Skip to main content
Headless { Creator Podcast }

Headless { Creator Podcast }

By Headless Creator

Interviews with content creators, developers and other professionals who use a headless CMS for omni-channel content delivery. New episodes every Thursday.
Available on
Apple Podcasts Logo
Google Podcasts Logo
Overcast Logo
Pocket Casts Logo
RadioPublic Logo
Spotify Logo
Currently playing episode

E8 | A Conversation about Vue.JS | Robert Mion

Headless { Creator Podcast }May 31, 2020

00:00
36:21
E31 | A Conversation about Microcopy | Melissa Burfitt

E31 | A Conversation about Microcopy | Melissa Burfitt

In today’s episode, we talk all about Microcopy, what it is, why it’s important and how to manage it in a headless CMS, with my guest Melissa Burfitt, a Senior Content Designer at Nationwide Building Society.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • What kind of writing have you done in the past?
  • Define Microcopy.
  • What are design patterns?
  • What are design patterns based on?
  • What are some examples of microcopy beyond websites?
  • What about microcopy for iOT devices like Alexa?
  • What is the difference between a microcopy writer and UX writer?
  • Tell us about the team of microcopy writers?
  • Who comes up with the rules for Microcopy?
  • Define and giver an example of accessibility.
  • Tell us about the 2 types of error messages?
  • Describe the details of what an error message needs to accomplish?
  • How does personalization affect error messages?
  • Are field names microcopy?
  • How does a particular industry affect the microcopy?
  • What tips do you have about taxonomy and categories?
  • Tell us about form based content?
  • Are there specialized tools for microcopy testing?
  • Tell us how you monitor and refine content post live?
  • How do you maintain content?
  • What success criteria do you use for your KPIs?
  • Tell us about microcopy and mobile devices?
  • How important is the percerption of fast in the UX experience?
  • Who in the web team needs to understand microcopy?
  • How does a content author write with the brand voice in mind?
  • What other tips do you have for microcopy writers?
  • What resources do you recommend to keep up with microcopy?
Jan 11, 202137:35
E30 | A Conversation about Testing Web Apps and APIs | Diego Aguilar

E30 | A Conversation about Testing Web Apps and APIs | Diego Aguilar

In this episode I’ll be chatting all about testing web apps and APIs, with my guest Diego Aguilar, a software engineer focused on cloud development with Contentful, Javascript and AWS and other headless technologies.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • How did you get into headless technologies?
  • How is the market in Mexico for headless technologies?
  • Define code testing.
  • Tell us about the testing process and life cycle.
  • What are some requirements for testing?
  • When should tests be written and who should write them?
  • What is TDD?
  • What's the difference between a QA and tester?
  • What should and should not be tested in code?
  • What kinds of test can. a developer perform?
  • What are some common issues seen in test cases?
  • What are some of the common issues seen in API testing?
  • Can you give some examples of side effects in testing?
  • How does API testing differ from Web App testing?
  • Explain how to test a mobile app?
  • What is Lighthouse from Google?
  • How do you test headless CMS driven app?
  • Tell us about testing tools.
  • Are there tools focused on testing APIs?
  • How do you test integration with internal systems?
  • What is an assert?
  • What is a test runner?
  • Is there anything beyond test runners?
  • What is black box testing?
  • What is white box testing?
  • What is the difference between positive and negative testing?
  • What is regression testing?
  • Any final testing tips?
Jan 11, 202120:11
E29 | A Conversation about DevOps | Vic Phan

E29 | A Conversation about DevOps | Vic Phan

In today’s episode, I chat with Vic PHan, a DevOps engineer, all about DevOps, what it is and why you should know more about it.  We cover the methodologies of DevOps, what tools you should use and how companies can adopt a DevOps mentality.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • How did you get into DevOps?
  • What is DevOps?
  • How is DevOps different from Agile?
  • What should developers know about DevOps?
  • How is code checked?
  • What are some popular DevOps tools?
  • Why is AWS so popular with DevOps?
  • What are the phases of DevOps and the tools associated with them?
  • What are some of the benefits of DevOps?
  • What are some challenges with DevOps?
  • Why is security so important to DevOps?
  • Is DevOps only for cloud based companies?
  • How can companies implement DevOps?
  • What are some DevOps resources people can use to learn?
  • What is continuous integration?
  • What happens with code after it's checked into GIT?
  • What is continuous delivery?
  • What is continous deployment?
  • What is configuration management and its role in DevOps?
  • Give some examples of configuration management.
  • What is continuous monitoring?
  • What is circuit breaker methodology?
  • Is DevOps a.high preassure job?
  • What is infrastructure as code?
  • What is content as code?
  • What is the role of GIT in DevOps?
  • Are there other tools similar to GIT?
  • What is Jenkins and how is it used in DevOps?
  • What is Selenium and how is it used in DevOps?
  • What is Docker?
  • What are some continuous monitoring tools?
  • What are kubernetes?
  • What are some tips for someone trying to get into DevOps?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

  • Vic’s Twitter (https://twitter.com/vicphandevops)
Nov 13, 202024:12
E28 | A Conversation about Advanced CSS | Mark Ryba

E28 | A Conversation about Advanced CSS | Mark Ryba

In this episode we continue our conversation (started in Episode 27) all about advanced CSS techniques with my guest Mark Ryba, a senior developer at SmartBug Media with over 6 years of front end development experience in the marketing space.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • How does CSS work with Javascript?
  • What are style components?
  • Does CSS support variables or conditional statements?
  • What is a CSS pre-processor?
  • Do you need to compile CSS created with a pre-processor?
  • What are CSS post-processor?
  • Do you normally use CSS pre and. post processors?
  • What does BEM mean and do?
  • What is the CSS box model?
  • How are units handled in CSS?
  • Tell us about the position element.
  • Explain CSS selectors.
  • What are class selectors?
  • What are ID selectors?
  • What are CSS properties?
  • What are contextual selectors?
  • What are CSS sprites?
  • What are pseudo elements?
  • What are mixins?
  • What are vendor prefixes?
  • Should a developer use CSS animation or JS animation?
  • How do you delcare element states in CSS?
  • How do we optimize CSS performance?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

