Anders D. Johnson 🎇

Principal Engineer @Target. Opinions my own. He/him. React/Node/TypeScript.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

Engineering leadership is about evolving beyond the technical toward "being glue" - supporting others, connecting dots, etc. While hard to measure, orgs that recognize & reward these behaviors at least as much as individual contributions will succeed. https://t.co/9iWdjxoFQD

[Mitchell Hashimoto @mitchellh]

I can’t stress enough how little an idea matters compared to the agency of the people executing the idea.

I have had the privilege of knowing and sometimes even working with some of the most successful people (by various metrics).

The difference between mediocre and excellent work and outcomes is predominantly one of agency.

In practice this means: they dont wait for things to happen to them they go out and make things happen for them.

They don’t wait for someone else to do something, for someone to teach them, for someone to give them the path, etc. They just go out and find a way to do it.

I think the single biggest superpower these people have is the realization/belief that the world around them is completely mutable. Most everything that happens is because a person made it happen.

I used to tell people to look around the room you’re sitting in. Look at everything. Every noun. It almost all exists because a person willed it into existence. Nothing is stopping you from doing the same.

I see people online all the time dismissing someone else’s success because “I had that idea first” or whatever. I mean… yeah? If so then the difference is… you. So a bit of a self own whenever I hear that.

Number one tip: act with agency.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

💡Did you know? You can automate menial interactions on a web page by pointing Chrome DevTools AI assistance at the relevant section of the DOM and asking it to write & run a JavaScript snippet to do the job. 🤖

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@jaredpalmer @github Ability to push an empty commit (bump commit) from the Web UI, without having to checkout the branch locally and sync. Helpful to re-trigger CI steps that may fail randomly, with CI systems that don't otherwise offer UI to manually restart, or where permissions are restricted.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@jaredpalmer @github Expand CODEOWNERS (and associated required review branch protections / rulesets) to allow specifying some files that multiple owners must ALL approve - not just that ANY must approve (which is the behavior for multiple owners today).

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@rauchg @RhysSullivan IMO snake_case has the fewest ambiguities with acronyms, etc. But I've conceded to PascalCase and camelCase per convention in the JavaScript (and Java/JVM) ecosystems. Thankfully, we don't have to write the horribly inconsistently cased `XMLHttpRequest` anymore...

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@reactjs @nextjs Note: This is now possible in Node.js with AsyncLocalStorage. And React's Server Components `cache` function uses this. And so does Next.js App Router's `fetch` extension for its cache support there.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

Any @reactjs frameworks out there like @nextjs support SSR with request-local metadata? If not, could we use Zone.js for this? Then maybe we'd be free from coupling every API we need on server-side (including fetch) to Context. For example, error logging with request metadata.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

What happens when a stoppable force meets a movable object? This Vikings-Jaguars game.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

In simple systems, single individuals with the most knowledge deciding most things may often be optimal. But as systems complicate, global maxima can necessitate a formal process of negotiation & competition of ideas. In a career, learning this can be a significant growing pain.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

Can't keep watching this #Vikings game, but doing it anyway. 🫣

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@VikesCentral @eli_corbett Injured. Injured. 😭

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@cooperx86 @matthewcp Hah! Though ironically I think React hydration can break if you don't include <thead> and <tbody> so I've started using them again... https://t.co/CIn5IB8trp

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@Paul_Kinlan Thanks for the sponsorship on GitHub! 👨‍💻💖 Let me know if there's a project of mine you found particularly interesting or would like me to reinvest in.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

It happened! https://t.co/PmPjCLT1bw

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

For Gmail on Android, when searching emails, is there no range select or select all and bulk actions? Need that in my life.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

The rate of technological change is inversely correlated with our ability to apply wisdom in its utilization.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

Me: Rifling thru my home screen, looking for the Twitter app.

The Twitter app: X

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

💯 That fateful time we shipped all the features. What a thrill. What a toll.

[R 'Nearest' Nabors (they/them) @rachelnabors]

You never ship all the features. You never close all the issues. You're always responding, reacting, to what the userbase needs or what's on your roadmap. So you have to be ok with a full and weighted queue at all times.

You never get to Zero.

And that's ok, in email, in life

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

Loving Next.js App Router, but wish there were more bidirectional API compatibility w/ Pages and an incremental migration path finer-grained than per route. Like, let's apply the philosophy of streaming rendering to the actual adoption process... Forks & hard cutovers = buffered.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@ephemjs @TkDodo Agreed, but as we look at migrating large apps, it could be nice if a component that today calls useQuery & works with SSR & hydrates data on client could also be made to work as a server component without any changes via a cache() implementation internal to TanStack Query.

[Anders D. Johnson 🎇 @AndersDJohnson]

@TkDodo @ephemjs Ah, thanks, I'll have to read more and try it out. I assumed Hydrate and useQuery relied on Context, and didn't think that could be consumed from server components. Are you saying this works on SSR pass in server components? Or only SSR pass for client components?