Salma: what have you built? I don't care what it uses. And I think we've put so much focus on the tools that we're using. Oh hey, I built it with ai, this ai, this model. but what have you built and what have you learned and what have you contributed to society with this?
[00:00:25] Introduction and Guest Introduction
Andrew: Hello, welcome to Dev Tools fm. This is a podcast about developer tools and the people who make 'em. I'm Andrew, and this is my cohost. Justin.
Justin: Hey everyone. Uh, we are joined today by Salama, um, did I say that right?
~~Sal? Sal. Salama. Salama. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna redo that. Uh, told you, uh, hey everyone, uh, we're really excited today to be, uh, uh. ~~Hey everyone. We're really excited today to be joined by Salma Aam Nailer. Uh, hopefully I said that right.
Uh, so, uh, Salama is, uh, joining us to chat about Nord Craft, and I'm really excited to talk about this topic. Uh, it's, it's something that we've sort of discussed these kinds of tools in the past on the, on the podcast, and it's like really interesting to see how they've evolved over the years. But before we dive into that, uh, would you like to tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself?
Salma: Huh. Well, I guess my tagline on the internet is I write code for your entertainment, and I haven't really done much of that this year since joining Nord Craft because I'm in a one person department now, and there's lots to do and, and lots, lots to get, get done behind the scenes. However, um. I, I came from music, so there's a lot of people in this industry that came from music.
I think there's a lot of us around. Uh, so I did a degree in music and I, I grew up playing all the instruments and, uh, I always wanted to work in tech though. You know, I was writing basic on my Commodore 64 at the age of six, and it was a good time. And, uh, I didn't know it was basic at the time. I was just copying it from a manual, but you know.
But you know, back in the nineties, the, the internet was what, not what it is now, and you couldn't just go and learn stuff. You couldn't just go and learn tech, learn HTML and CSS. It was all very behind closed walls. And I had no idea in my small little rural town how to get into tech. So I was in music and I went into music.
Uh, I ended up after a very varied music career, um, various teaching gigs and stuff, I ended up being, um, becoming a qualified teacher. I taught in secondary schools, that's ages 11 to 18. And, um, but after a few years of that, I ended up working in a tough school that hadn't had a music teacher for quite a few years.
And it broke me basically. So I quit and, uh, I got into tech very serendipitously by, I was working in a call center for minimum wage and on my resume was that I made websites for my musician friends in my early twenties and someone knew someone who needed someone and blah, blah blah. Ended up working for this tiny little gossip magazine.
And uh, I was originally employed as a graphic designer. And, uh, you know, one of those people that writes blog posts with affiliate sales links in, that's what I was doing. And there was one it guy there who did everything. He did the front end, the back end, he wrote his own CMS. Would you believe it? And I sat on the same desk bank as him, and I was like, Hey, what you doing?
Can I have a look at what you're doing? And so, without anyone's permission, I moved my computer over to his side and he taught me right from the deep end, um, how to, how the, how this stuff worked. And, um, I was writing PHP and HTML and CSS and my first big project was two. Amalgamate the backend and front end separate websites into one.
It's kind of around the same time that Bootstrap started to become big, and so I went straight into that. I was even doing things like writing coffee script before JavaScript and, and all that nonsense. But anyway.
Justin: The good old days.
Salma: Yes, the good old days. So I, I did that project and then I got laid off.
[00:04:04] The Evolution and Challenges of DevRel
Salma: Uh, but then I found a number of other, uh, front end dev jobs and moved quickly to tech lead, and it was 2020 deep in the pandemic when I discovered that this whole sub-industry of dev rail developer education developer experience existed.
And that was through starting to stream on Twitch. And the reason why I started streaming on Twitch, there were a couple of reasons. Um, the first one was as a tech lead, I wasn't learning anything anymore. I wasn't like coding anymore. I wasn't keeping up to date with my skills. And so I thought, Hmm, why not?
Uh, do that and, and like be in public and, and get the support of, of an audience and just let's learn together. And secondly, at the time, all of the people coding on Twitch that I saw were doing backend and were men. So I thought, hmm, there's a gap in the market. And obviously it's very different now. It's very, very different now, uh, to 2020, but that's why I went live on Twitch and it led me to my first derail job at Contentful.
And then I've had a series of jobs since then.