  • Mark on Twitter (https://twitter.com/markryba2nd)
  • Mark on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-ryba/)
  • SmartBug Media (https://www.smartbugmedia.com/)
Nov 02, 202027:07
E27 | A Conversation about CSS | Mark Ryba

E27 | A Conversation about CSS | Mark Ryba

In this episode, I chat all about CSS with my guest Mark Ryba, a senior developer at SmartBug Media who has over 6 years of front end development experience in the marketing space. In his current role he develops middleware microservices, websites and web applications.  He’s also very passionate about using advanced CSS techniques to create great user experiences.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • Define CSS.
  • Why is it called CSS?
  • What's the difference between inline, in file and external CSS?
  • What is the industry best practice when embedding versus external CSS?
  • Can CSS be used for Mobile and iOT devices as well as web?
  • Can CSS be used for animation?
  • What's the difference between plain CSS and a CSS framework?
  • Why do CSS Frameworks exist?
  • What is a grid system in CSS?
  • How does responsive design relate to CSS?
  • What's the float layout?
  • Tell us about Flexbox?
  • Tell us about the Foundation CSS framework?
  • Tell us about Tailwind.
  • Which browser supports which framework?
  • What is prefixing in CSS?
  • What happens to CSS that is not supported by a specific browser in that browser?
  • How do you debug CSS?
  • How do you keep up with the latest in CSS?
  • What do you love the most about CSS?
  • What do you find most challenging with CSS?
  • What would you like to see in CSS 4?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

  • SmartBug Media (https://www.smartbugmedia.com/)
  • Mark’s Twitter (https://twitter.com/markryba2nd)
  • HubSpot (https://www.hubspot.com/)
  • CodePen (https://codepen.io/)
  • CSS-Tricks (https://css-tricks.com/)
  • Bootstrap (https://getbootstrap.com/)
  • CanI Use (https://caniuse.com/)
  • BrowserStack (https://www.browserstack.com/)
Oct 12, 202036:31
E26 | A Conversation about iOS Development | Cyril Garcia

E26 | A Conversation about iOS Development | Cyril Garcia

In this episode, I have a conversation with my guest Cyril Garcia, an incoming iOS Engineer at Pandora Media, all about iOS development.  Learn what you need to know to get into iOS development, the difference between UIKIt and SwiftUI and much more!

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • How did you get into iOS app development?
  • What YouTubers helped you on your journey to becoming an iOS developer?
  • How many iOS apps have you developed so far?
  • What was your monetization model for your iOS apps?
  • Tell us about the iOS tech stack.
  • What's the difference between Objective C and Swift?
  • Is Swift the way to code iOS apps moving forward?
  • Tell us about Swift for server side coding?
  • Is Swift open source?
  • Tell us about XCode.
  • To develop iOS apps, do you need a Macintosh?
  • Tell us about UIKit.
  • Tell us about SwiftUI.
  • Is the future UIKit or SwiftUI?
  • Is UIKit more visual then code?
  • Someone starting today in iOS development, should they focus on UIKit or SwiftUI?
  • What version of iOS does SwiftUI requires?
  • Can you use Swift to write for all SDKs?
  • Can your Swift code be written once and published to multiple type of devices?
  • What are your thoughts about React Native and Flutter?
  • How can you get data from Contentful into an iOS app?
  • What's your relationship like with a designer of an iOS app?
  • For someone getting into iOS development today, what's the most important tip you can give them?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

  • Cy’s Twitter (https://twitter.com/_ByCyril)
  • Sean Allen YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/seanallen)
  • Paul Hudson YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmJi5RdDLgzvkl3Ly0DRMlQ)
  • Mark Moeykens YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChH6WbyYeX0INJjrK2-6WSg)
  • Swift.org (https://swift.org/)
Oct 05, 202026:15
E25 | Using the Atomic Design System to Build Scalable Web Apps | Juan-Manuel Fluxà

E25 | Using the Atomic Design System to Build Scalable Web Apps | Juan-Manuel Fluxà

In today’s episode, we focus on the Atomic Design System, what it is, how to use it and why it’s important for building scalable web apps with my guest Juan Manuel Flucha, the Chief Technology Officer and one of the co-founders of Reign, a software design and development company .

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • How large is the technology market in Chile?
  • How did you get involved with Contentful?
  • How big are headless technologies in Chile?
  • What is a design system?
  • Why are design systems important to web development?
  • Are there different company design systems or industry standard design systems?
  • Tell us about the Atomic Design System.
  • How is the Atomic Design System different then other design systems?
  • Who created the Atomic Design System?
  • What are the pieces that make up the Atomic Design System?
  • Can templates be reused?
  • What are the benefits of the Atomic Design System versus a regular design system?
  • How does the Atomic Design System take into consideration Mobile vs. Desktop?
  • Do you have molecules specific for each context?
  • How can we use the Atomic Design System for content modeling?
  • What are some of the tools available for creating Atomic Design Systems?
  • Tell us about PatternLab?
  • How does the Atomic Design System relate to the actual technology to implement it like React?
  • To support multiple languages, you would create multiple Atomic Design Systems, one for each language?
  • Does the Atomic Design System take localization into consideration?
  • How are Atomic Design Systems maintained?
  • What are patterns and pattern libraries?
  • What's the future hold for design systems and specifically, the Atomic Design System?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

  • Juan Manuel eMail (fluxa@reign.cl)
  • Juan Manuel’s Website (https://www.reign.cl/en/)
  • Google Material Design (https://material.io/design)
  • Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/)
  • Atomic Design System (https://bradfrost.com/blog/post/atomic-web-design/)
Sep 27, 202024:01
E24 | A Conversation about Search and Content Modeling | Kent So

