to team two. We go back to team one… Colby’s turn, right?

Let’s go “weekend”.

Show us the weekend. [fail sound] [laughter] For a second there I felt like Daniel Craig on Saturday Night Live, when he says “Ladies and gentlemen… The weekend.”

It was a good guess though.

I liked it

Sorry, team one, you guys are thinking outside the box, you have creative answers, and you’re just striking out left and right… So team two tends to just pick days of the week, which is turning out to work pretty well. [laughter]

Let’s see if it plays out in the end.

And is it Michael’s turn now? I think so.

I think so. You called out my strategy, because I was just gonna play it safe again, and just pick another day of the week… I’m trying to figure out which one might be worth the most points. I don’t know… Let’s just go Thursday.

Show us Thursday. [win sound] Number three answer. It’s gonna get you 15 points.

I’m amazed at how coordinated the not-day-of-the-week is. This is amazing.

So team two scores 15 there. We go back to team one. Let me just draw a word picture for our listeners… We have six options on the board. Number one hasn’t been guessed, number six hasn’t been guessed. What has been guesses is Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, Friday. I’ll also tell you that Saturday and Sunday have also been guessed, as well as “weekend”… [laughter] So anything can happen at this point. And it’s Tara’s turn.

I mean, part of me wants to say “holiday”. [laughs] But I feel like I should also go against the grain of my team and guess an actual day. [laughter]

If you do, we’re gonna steal “holiday” and win.

Such a rebel, I know, I know… Um, let’s try Tuesday. Let’s see what happens there.

[36:15] Show us Tuesday. [win sound] Number one answer. 30 respondents find Tuesday to be when they get the most coding done, which puts it at only five points, because we’re inverted… But points nonetheless. We’ll award those to team one, and we’ll go back to team two. And Brandon is up… There’s only one last thing on the board. Are you gonna go for “holiday”? What’s gonna happen here?

So literally every actual day of the week is out… [laughter] I’m gonna maybe account for the self-deprecating answer here and say “no days”. None.

Oooh…!

Okay, very interesting.

Manager. [laughter]

Oh, let’s see if our JS devs said they’re productive no days… [fail sound]

So you know that Saturday and Sunday are supposed to be the strongest days, because the rest are weekdays…

Oooh…!

Oooh…! [laughter]

Well played.

Epic.

I believe we’re on Nick. Is that right, Nick? Are you ready for this?

Yeah… What else could there possibly be? [laughs] Wait, did somebody else guess holidays?

No, they just acted like they were gonna guess “holidays”, but they didn’t.

Okay.

And no one guessed Fri-yay… [laughter]

No one said Black Friday either, yeah…

Let’s do “holidays”, and hope that if Black Friday is the day, that it’s generic enough…

Show us “holidays”. [fail sound] Wow… This is a stumper. We’re back to Yuraima here… And almost everything that could be guessed has been guessed. [laughter]

Oh, man… Okay, so how many days are in a leap year? I’m doing those calculations in my head… [laughter]

Leap day?

Honestly, leap day might be it…

Is that your final answer?

…to try to get those smartasses out there. Yeah, leap day, let’s go for it.

Show us leap day.

We’re with you.

Yeah.

[fail sound]

I would have given that one for you. [laughter]

Well, in the sake of time, I will now provide a hint… And because team one is getting absolutely destroyed, I’ll provide it to Colby. I would suggest maybe pulling an inverted Brandon.

I was gonna guess that anyway, so every day.

Show us every day… [win sound] Oh, there it is! Worth 40 points.

You gave a hint, so you took my credit… [laughter]

Were you gonna guess that anyways?

I was, I was.

My bad, my bad. I should have given you a chance.

I looked at the nonsensical nature of every day being the day you get the most coding done. [laughter]

The most coding done, yes.

All day, every day.

On an anonymous survey. Like, yes, every single day. [laughter]

That is very programmer.

It totally is. Aren’t most devs supposed to be good at logic?

Every day is the most.

Yeah, exactly. [laughter]

Alright, so 30 points awarded to team one there. That ends our inverted round.

We now move to our final two rounds. These are worth double points, and the teams get to decide who does the face-off. So we will now go to round six, that’s worth double points. Team 1, who would you like to represent you in your face-off?

I say we stick with the luck of the Colby.