Andrew: The, just the, the circle of education there is kind of
crazy. Like you you went from the, the classic of classic of learning computer science, which is like, you opened a book and, and you consulted a computer and there was nothing outside of that loop to now you're part of the, like, blossoming, uh, education space for, uh, online where it's become like almost trivial to
learn how to code things.
Salma: And, and what was really nice about discovering that this part of the industry exists is I thought it was a perfect combination of all of my skills, um, with the education and being a qualified teacher and with the tech, and also, um, you know, being a musician, being a performer. I was a musical comedian at one point in my twenties as well.
And I thought that whole performance aspect comes into it as well, especially on Twitch. And also having the confidence to make videos and just put stuff out there and, and have that kind of public speaking aura that's, uh, quite important as well. So it just felt like too good to be true, almost like all of the combination of skills that you need, but it seems to have worked out all right.
Justin: Yeah, it seems like a. Sort of like a perfect fit. I, I'm curious, um, about your journey since, uh, 2020 to now. So like, devrel really wasn't a thing and then it was a thing and a lot of companies, especially during the like, you know, zero interest rate period, like hired a bunch of Dev re, um, to, to sort of like really, um, try to gain developer market share.
And then as interest rates went up. It's like those teams seem to be hit pretty hard and the
industry like shifted really quickly. And I'm curious like what your experience sort of going, living through that and you know, what you think it like takes to be as successful like devrel today, and maybe if that's changed.
Salma: Uh, it's very difficult because for some, for some, in, in some ways, I, I don't think devrel is really as much of a thing as it is now, as it was in 20 20, 20 21. Like no one's really talking about it, and it's actually one of the reasons why I wanted my job title at NordCraft to be head of developer education and not head of developer relations or whatever.
Because the difficult thing about a developer relations department is that you are effectively sales, but you don't want to say it, and you don't want to be it, but you are. You are top of the funnel. Get people interested, get people excited, and you have to convert that excitement to something in order to prove your business value.
Um, when I was at Century, I, I did a lot of work around like the business value of developer relations and, and how to kind of prove it. Um, it's very hard to prove it unless you are measuring specific things, but also as my friend Jason Loff always says, you always optimize for what you measure. And so if you are measuring signups and you get more signups, great, but do those signups actually convert to paying customers and do you have actually any way to measure that?
And so I think it's tough because. I have not been in any company where we've been able to really nail down the. Tangible impact. It's a vibe thing, unfortunately. And in this economy, businesses can't really function on vibes. They need money to survive. And unless you are directly attributing all of your activities to monetary value, it's really, really hard to, to prove that you should be there.
And what was very interesting, so I was, I was laid off from net fi during a restructuring in 2023. And, uh, Netlify developer Experience Department went through a lot of different changes. And I think you see a lot of, uh, morphing and evolution internally in, in every Dev rel department because they really have to pivot.
Uh, whenever they are told, it's like, oh, we're focusing on this now we're focusing on this now. You must make content about this. You must make content about this. You must talk about this. And what's really difficult with that is because you spend. A few weeks planning a quarter's worth of activities and content, but then two weeks later, often you have to pivot and completely change what you've planned to do.
And so it looks like you're not being productive 'cause you haven't had the chance. To put anything out there to see if it will work, because a lot of, um, what underpins dere is experimentation as well, like what works for one company and one product might not work for another. And oftentimes you don't get the chance to really see through long term whether your efforts are worth anything.
And I think that is, um, the, the way of the world and it's just unfortunately, a, a bad. Symptom of the economy we're living in because we have to keep pivoting, you know? And when I was, uh, towards the end of my tenure at Century, everything was about pivoting to AI and the AI offerings that Century was producing.
But we'd already planned so much around not ai. And so we had to just stop and start and stop and start. And I think Devrel is hard to get momentum unless you stop and start. And so going back to the whole Netlify thing. Uh, you know, new, when new products come out, when, when new companies get acquired by companies, it's like you have to pivot now.
You have to talk about something else. And obviously as a technical expert, it takes you time to ramp up on a lot of these things as well, which also takes time out of the, the roadmap and the timeline. Again, making it look like you're not effective, but like you have to be. One step ahead of your students.
And so you can't just do that in an instant. And I think Devrel suffers from a lot of those pivots and not being able to, uh, show long-term growth over particular initiatives. 'cause you have to pivot. And then also not being able to, to track effectively the monetary value that you are generating.
I can't remember the question you asked me.