E24 | A Conversation about Search and Content Modeling | Kent So

In today’s episode, I chat with Kent So, a product owner for site search at Rogers Wireless, one of Canada’s largest telco, all about Search, Contentful and Content Modeling.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • How did you get involved with Contentful?
  • Define search for us.
  • How can a company maintain good search quality?
  • What is recall?
  • What is relevancy?
  • What are some attributes that affect relevancy?
  • Tell us about curating rules?
  • How would entonation affect a search result?
  • What makes a good search experience?
  • What are some tips for shortening the search journey?
  • What is "type ahead" when it comes to search?
  • Tell us about personalized relavency and how is that different from regular relevancy?
  • How do you strike the balance of customer insights and invasion of privacy?
  • What is a "conversion"?
  • What is a "call deflection"?
  • How can a company use conversion and call deflection to improve their customer support?
  • What's the hit to the bottom line of call deflection?
  • How should search work with iOT devices like Alexa, Siri and others?
  • How does structured content help our content become discoverable?
  • Explain the relationship between search and content.
  • How can we merge multiple sources to display one set of results during a search?
  • What is an ETL process?
  • What is federated search?
  • Define taxonomy?
  • How can you use taxonomy to integrate multiple content sources for unified search results?
  • When creating your content model, how do you balance your author needs, your developer needs and your search needs?
  • Why use an indexing engine instead of going directly to the source, such as Contentful using their API?
  • What are some search engines developers should consider?
  • What are the best way to get content into a search engine?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Sep 21, 202038:46
E23 | A Conversation about TypeScript | Jeffrey Parrish

E23 | A Conversation about TypeScript | Jeffrey Parrish

In this episode, our conversation is focused on TypeScript, how it differs from JavaScript and how you can get started today coding it with my guest Jeffrey Parrish, a web applications developer who’s been creating web apps in JavaScript, NodeJS and TypeScript since 2006.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background
  • Do you consider yourself a full stack developer?
  • What do you enjoy the most, front end or back end development?
  • What front end framework are you using?
  • Does React, Angular and Vue support Typescript?
  • Define TypeScript for us.
  • What is a transpiler and how is it different than a compiler?
  • How do transpilers work?
  • What are the main differences between TypeScript and JavaScript?
  • Why does TypeScript exist?
  • Tell us about Intellisense and TypeScript.
  • What's the biggest benefit to using TypeScript?
  • Which IDEs support TypeScript?
  • Is there a trend of frameworks moving into TypeScript support?
  • Why is typing an important feature to have in JavaScript?
  • Does TypeScript help developers write code with less bugs?
  • Give us an example of typing error in TypeScript.
  • What is the "any" type in TypeScript?
  • Why does TypeScript offer the "any" type?
  • What is the "unknown" type?
  • What are type guards and how do you implement them?
  • What are some of the disadvantages of TypeScript?
  • What kind of things can you configure in a TypeScript configuration file?
  • Can you configure TypeScript to not accept the "any" type?
  • How do you configure TypeScript for both front end and back end development?
  • How can we get started with TypeScript?
  • What are components in TypeScript?
  • What are user defined types in TypeScript?
  • What are built in types in TypeScript?
  • What are mutation types?
  • Can you take a Javascript project and convert it into TypeScript?
  • How are variables created in TypeScript?
  • Is the best practice to strictly type a variable in TypeScript?
  • How are class modules different from components?
  • How is scope handled across modules and classes?
  • What are access modifiers?
  • What are generics?
  • What's the future of TypeScript holds in your opinion?
  • What would you like to see removed in future versions of TypeScript?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

  • Jeffrey’s Website (http://jeffreyparrish.net/)
  • NPM (https://www.npmjs.com/)
  • TypeScript (https://www.typescriptlang.org/)
  • RedMonk Index (https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2020/07/27/language-rankings-6-20/)
Sep 14, 202040:55
E22 | Image Formats and Contentful’s Image API | Allan White

E22 | Image Formats and Contentful’s Image API | Allan White

In today’s episode, we talk all about image formats, DAM integrations and how to manipulate images using the Contentful Image API with my guest Allen White, an interdisciplinary designer and developer who works at Contentful as a solutions engineer.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • Tell us about the different kind of image formats we should be concerned with.
  • Tell us about the JPEG compression.
  • Tell us about lossy versus lossless compression.
  • Tell us about the PNG image format.
  • Tell us about the WebP image format.
  • Tell us about the SVG image format.
  • How do you create SVGs? What tools can you use?
  • What are some challenges when working with SVGs?
  • How do you work with SVGs in Contentful?
  • How can you animate an SVG with Javascript?
  • How can you use the Contentful Image API to convert an SVG into another format?
  • How are RAW images different from all other formats for the web?
  • How can you make images responsive and what does that mean?
  • Tell us about Contentful's face detection feature in the Image API.
  • Can we have 1 master image and have the Contentful API generate the required images depending on the viewport?
  • Does the Contentful Image API cache images?
  • How and where are images stored in Contentful?
  • Give us an overview of the Contentful Images API.
  • Can you use the CPAPI or CDAPI to retrieve images?
  • Tell us about progressive JPEGs.
  • Tell us about 8 bit PNGs.
  • Tell us about GIFs.
  • Can we use the Contentful Image API on images not stored in Contentful?
  • How can we integrate Contentful with other DAMs?
  • Tell us about external image APIs.
  • What do you see as the future of Image APIs?
  • What is Lazy Loading of images?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Sep 07, 202035:34
E21 |  A Conversation about Localization and eCommerce | Diego LaManno