Okay, so Colby is on team 1. How about team 2? Who would like to face-off?

I nominate Michael. [laughter]

We have a nomination.

A quick draw nomination. I should have spoke sooner. [laughter]

There’s a nomination, a second, and a ool. So that’s official. Let’s move to round six. Gentlemen, step right up. We asked 100 JavaScript developers “What’s the first thing you do when your code doesn’t work right?” Since team 1 is trailing, we’ll let Colby guess first.

I feel like I could come up with a lot of smart answers for this, but console log.

Show us console log. [win sound] Number one answer…

Nice!

Wow…

…with 16 respondents, but it is the double round, so that is worth 32 points, and Michael doesn’t even get a chance, and your team takes the board. So you’re off to a good start in round 6. We now go to Tara. There are five answers. You’ve got number one, which means there’s four remaining. What is the first thing you do when your code doesn’t work right?

Is dev tools too broad? Like, inspect –

It’s a good question… I would say yes, too broad.

Too broad. But inspect the code with dev tools is also too broad? [laughter]

What are you trying to saying here?

Just trolling for the answer here

Yeah, yeah. You’ve gotta guess one at some point. [laughter]

This is my communicative debugging… [laughter]

You can guess that and find out.

That feels like a bait… What about running a debugger in code? It’s like, debug?

Debug. Final answer?

Yeah…

Show me debug. [win sound] Number four answer. Use the debugger. 11 respondents, worth 22 points. So you have one and four. Two, three and four remain. Nick, it is your turn.

Alright, so not the correct answer, but what the most people guessed. I’m gonna say “You run the code again.”

Refresh. [laughter]

Hard refresh.

Kind of like I did earlier, when I refreshed. Show us “Re-run the code.” [win sound]

[44:15] Yes!

Number two answer. This includes “Refresh the page” or “Re-run the code.” 15 respondents, which gives you 30 points. You’re raking up the points in this round.

I finally got one right. [laughter]

And you haven’t lost any lives yet.

We had total faith in you.

We’re back to Colby, and there’s two more things.

Check tests?

Yeah, are we talking about the lazy coders, or are we talking about –

Show me “check tests.” [fail sound]

I guess lazy coders… [laughter]

Checking tests did not make the cut. That’s your first life lost. Back to Tara.

So like part of me would want to say you rubber duck your co-workers, but we know from the first respondents that nobody works in teams and collaborates.

No. [laughter]

So that’s the physical rubber-duck, right?

Yes, yes… [laughs] So I guess I wanna go with the smart alecks and say something like cry… [laughter]

That was gonna be my guess…

Just sobbing at the computer… [laughter]

Yeah. Whine, cry, and sob, yes.

Show us cry. [win sound] Number three answer, which includes swearing, crying, or sighing. [laughter]

I like that more people cry that use the debugger. [laughter]

Well, it’s an order of operations thing, right? The first thing you do is cry. Then you reach for a debugger.

It’s a lot easier to start crying, yeah.

The five stages of debugging…

Exactly. [laughter] Yeah, is number five “All of the above”? [laughs]

Well, you do have numbers 1 through 4 correct; you’ve lost only one life, which means you have two guesses to get that tricky fifth slot… And is it now Nick’s turn…? Back to Nick.

Yeah. I’m going to say that you check out or revert.

Show us revert. [fail sound]

Aww… Because that’s the smart thing to do, huh? [laughs]

Sorry, that did not make the cut. We now go to Colby. You’re down to your last guess.

So I’m trying to decide – because I was gonna say “Delete the code.” But would “Delete the code” be too similar to revert? Because technically, they’re different, right?

I would just say they’re probably too close. You should fish elsewhere.

Well, thank you. [laughter] But keep fishing, yeah.

That was good fishing though…

Comment things out.

Show us comment things out. [fail sound]

Aww…

Yes! Is that us?

That is your third lost life, which means it’s now a chance to steal, team 2.

We know what it is, right?

What is it?

Oh, do we get to confer?

Such confidence…

Yeah, you can confer.

Oh, yeah.

Alright, we know that there’s people who said they write the most code every single day… [laughter] So are there people who would say that their code always works? [laughter]

Wow… I was thinking google “Stack Overflow”.

That’s more reasonable, yeah.