Justin: No, no, that was great. That was, that was, that was great. Uh, um, I kind of, I, I'm. Like sort of reflecting on that. And I'm wondering, you know, as, so, so you mentioned like you're very intentional about your role today. You're like, you know, I am an educator, I'm focused on developers, and I like, want my title to reflect that. Um, I imagine like the business realities haven't necessarily changed that much. Um, so I'm curious, like in your current role, how do you talk about it internally? How is it sort of aligned? What, what do you think your focus is and, and have you been able to sort of like. Get out of that, oh, we need to pivot every few weeks.
And it sort of like, you know, slashes into your, the plan that you're wanting to teach people.
Salma: Yes, definitely not pivoting every few weeks, thank goodness. And that is a testament actually to the commitment of the founders of NordCraft who actually have a very, uh, intentional vision and know what we need to do. Uh, and it's not about jumping on the latest hype. It's about saying, look, we have a really good product and you should try it, and you should actually invest the time to learn it.
I think the biggest challenge right now at NordCraft is. People want shortcuts all the time. Uh, people are so now used to prompting an AI to build me a full application, please, that they, um, have lost the will to learn and problem solve and really understand what they're building. And yes, there is an AI assistant in NordCraft, but it's not going to build the whole app for you.
And that's on purpose because without human intervention. And without human effort, you can't make good things. And so the challenge right now is actually to make NordCraft appealing to invest time in and learn amidst all of this stuff that is based around shortcuts. And just say a prompt, bro. And it's interesting because we have a lot of internal discussions about.
About this, and it's like our biggest competitors really are the AI platforms like Lovable and Bolt, because people are building stuff with that and in a prompt, you know, maybe tweaking it, but like when you wanna build the same thing in NordCraft, yes, you can start with the prompt, but you, we want you to build something great.
We want you to craft something. because you can and you are capable of it. We don't want you just to like accept good enough. And I think that's underpinning the culture of what we build and also what we want our customers to build and our users to build. And, but it, that's tough because no one wants to do that.
There are very few people that want to do that right now because of all of the noise and the hype. Um, and that's the biggest challenge. Now, I can give you as much education as you want about the web, but it's up to you. As a human, as a person to be curious and to want to learn, but curiosity is dwindling.
It's waning. And it's like, how do we also encourage that curiosity and that creativity through the product and through the marketing and through the course materials, uh, to light people on fire again, rather than, uh, just help them go through the motions of making a random website. Do you know what I mean?
Andrew: Yeah, it's, uh, I, I occasionally go through our past guests on this podcast, and I'm so surprised every time when I've seen a pivot to AI and just like kind of a total throwout of like what they used to be doing. It's like, it's shocking in many regards. Like, it's like, how, how is this what the industry's turned into?
Salma: I'm glad you said that.
Andrew: So, uh, moving on to Nord Craft.
[00:15:30] Introducing NordCraft
Andrew: I don't think we've really set up
what it is and why it's special. So could you give us a little quick intro on what it is?
Salma: So NordCraft is essentially another web framework. Um, but it also has a lot of other cool stuff built in. So it's primarily a visual web framework. So everything you are doing, you're doing in a gui, a graphical user interface. Um, you can write custom code as well. Inside it, there are escape patches. If there's something that you can't quite do in NordCraft yet, you could just write JavaScript.
But also what it comes with is a built-in deployment platform, uh, versioning. A get like version control and some really, really like exciting tools to help you write code. Because I think one of the things about traditional website builders, um, is that they abstract a lot of things away and they abstract the web platform away and they have, you know, proprietary.
Names for blocks of HTML and things like that with NordCraft. You just write HTML and you just write CSS and you just write JavaScript, but you just do it in a visual interface, which really actually speeds things up. And then all of that is encapsulated within the deployment platform where you can just spin up a project in a fraction of a second and then add an HTML element and then you can ship it and it's live like you can, you can go from new project to live in a couple of seconds if you really want it just a.
One HTML element on your page. Right. And there's, they've done some really cool things with things like, um, how you create CSS animations. Um, there is a inbuilt. Key frame animation editor in there. Everything that this generates is just pure CSS, but it helps you along the way with these visual tools.
There's so much about things like CSS that are kind of hidden from general users because you have to go deep into the spec. But what we try and do in those tools is bring them to the fore so you can use them. Make the most of them. And, uh, that goes with all of the, the tools of JavaScript as as well.