E21 | A Conversation about Localization and eCommerce | Diego LaManno

In today’s episode, I had a great conversation with Senior Web Developer at Ecobee, Diego LaManno, all about Localization, eCommerce Integration and Contentful.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background as a software developer.
  • What is your tech stack at Ecobee?
  • Where is the content in your iOT product stored in the back end?
  • Define localization.
  • How is localization different then personalization?
  • Can localization affect personalization?
  • How do you use localization on Ecobee's site?
  • For A/B testing, what tools do you use?
  • How does Contentful handle localization?
  • How does the Gatsby / Contentful plugin help you with localization?
  • Which specific locale are you using for the Ecobee site?
  • Does Contentful tie multiple languages to a particular country as a locale?
  • Can localization be controlled at the field level?
  • How do you access locales via Contentful's APIs?
  • How can you access locales via GraphQL?
  • How does the REST API handle localization?
  • How can we use Roles in Contentful to limit the author's ability to translate a particular language only?
  • How can you localize assets?
  • Did you create your own media content type or use the native one built into Contentful for localization?
  • Can branding be localized in Contentful and if so, how?
  • Tell us about your integration with Shopify and its localization capabilities.
  • Tell us how you used UI Extensions in Contentful to connect with your Shopify API.
  • How did you localize your actual products from Shopify?
  • How are emails, text messages, website messages and other types of messages handled in Contentful for different locales?
  • How do you handle user sessions across locales?
  • Do you allow users to switch locales on the website itself?
  • What's the most important thing to consider before embarking on localization?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Sep 04, 202039:16
E20 | A Conversation about Postman | Teemu Tammela

E20 | A Conversation about Postman | Teemu Tammela

In this episode, I’m chatting (for the 3rd time as my guest) with Teemu Tammela,  all about Postman, a collaboration platform for API development. Teemu is a Certified Contentful Professional, Contentful Partner and software developer from Finland.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background
  • How did you get into Contenttful?
  • What is Postman?
  • What's your primary use for Postman?
  • What are payloads in an API?
  • Why use Postman over 'curl' on the command line?
  • Tell us all about the different display modes in Postman.
  • How can you mitigate onboarding of new engineers using Postman?
  • Does Postman replace traditional code documentation?
  • Tell us about environments in Postman?
  • How can you use Postman environments?
  • Would you recommend mimicking your GIT environments in postman?
  • What are collections and folders in Postman used for?
  • Can collections be shared to the public?
  • Tell us about Workspaces, Groups and Access in Postman.
  • How does testing work in Postman?
  • What kind of test would you write in Postman?
  • Can you tell us about pre-request scripts?
  • Does Postman work with GraphQL?
  • Tell us about the Postman CLI tool.
  • Tell us about the Postman API.
  • Tell us about variables and variable scopes in Postman.
  • What are the request method types supported by Postman?
  • What are Postman Monitors and Postman Collection Runners?
  • Do you recommend other tools similar to Postman?
  • Does Postman support plugins?
Aug 24, 202021:42
E19 | A Conversation about Design for Non-Designers | Kim Calderone

E19 | A Conversation about Design for Non-Designers | Kim Calderone

In this episode, we have a great conversation all about the language of design with my guest Kim Calderone, a Product Designer at ServiceTitan with a background in User Experience, Design Research and Graphic Design.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • Please define design from a UX perspective.
  • For user centered design, is layout or style affected by the user?
  • Is the blueprint more objective versus style being more subjective?
  • How can a company standardize on a single blueprint?
  • Why is it important for developers to understand more about design?
  • How can we bridge the gap in design knowledge between designers and developers?
  • How do you strike the balance between your design and the limitations of code?
  • What should designers know about developers to improve communication?
  • What should developers know about designers to improve communication?
  • Tell us about the designer lifecycle and how it compares to the software development lifecycle.
  • What is a problem statement?
  • Tell us about user research and when that happens?
  • When do you work on the blueprint for the design?
  • Tell us about information architecture and when do you start it?
  • What are wireframes and when do you start that?
  • What is usability testing?
  • What is a prototype?
  • When is style and colors added to a design?
  • When do developers get involved during the design phase, if at all?
  • When should you involve content authors during the design process?
  • What is ideation?
  • What are the tools you use to create prototypes?
  • How do you strike the balance between the amount of time you put into a prototype versus the actual finished product.
  • What are "micro animations"?
  • What kinds of research do designers perform, apart from user research?
  • How do designers use data to guide their designs?
  • What's the difference between User Experience Design, Visual Experience Design and User Interface Design?
  • Should designers be involved in the content modeling phase of a project?
  • How can we bring content modelers and designers together earlier in the project?
  • What is the most important thing people in a team should know about designers?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Aug 17, 202042:09
E18 | A Conversation about JAMStack | Brian Rinaldi

E18 | A Conversation about JAMStack | Brian Rinaldi

In this episode I chat all about JAMstack with my guest Brian Rinaldi, a developer advocate at Stackbit who focuses on helping developers build Jamstack apps.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.  How did you become a developer?
  • How did you get into JAMStack?
  • Since you worked with Adobe, did you work at all with ColdFusion?
  • What is StackBit and what do you do there?
  • Tell us about your book on Static Site Generators.
  • Define JAMStack. What is it?
  • Is JAMStack a framework or a technical architecture?
  • What is Netlify and what is its involvement with JAMStack?
  • Is JAMStack mainly client side?
  • How would an example Login page work with JAMStack?
  • In a JAMStack app, where do you normally keep the API keys?
  • What makes JAMStack different from other type of technical architectures?
  • What's the relationship between Netlify, Gatsby and JAMStack?
  • What's NextJS and how does it compare to Gatsby?
  • Explain what Jekyll, Hugo and Pelican are?
  • What are some positives of JAMStack?
  • What are some challenges with JAMStack?
  • What are some good cases for JAMStack?
  • What are some cases where you would not use JAMStack?
  • How do you make JAMStack scalable?
  • Guide us through a JAMStack application workflow.
  • How is GIT involved in a JAMStack application?
  • Does JAMStack support GraphQL?
  • Can you deploy to your own local server?
  • Can you tell us about configuration files in a JAMStack app?
  • What about template files and template languages?
  • Can you use TypeScript in JAMStack?
  • What's Node's place in a JAMStack app?
  • What do developers need to know to start developing JAMStack apps?
  • What are some good resources for JAMStack development?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Aug 10, 202029:59
E17 | A Conversation about Deno | Andres Pirela

E17 | A Conversation about Deno | Andres Pirela

Today I’ll be chatting all about Deno with my guest Andres Pirela, a 19 year old who’s working for a large company as a full stack software engineer using C#, Java, Typescript and Javascript. He’s been programming since the age of 9! Learn what Deno is all about, it’s great features, and it’s drawbacks!