Yeah, that’s a good one.

Is that your final answer?

I’d go with googling, yeah. +1.

Yeah. Look it up.

Alright, show us “google it”, for the steal! [fail sound]

What?!

Aww…!

I’m sorry, team. I’m sorry.

I mean, that wasn’t really –

That means team 1 is awarded the points.

That was a good guess.

Maybe when they say that the most productive code - that’s where that falls into, is copying and pasting.

[48:03] I thought for sure – the whole time, I was like “Just don’t guess it, because we got this”, but wow. Wow. That’s rough.

It’s gotta be a smart aleck answer. This is gonna be where Sunday shows up. It’s just gonna be like “Sunday.” [laughter]

I will say, this is a somewhat obvious one, so I’m wondering if maybe somebody said it roundabout and I said it was wrong… But the number five response, with ten people stating it, was “Check the logs”, or “Check the error messages.”

I don’t think anybody said that…

Yeah, because that kind of falls in the dev tools –

When you said – I mean, debugging is kind of there; add a console log… But they specifically said “read the logs”, “read the error messages”, so I separated that one out. A couple of funny answers, when your code doesn’t work right - somebody said “Ship it to prod.” [laughter] So, I guess, don’t hire that person… [laughter] One person said “Listen to a podcast about it”, which we appreciate, but is that really gonna do any good? I don’t know. One funny one - do a casual desk flip… I thought “Okay…”

Casual…

Casual. You know, like, not the angry desk flip, but just like the –

Just smooth and easy…

It’s just two fingers? Yeah… [laughter]

A two-finger desk flip. [laughter] And then, of course, Brandon was on the right track, because two people said “My code always works.”

Wow.

Wow…

Those are the ones that also answered “lazy” is the best trait to have. [laughter]

For sure.

So after six rounds we have a tight race once again. The double points brought team 1 back. You have 272 points. Team 2 has 301 points… So it’s anybody’s game. We go into our final round… This is double the score, just like last time around. Once again, you get to pick your contestants for the interface-off. Team 1, who would you like?

Yuraima.

Oh, gosh.

If you’re okay with it.

I’ll do it. [laughter]

You got the quick-draw this time.

My team didn’t ask me that… [laughter]

Would you like to do it…? [laughter]

“Would you be our captain?” Alright, Tara and Yuraima, step right up. We will let Yuraima guess first this time.

I feel like we need to do the virtual handshake.

The virtual handshake, yes. Good luck, good luck.

[laughs]

Yuraima, please name one thing that React devs commonly argue about.

Oh… Functional versus class components.

Show us “functional versus class components.” [win sound] That was the number five answer, with six respondents, worth 12 points. That does mean that Tara gets a chance to guess.

I’m so nervous, because I’ve been out of the React realm for so long… But is it still a debate about where CSS goes?

We’re all still arguing about the same things… [laughter]

Show us “Where the CSS goes.” [win sound] Number three answer, CSS-in-JS, and other such things.

Oh…!

It was a good one. It’s like the Freudian stages of the React developer, and you get stuck in one for forever… [laughter]

So with that, Tara answered the higher response, so team one takes the board, and there are three responses still on the board - one, two and four. So we go to team one, and Nick, it is now your turn. Name one thing that React devs commonly argue about.

I’m gonna say the language, like TypeScript, JavaScript…

[51:59] I knew you would say that. Show us “TypeScript”. [win sound] Yes, of course, TypeScript vs. JavaScript. Number two answer, with 11 responses. Okay, the comeback continues. Colby, you have 1 in 4 open, and you have all three of your lives left. Name something that React devs argue about.

Hooks.

Show us hooks. [fail sound]

Whoa!

It was a good guess.

That one was definitely mentioned, but not five or more times. So that’s their first life lost. We go back to Tara.

I wanna be a smart aleck again and just say that they’re arguing against each other that React is the best framework ever… [laughter]

Like, how bestest it is?

Every day the most… [laughter]

Every day…

Gosh… I guess – I don’t know…

Well, you have two lives to live, so you could definitely just throw one out there and hope that you hit it.

Because then it’s going to me. I wouldn’t do that…

[laughs]

I have faith in both of you. [laughter]

I can’t keep it broad, like structured, like keeping stateful stuff separate, and structure, or like –

Yeah, that’d probably component style.