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • How does a 19 year old work for a large company as a software engineer?
  • How old where you when you first started programming?
  • How and when did you learn C# and Java?
  • What is Deno?
  • Who created Deno?
  • What is a web assembly?
  • What are the three main reasons that Deno was created?
  • What are some of Deno's security features?
  • How are modules handled in Deno?
  • How are modules cached?
  • How do you distribute Deno projects and it's associated cache folder?
  • Can the cache be configured on a per project basis?
  • How are module dependencies handled by Deno?
  • How are points of failure handled by Deno modules?
  • Do you think Deno will end up using a centralized package manager?
  • Why is a package manager being rejected by the Deno founders?
  • Explain how Deno uses promises by default?
  • How is callback hell avoided by Deno?
  • Explain how you can use top level Await with Deno?
  • Does Deno support Type Script and Javascript?
  • How can people get started developing Deno apps?
  • Is Deno ready for production?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Aug 04, 202038:59
E16 | A Conversation about Javascript | Dan Cortes

E16 | A Conversation about Javascript | Dan Cortes

Jul 26, 202033:38
E15 | A Conversation about Chatbots | Jordi Torras

E15 | A Conversation about Chatbots | Jordi Torras

In this episode, I have a great conversation about chatbots, artificial intelligence, machine learning and much more with my guest Jordi Torras, the founder of Inbenta, who focuses on AI and Natural Language Processing for chatbots and search engines.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • Why do you focus on AI (artificial intelligence)?
  • Do you think that computers will ever become self aware?
  • Tell us about Inbenta.
  • What is a chatbot?
  • Do chatbots continually learn?
  • How do chatbots work on the backend?
  • Tell us about intents and utterances.
  • How is machine learning helping chatbots know more?
  • Explain what symbolic AI is?
  • What is language?
  • How do we embed a chatbot in the world that you want it to learn more about?
  • What's the difference between learning and acquiring a language?
  • What's the difference between AI, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing?
  • Give us an example of symbolic AI.
  • Tell us about AIML?
  • What kind of skills do developers need to have to work with chatbots?
  • How do buyer personas affect a chatbot?
  • What is sentiment detection?
  • How do you give chatbots the company's personality?
  • What is conversation flow and how is it set up?
  • Is there a tool or standard for implementing conversation flow?
  • How can we make chatbots more human like?
  • What are your thoughts on avatars for chatbots?
  • What is the uncanny valley or zombie affect?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Jul 21, 202045:27
E14 | A Conversation about GraphQL | Gerard Klijs

E14 | A Conversation about GraphQL | Gerard Klijs

In this episode, I chat with Gerard Klijs, a microservices developer who contributes to open source GraphQL projects, all about GraphQL, including subscriptions, queries and mutations.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • Explain what a microservice is.
  • Can microservices be hosted in AWS Lambda?
  • What do you like the most about GraphQL?
  • What is introspection?
  • What's the difference between REST and GraphQL?
  • Tell us about over fetching and under fetching in REST APIs.
  • What are some challenges with GraphQL?
  • Is GraphQL language agnostic?
  • Is GraphQL protocol agnostic?
  • Can GraphQL be used as a "front end" to combine multiple data sources?
  • What is a GraphQL schema?
  • What are GraphQL queries?
  • What are GraphQL mutations?
  • What are GraphQL subscriptions?
  • What is a scalar in GraphQL?
  • What is an object in GraphQL?
  • What are input types in GraphQL?
  • What are fragments in GraphQL?
  • What are resolvers in GraphQL?
  • What are enums in GraphQL?
  • What are interfaces in GraphQL?
  • Tell us about Apollo, Yoga and other tools available for GraphQL.
  • What tools do you need to run and implement GraphQL?
Jul 13, 202030:13
E13 | Migrating from Drupal to Contentful | Teemu Tammela

E13 | Migrating from Drupal to Contentful | Teemu Tammela

In this episode, we chat all about migrating from Drupal to Contentful with my guest Teemu Tammela, a Certified Contentful Professional, Contentful Partner and software developer.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background
  • Why did you decide to migrate to Contentful from Drupal?
  • What where your goals when migrating into Contentful?
  • What were your responsibilities in the migration project?
  • What was your biggest pain point during the migration?
  • Tell us how you used the Contentful Management API during the migration
  • Tell us about your migration planning.
  • Did you create a new content model or migrated the current Drupal content model?
  • Did you create a custom migration script or used the Contentful migration scripts?
  • Tell us about the ORM library you used for mapping.
  • Did you use GraphQL for any migration?
  • If you used GraphQL vs REST, do you think the migration would have gone faster?
  • How was your Contentful architecture different from your Drupal architecture?
  • Tell us about your tech stack both for Contentful and Drupal.
  • When you were migrating, did Contentful support multiple environments?
  • What's the difference between the scripts you wrote for migrating and the migration scripts that Contentful offers?
  • How did you use the Contentful CLI for your migration?
  • Tell us about the 3 types of migrations.
  • How did you migrate entry IDs?
  • Tell us about your media asset migration plan.
  • Are you storing your media assets in Contentful as a media type?
  • Did you consider using a DAM for your assets such as Cloudinary?
  • Tell us about your Drupal plugins and how did you migrate the functionality they provided into Contentful?
  • Did you migrate any Drupal front end templates into Contentful?
  • For those that want to migrate Drupal front end templates into Contentful, are there scripts that will do that for you?
  • How did you migrate rich text fields form Drupal to Contentful?
  • Did you have a rollback plan just in case the scripts failed?
  • What do you wish Contentful has that you liked in Drupal?
  • If you could only offer one tip for migration, what would that be?
Jul 05, 202029:21
E12 | A Conversation about Design Systems | Matt Felten

E12 | A Conversation about Design Systems | Matt Felten

In this episode, I have a great converstaion all about design systems with my guest Matt Felten, a design technologist currently working at the intersection of design and code tools for ServiceTitan.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your design background.
  • Have you coded before or mostly focused on design?
  • What is a design system?
  • How are design systems different from style guides?
  • Does the design system dictate the tools the designers will use or the other way around?
  • Tell us what components, deisgn paterns and experiences are in design systems?
  • Tell us why you create components both in Figma and React?
  • How do you keep the Figma and React components in sync?
  • How do you balance updates to the design system verus speed to market?
  • When is a right time for a company to create a design system?
  • What are some popular design systems?
  • What makes Shopify's Polaris your favorite Design System?
  • Does a design system take into account the different delivery channels such as Amazon Alexa?
  • Are there open source design systems companies can use as a base to start creating their own?
  • Who are the stakeholders involved in the creation of a design systems?
  • What are some tools for creating design systems?
  • How are component changes incorporated?
  • Do you remove or deprecate components from the design system?
  • Do design systems address the delivery of content to components?
  • Do you think design systems should address content delivery to components in the future?
  • Tell us about ServiceTitan's Anvil Design System.
  • Tell us about Contentful's Design System, Forma36.
  • Should a Design Systems address localization, peronnas, etc?
  • Would design system components change based on the personna?
  • What's the future hold for design systems?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Jun 30, 202039:23
E11 | A Conversation about Rich Text Fields, HTML, JSON and Markdown | Chris Towler

E11 | A Conversation about Rich Text Fields, HTML, JSON and Markdown | Chris Towler

In this episode, I have a great conversation with Chris Towler, a nano tech engineer and front end developer, all about Rich Text Fields, HTML, JSON and Markdown and how and when to use them in Contentful.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • What is nano scale technology?
  • What got you interested in programming?
  • How did you get into Contenful?
  • Please define JSON?
  • What does "stringify" mean from a development's perspective?
  • Why is it important to stringify data?
  • What is HTML formatting?
  • What is markdown and how is it different than HTML?
  • Why would people use markdown over HTML in their textfield?
  • Explain the difference between a rich text field, a long text field and a short text field in Contentful?
  • What are validation values differences between the 3 types of text fields?
  • Give us the details of a Rich Text Field in Contentful.
  • What are node types in the RTF field?
  • Why is it important to have the formating separate from the content itself in a RTF field?
  • How are node types in Rich Text Fields rendered into HTML?
  • Can you extend the native Rich Text Fields to add your own formatting options for authors?
  • Tell us about how you use custom content types to extend the formatting options of a Rich Text Field?
  • How can custom content types to extend the RTF field help design systems?
  • Can you limit the formatting capabilities an author has in a Rich Text Field?
  • What's the difference between a link, embedded and inline entry in Rich Text Fields?
  • Tell us about content previews and how they can be used to see what the content in an RTF field looks like?
  • What are some best practices for pasting content into an RTF from Microsoft Word or Google Docs?
  • Should we only use Contentful's RTFs over the long text fields?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Jun 22, 202038:14
E10 | Migrating from Wordpress to Contentful | Ben Greenberg

E10 | Migrating from Wordpress to Contentful | Ben Greenberg

In this episode, I chat all about migrating from Wordpress into Contentful with my guest Ben Greenberg, a former Lyft and AirBnB engineer who migrated his own website, GlowyStuff.com, from Wordpress into Contentful.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • What kind of projects did you work on while at Lyft and AirBnB?
  • What made you switch from backend development to frontend development?
  • What's frontend tech stack do you work with?
  • What kind of Javascript frameworks are you using on the front end?
  • What's the difference between a traditional CMS and a headless CMS?
  • Tell us about someo of the available Wordpress migration tools out there?
  • What has been your biggest pain point in the migration from Wordpress to Contentful?
  • Are you running the old site and new site concurrently?
  • Are you merging content from the old site to the new one?
  • Are you migrating any content models from Wordpress?
  • Is building content models like building a DB schema?
  • Tell us about your Wordpress techstack?
  • What is your front end framework in your new site?
  • Where are you hosting your site now?
  • Why are you using the GraphQL API over the REST api of Contentful?
  • Tell us about your Contentful architecture.
  • Tell us about your taxonomies in Contentful that you had to create from Wordpress.
  • Are you also migrating your tags from Wordpress?
  • What was your content modeling process?
  • Tell us the difference between Rich Text Fields in Wordpress vs. Contentful.
  • Are your media assets stored in Contentful?
  • How are you duplicating your Wordpress plugins functionality in Contentful?
  • Will you be replacing Wordpress plugins with Contentful applications from the marketplace?
  • Do you have a QA mirgration plan?
  • What did Wordpress have that Contentful is missing?
  • What would you have done differently in this migration from Wordpress to Contentful?
  • How many content types do you have currently?
  • Are you using contentful-migration tool?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Jun 14, 202033:14
E9 | Three Architectures for Designing Scalable Contentful Apps  | Diego Aguilar

E9 | Three Architectures for Designing Scalable Contentful Apps | Diego Aguilar

In this episode, my guest Diego Aguilar, a software engineer focused on Cloud development, AWS and JAMstack, and I chat all about how to build scalable Contentful applications using three specific architectures: Cache, Event Driven and Batch-Sync.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • What kind of projects do you work on?
  • Tell us about the tech hub in Mexico where you reside.
  • Tell us about your work with Contentful.
  • What is an architecture?
  • Who's usually involved in designing an architecture for the app?
  • Explain what a Technical Architect does.
  • What about having a Content Architect?
  • Why do we need an architecture?
  • What are some of the challenges of using an architecture when building an app?
  • Are there standards one can follow when implementing an app architecture?
  • What are some of the attributes of an architecture?
  • Can you explain what "Worse is Better" is?
  • What's the difference between serverless and cloud based architectures?
  • Is LAMBDA an example of a serverless application?
  • What is a Cache in an app architecture?
  • What is an Event?
  • What is a Batch?
  • What are the 3 types of architectures?
  • What is the Cache Architecture?
  • When is a Cache Architecture not a good idea to use?
  • What is the tech stack for the Cache Architecture?
  • What is an Event Driven Architecture?
  • What's a good example of an Event Driven Architecture?
  • Can we mix architectures?
  • When is an Event Driven Architecture not a good idea to use?
  • Is an Event Driven Architecture synchronous or async?
  • What's the tech stack used to create Event Driven Architecture?
  • What is a Batch Sync Architecture?
  • When is a Batch Sync Architecture not a good idea to use?
  • What's the tech stack for a Batch Sync Architecture?
  • How important is logging for all three architectures?
  • Where can people learn more about technical architectures?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Jun 07, 202026:13
E8 | A Conversation about Vue.JS | Robert Mion