I always have the most broad answers… Yeah, and then naming conventions… Um, let’s see… I’m sorry, let’s say – I feel like there’s gotta be a smart aleck one in here… Like tabs versus spaces, or something ridiculous. Is syntax too broad, too?

Yes.

[laughs]

You mean the Syntax podcast? Way too broad…

Um… Okay, sorry. I wanna be the smart aleck and say that – let’s just say… Oh, gosh, I’m sorry…

Okay, you’ve said four of them, and they’re all worth guessing…

I don’t know why this is so stressful…

Just pick one of those.

Let’s say file naming conventions, like capitalizations and whatever.

Okay, show us “naming conventions”. [fail sound] Not quite. It definitely had a couple of mentions.

I thought that was a good one.

That was a good one. So you’re down to your last guess, and you’re down to Nick Nisi, and that’s never a great place to be, but here you are… [laughter]

This is where he was gonna shine. I don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s been waiting for his moment.

He drilled that TypeScript one. Nick lives for TypeScript answers.

Yeah. I have two guesses, but I don’t know which one is better given the respondent audience.

Mm-hm…

I will say state management.

Show us state management… [win sound] Number one answer…!

Yes! [applause]

Right when I disrespect you, you just step up to the plate. [laughter] Well played, sir.

Just do that more, Jerod. Every time he goes to answer.

He had to prove you wrong. [laughter]

Well, we’re back to Colby…

If you have that other answer, I’ll take that… [laughter]

Colby, you have one life to live…

Let’s go with performance.

This will be for the winning of the entire game… Show us “performance”. [fail sound] I’m sorry, it was not on the list, which means team 2 has a chance to steal. There is one answer left, number four. Team 2 can confer amongst yourselves. What’s one thing that React devs commonly argue about?

What are some things you’re thinking? Just shout them out.

File structure.

JSX? Some people don’t like –

JSX…

That is a good one. Yeah, I was thinking like suffixes too, like we were talking about earlier… Linting also too, I was thinking about… Like linting rules and whatnot.

[56:17] Go super-broad and say Facebook. [laughter]

Yeah, like licensing?

That’s actually a pretty good point.

Yeah, that’s great.

I mean, do React devs even argue that much? Is that really a thing?

Never. [laughter]

We don’t get along…

Not ever…

I really do like the idea of governance. That is a really interesting concept. You know, like the Facebook relationship. There’s a bunch of licensing stuff… That’s tough. I don’t know. I could go any one of these ways.

What are you thinking, Brandon?

I mean, I think the licensing stuff is maybe not like a popular point of contention for most people… And when they re-licensed years ago, it’s kind of faded. I don’t know, I could do linting, we could do – I think JSX is just very controversial, so I think there’ll always be people who are talking about it… But gosh, I don’t know.

Jerod has such a good poker face, too. I get no…

I will remind you, the game is on the line…

Yeah, this is really heavy.

Yeah, I’m just enjoying the drama…

I think Tara had guessed file structure, or something along that vein; probably something close enough. Or someone on team one…

She landed on naming conventions.

Naming conventions.

Oh, naming conventions.

I really love how analytical you’re being with the notes… [laughter]

Yeah, Michael really has notes that he’s reading from.

He’s got a whole flow chart over there… [laughter] He’s looked up our backgrounds, he has a whole –

Yeah, just red string connecting theories together… [laughter] I do like – if we think it’s different enough, I do like the file system organization, if we think it’s different enough.

They feel close to me, but…

They do feel close.

Close, yeah.

Do you have any others?

Well, I feel like that was a hint.

No, I just wanna know. [laughter] Well, I did give Tara and Colby some pretty sweet hints throughout, so…

He just confirmed it’s a hint…

Maybe a little bit of a bone there. Yeah, I think those two are pretty close together.

Okay.

Routing? I don’t know. I guess React Router is pretty much the answer, but… We’ll still argue about it

Um, testing library? Ways to test…?

Yeah, the whole Enzyme React testing library… Yeah, that could be there. I wonder if there’s like a React/React Native… I don’t know. I’m at a loss. The stakes are too high; I’m freaking out.

They’re so high.

Our shout-outs are on the line here. [laughter]

This is true. [laughs]

I need this!