E8 | A Conversation about Vue.JS | Robert Mion

In today’s episode, I have a great conversation all about Vue.JS with my guest Robert Mion, a designer, writer, coder and Vue JS expert who teaches web development in virtual 1 on 1 sessions.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • What attracted you to front end development instead of backend development?
  • What is Vue.js?
  • How does Vue.JS compare to JQuery?
  • What attracted you to Vue?
  • Explain what is the MVC, Model View Controller, paradigm?
  • What's the minimum knowledge you need to have before you jump into Vue.JS?
  • Why choose Vue over React?
  • Explain the difference between a library and a framework
  • Is Vue a framework or library?
  • What are some of the challenges with Vue.JS?
  • What are some good resources for Vue?
  • Isn't there a documentary about Vue.JS?
  • What is the virtual DOM in Vue.js?
  • What is the difference between the virtual DOM and the real DOM?
  • Explain the life cycle of a Vue app?
  • What is one way data flow?
  • What is two way data binding?
  • What is reactivity?
  • Can you use GraphQL with Vue.JS?
  • Does Vue work with REST APIs?
  • What are components in Vue and how does data flow between them?
  • What's the parent child relationship between components like?
  • What is a slot?
  • What is a scope slot?
  • What is Vuex?
  • Can you use Vuex to transfer the state of a web app to its companion mobile app?
  • What are mixins?
  • What are filetrs in Vue.js?
  • What are directives in Vue.js?
  • Can you create your own filters?
May 31, 202036:21
E7 | A Conversation about ReactJS | Johan Li

E7 | A Conversation about ReactJS | Johan Li

In this episode, I have a conversation with Johan Li, a Senior Developer at Collegial, all about React JS and how developers can use it to speed up their front end development.

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • How did you get into React?
  • What is React?
  • What is the difference between a framework and a library?
  • What does it mean when a framework is opinionated?
  • Is React opinionated?
  • Explain the difference between Vue, Angular and React.
  • Why choose react over Vue or Angular?
  • What about React Native and React VR?
  • What's the minimum knowledge a web developer needs to get into React VR?
  • Does React support TypeScript?
  • What are some of React's challenges?
  • What are isomorphic apps?
  • What is Next.JS?
  • How do you implement Next.JS in your React project?
  • What are React components?
  • Explain the React component lifecycle.
  • What is state in React?
  • What's the difference between stateless and statefull components?
  • What kind of support does React offer for APIs?
  • Does React support GraphQL?
  • What is JSX?
  • Can you use JSX to create components?
  • What is Babel?
  • What is the DOM?
  • What is the Virtual DOM and what is the difference between it and the DOM?
  • Is the virtual DOM ever out of sync with the real DOM?
  • What are events in React?
  • What are handlers in React?
  • What is Redux?
  • What is a React router?
May 26, 202027:53
E6 | Content Modeling Best Practices | Raul Salido

E6 | Content Modeling Best Practices | Raul Salido

In this episode, Marcelo Lewin, a Certified Contentful Professional and Senior Content Architect, has a conversation all about Content Modeling with Raul Salido, a Solution Delivery Manager based in San Francisco at Contentful. Raul and Marcelo get into the details of content modeling including design and development, structured vs unstructured content, how to create scalable content, how to best model for a developer friendly experience and more!

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • What is Content Modeling?
  • What does it mean to have a blueprint?
  • Why is it hard for people to grasp content modeling?
  • Do people sometimes mix up design with content modeling?
  • What's the difference between structured and unstructured content?
  • Is structured content self describing?
  • Are there any best practices for content modeling?
  • What does it mean to create a scalable content model?
  • What's the difference between Content, Layout, Design and Context.
  • What does it mean to have Single Source of Truth?
  • What is COPE?
  • How is Single Source of Truth implemented in Contentful?
  • Any tips for brainstorming the content model?
  • Can you provide tips for creating scalable content?
  • When should we use a reference field vs. a regular field?
  • When can you use a boolean field type in Contentful?
  • Rich Text Fields vs Long Text Fields with Markdown? Which to use?
  • What's the maximum depth for embedded reference fields in Contentful?
  • Any new Contentful authoring features you can share with us?
  • What is micro copy?
  • What are your thoughts on using micro copy to store tool tips in Contentful?
  • Should we use the media field type or build our own custom content media type?
  • How do make the content model developer friendly?
May 17, 202048:42
E5 | A Conversation about Node.JS | Roman Hood
May 10, 202029:15
E4 | A Conversation about Gatsby and Static Site Generators | Nikan Shahidi

E4 | A Conversation about Gatsby and Static Site Generators | Nikan Shahidi

My special guest is Nikan Shahidi, the founder of Webstacks, a digital agency who specializes in various web technologies including Contentful and Gatsby.js.  In this episode, Nikan and Marcelo chat all about Static Site Generators (SSGs) and more specifically, dig into the details of Gatsby.js

*******************************

Questions Asked

*******************************

  • Tell us about your background.
  • What language did you first code in?
  • Tell us about your firm, WebStacks.
  • Are you guys Certified Contentful Professionals?
  • What are SSGs?
  • Are SSGs dynamically generated on request or pre-generated during build time?
  • Explain the 3 different delivery architectures Contentful recommends.
  • What are the positives and negatives dynamic on server and dynamic on client architectures?
  • What are some drawbacks to having an SSG site?
  • How do SSG sites handle personalization?
  • What about having a dynamic on client and SSG hybrid site?
  • What other SSG exists today?
  • Is VUE is considered an SSG framework?
  • What do developers need to know to start creating with Gatsby JS?
  • Where can you host an SSG site?
  • Explain the workflow from content creation to content publishing using an SSG site.
  • Explain webhooks and how they work with Netlify.
  • How is GitHub used with SSGs?
  • Can you use Contentful UI Extensions to trigger builds?
  • Can you use Zappier to trigger builds?
  • What if users need to publish constantly, are SSGs still the right way to go?
  • Explain the relationship between GraphQL and Gatsby?
  • Explain how templates work in GatsbyJS.
  • What are source plug-ins?
  • What are transformer plug-ins?
  • Is there a marketplace for these types of plug-ins?