It’s such a good guess…

Alright, we’re gonna have to land somewhere…

Alright, does anyone have any strong feelings towards one of those? I’m so in the middle…

Testing feels like a safe potential answer…

Testing feels safe(ish).

Yeah, I like that. Let’s print it. Ship it.

Let’s just do it.

Ship it? Alright. Just to set the stage… The score is team one 272, team two 301. There are 82 points scored already this round, so whoever wins this round, wins… And if you steal this, you steal the entire round and all points. This is the number four answer. You guessed testing.

The suspense…

Is it on the board? Show us testing. [fail sound]

Aww!

Nooo!

Aww! [laughter]

I feel so bad for your sound editor, because my chair is really squeaky, and I’ve just been like [laughter]

[01:00:26.01] Unfortunately, I’m also our sound editor, so… I appreciate your empathy. Well, team one - congratulations. After all that, you win with 354 points.

The underdog [applause]

Wow…

It start with thievery. That’s how you win it. [laughter] That’s how you get ahead in life.

Great developers steal.

I had to be a little bit tickled as you guys were discussing these various steals, because it turns out Tara had landed on it, smart aleck style, earlier on, and then quickly dismissed it. The number four answer, “tabs versus spaces.”

Ooooh…! [laughs]

Aww, man….!

Oh, my gosh. That’s ridiculous.

Why is that still an argument? it’s obviously spaces.

Oh, wow. You went there. [laughter]

How much time do we have left?

Why don’t I introduce you to Nick Nisi? [laughter] …who will follow on the other side of that, and on the wrong side of the fence, every time.

Now you’ve just made it personal. It was a joke before, and now…! [laughter]

So team 1, you guys win. That means you get to do shout-outs. So all three of you each get an opportunity to shout-out anything that you would like. It cannot be TypeScript. Nick, you are up. What would you like to shout out?

Well, I already shouted out liquid aminos at the beginning, so… [laughter]

I prefer mine solid, but whatever…

[laughs] Let’s see… I’m going to shout out the…

Do you want us to come back?

Yeah, please.

Alright. Colby, give us a shout-out.

How about Tara start, so I can hear what the other people say first? [laughter]

Man, nobody even wants to shout out.

Yeah, I’m gonna be giving this to team two.

We’ll take ’em!

It’s like the worst prize ever. They’re like “I can’t think of anything!” Tara, do you have anything to shout out? It could be literally anything.

I have lots of things to shout out, but I will limit it to something productive… And go with one of my favorite things in the world right now - it’s our podcast, for all you podcast fans out there. It’s called Remotely Interesting. Remotelyinteresting.netlify.com. We basically make complete fools of ourselves and have a good time doing it, and laugh a lot, and it’s kind of ridiculous. But I highly recommend checking it out, for all you lazy devs out there.

Oh, yeah.

There you go. Good shout-out. Remotely Interesting. Well, she stalled as long as she could. Does either of you have a shout-out? [laughter]

Um… Colby? [laughter]

So much more…

Check me out on YouTube at @colbyfayock.

There you go.

Nice.

Thank you.

Nick would like to shout out tabs as a way of indenting. [laughter]

Because state management was the number one pick in the last round, I will say XState. I’m gonna shout out XState. It’s awesome. Go check it out.

And I will add my Amen to that by saying check out the episode that Nick did of JS Party on XState. It’s called “X gonna state it to you.” [laughter] Nick also came up with that name. And stick around to the end of that episode for a little bit of a Easter Egg, where you might get some DMX mixed in with some other interesting sounds. Alright, so –

Oh, my gosh…

So piling on to the shout-outs there, I wanna shout out to React Advanced for inviting us to play this game as part of the after-party. Hopefully, all of you had as much fun listening and participating as we had playing. Thank you to each and every person who took the survey. One of you will be receiving a free JS Party T-shirt, so we’ll follow up via email with that person. That means 99 of you will not win a JS Party T-shirt, but have no fear, you can always head to jsparty.fm/merch and just pick one up for yourself. They are very comfy, and you can rep our podcast out there IRL, in the meet spaces.

I also just wanted to thank everybody for playing the game. This has been Frontend Feud. I have been Jerod Santo, and we’ll talk to y’all next time.

Thank you…!

Thanks, y’all.

Thanks this was fun!

Bye! [laughter]