*******************************

Reference Links

*******************************

Apr 26, 202015:56
E3 | A Conversation about Contentful and Ruby | Teemu Tammela

E3 | A Conversation about Contentful and Ruby | Teemu Tammela

In this episode, I have a conversation with Teemu Tammela, a software developer, Contentful Certified Professional and creator and co-host DJ of AuralCandy.net Premium House Music Podcast.  Our topic today is all about creating a website that runs on Contentful and Ruby.


The following questions were asked:

  • Tell us about yourself.
  • Tell us about your podcast website.
  • What does it mean to be a Certified Contentful Professional?
  • Why did you switch from PHP to Contentful and Ruby?
  • Why did you go with a CMS versus custom PHP?
  • Why did you choose Ruby as your language of choice?
  • Can you compare and contrast Ruby and PHP?
  • Is Ruby a friendly language for people just starting to do web development?
  • What is Ruby on Rails?
  • Are there other frameworks developers can choose for Ruby?
  • What is the difference between the Sinatra and Ruby Frameworks?
  • A developer will either use Ruby or Sinatra, not both correct?
  • How is Rails opinonated versus Sinatra?
  • What is Padrino?
  • Why did you use Padrino on top of Sinatra?
  • What are the template helpers in Padrino?
  • What is Grunt?
  • Does the Contentful Ruby SDK support the full CMAPI?
  • Does the Contentful Ruby SDK support the CDAPI or Image API?
  • Are there any features you'd like to see Contentful add to their Ruby SDK?
  • Would you ever considering switching to a Javascript based framework?
  • Tell us about your content model in Contenfful for your podcast site.
  • Can you tell us more about the 4 content types you created and why?
  • What are some hosting solutions for Contentful and Ruby driven sites?
  • Describe your backend architecture? Is it SSG driven?
  • Do you use Git?
  • Any tips for scaling Contentful applications?
Apr 13, 202026:12
E2 | A Conversation about APIs, Decoupling and Scalability | Matthew Foyle

E2 | A Conversation about APIs, Decoupling and Scalability | Matthew Foyle

In this episode, I chat with Matthew Foyle, a Senior Solutions Engineer at Algolia, which offers a Search API, all about APIs, decoupling your apps by using APIs and how to scale with REST and GraphQL.  We also touch upon the Contentful APIs and how they can be used for decoupling your front end from your back end.


The following questions were asked:

  • Tell us a bit about yourself.
  • What caught your interest in the technical side of things?
  • Tell us about Algolia.
  • Can Algolia combine various content resources into one for indexing purposes?
  • What is an API?
  • What is JSON and why is it important?
  • What is the JSON schema?
  • Does GraphQL rely on.a schema?
  • What did people do before APIs?
  • What does decoupling mean?
  • What is synchronous vs asynchronous?
  • Can you provide an example of an async operation?
  • What are some examples of async operations in Contentful?
  • What does Headless and API-First in Contentful mean?
  • Should we develop our apps with an API first mentality?
  • What are some drawbacks to using APIs?
  • Define REST and GraphQL.  What are they?
  • What is HATEOAS?
  • What are some drawbacks to using REST?
  • Tell us what GraphQL is and how it works?
  • Compare and contrast REST and GraphQL.
  • What is introspection in GraphQL?
  • What's the future for API consumption and development?
  • If you use external APIs in your code, where does your intellectual property start and end?


The following links were mentioned:

GraphQL Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=783ccP__No8

Matthew’s Twitter Account:

https://twitter.com/MatthewFoyle

Algolia’s Website:

https://www.algolia.com/

Contentful’s APIs:

https://www.contentful.com/developers/docs/references/

Mar 30, 202038:07
E1 | A Conversation with Contentful’s Developer Evangelist | Amelia Winger-Bearskin

E1 | A Conversation with Contentful’s Developer Evangelist | Amelia Winger-Bearskin

In this episode, I speak with Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Contentful's Developer Evangelist, all about what developers and creators need to know to create web experiences and apps with Contentful.  We touch upon many topics including the Contentful's API, how to create Content Models, what resources are available online to help you along your journey and much more.  You can contact our guest, Amelia, at amelia@contentful.com or on the Contentful Slack @ameliawb.

The following questions were asked:

1) Tell us about your background.

2) What brought you to Contentful?

3) Give us an overview of Contentful, from a Developer's perspective.

4) Is designing a content model in Contentful almost like designing a database?

5) How do you model non-visible content in Contentful?

6) How important is it to have a developer and/or application architect involved in the creation of a content model?

7) Tell us about the 4 APIs Contentful offers including the CMA, CDA, CPA and Image API?

8) Tell us about the GraphQL API in Contentful.

9) Are mutations supported in the GraphQL API?

10) Any plans of having the GraphQL API directly tied into Contentful instead of it being a layer on top of the REST APIs?

11) What's the difference between using the API directly and using the SDKs you guys offer?

12) How many SDKs do you guys offer and what languages do you currently support?

13) You guys recommend 3 types of frameworks to develop the front end.  Can you tell us more about those?

14) What about creating a preview of the site for testing? Can you expand on that?

15) Tell us about Environments in Contentful and what those are and how they can be used?

16) You guys just released the App Framework.  Can you tell us about it, how it works and how developers can use it to create apps for the Contentful web app.

17) What is Forma36? 

Mar 16, 202026:17