And it's meant to be faster. It's faster to, rather than setting up your repo in a text editor like you've gotta. NPM install this. Oh, what dependence do, what dependencies do I need? Um, now I've gotta set up my hot reloading if it doesn't come with it. And then I've gotta choose a deployment platform. Oh, and then maybe I need some CICD and then, oh, maybe this.
And, but you don't need to think about that. You can just get started. It's a little bit like what I always used to recommend to people. If you're prototyping a project, right. Just. Make an HTML file and use N-P-X-H-T-T-P server to just like get it live on, on your local machine, right? Then you've still gotta like find somewhere to host that HTML file and blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's like it's, it's shortcuts. All of the boring admin nonsense of setting up a project and just lets you build straight away. And this is one of the reasons why. I was really interested in, in this tool when I discovered it was because if you've watched my Twitch streams in the past and watched me code live, like I hate coding, like all of the crap that comes with it, oh, that dependency conflicts with that dependency.
Oh, and that bit doesn't work. And oh, now I have to do this hacky work around for this because I'm using this with this. Like that's all gone. You are just free to create and be expressive and uh, you know, you can bring your own API so essentially NordCraft's like a front end. So it's like the equivalent of React and not next Js.
So you can keep all of your existing backends if you wanna like, just migrate your front end to NordCraft. For example, you could connect to any API, there's some inbuilt services as well that are. That allow you to connect really quickly to things like superb base and Contentful and Umbraco, if you are that way inclined.
Um, but it really is just, it's like a one, it's one place to do everything that eliminates the need for so many different tools. And it's, it eliminates so much friction from being a developer. And I, I, I, I really think that this is something, and. I, I feel like the, the web and the industry, it needs something different.
It, like, we've been doing the same thing for, for so many years and what's very interesting is, um, so I toured a talk this year, uh, about 1995. It was set in 1995 and it was about when the first visual website builders. Invented, you know, you had front page, you had IAnd, backstage designer, and then, then you had later on down the line like Dreamweaver and and stuff.
But they got it wrong because the markup that those. Pieces of software generated was terrible. It was awful, and it wasn't accessible. It wasn't performant like front page when they were acquired by Microsoft. Um, they kind of made it so that their markup only worked in Internet Explorer. Like it was. It was nonsense.
With NordCraft what you are generating is exactly what you create. So we're not doing anything for you. We're not abstracting anything away. It's like you put an HTML element there with those attributes. That's what is in the browser. That's what is in the source of the code, and I think that's where we're different.
In that, you know, you get something like Figma sites and you saw all the nonsense about Figma sites and the kind of markup that it generated. You have no control over it, but with NordCraft, you have complete control over your markup and what you create and what you do. We're not doing anything for you.
We're not handholding you in the process of this because you have to learn it. We're not telling you that you can make something without learning this, and it's, you know, you, you can't. Learn. You can't not learn about the web if you're building in React, even though anecdotally, many people who have started with React haven't learned anything about the web.
And that's why we have this meme that your link shouldn't be a button, you know? Uh, and so we don't hide that from you. We say you've gotta learn it. It's the web. Love the web, learn the web. And once you learn the web via NordCraft or who, or however you can, then. Build stuff with a web, with any framework and with any tools that you want.
Andrew: Figma make is one that kind just ruffles my feathers 'cause it's like the biggest company, one of the biggest design companies in the world. And the output they produce is just this garbled mess that's like unusable. It's a, it's something we
have to kind of battle here at work.
Salma: Yeah.
Justin: I'm curious about like, so I think the callback to like old, uh, visual builders is like one that I was gonna ask because it's like definitely like web developers of a certain generation. Our generation people. Like who, uh, were around in the nineties and early two thousands when like these tools were like used and pretty bad at the time.
Kind of have this vision of what they are, like stuck in their head. Like I, I'm sort of guilty of this as well, uh, even though like. You know, tools like, uh, Nord Craft and Web Flow, and there's like a bunch of tools in this space that's really tried to push the, the space forward. And I think one of the differences when, what I think about like web development today with tools like frameworks like React and others, is that we move from like this. Pages and templates approach to really thinking about like we're we're designing and building, like sort of these one-off, like one-shot experiences and maybe the, the HTML isn't great. Two, we have more of a, almost like a native mindset in how we build apps today. We like componentize them. We think about reuse, we think about, um, a lot of things that these, you know, frameworks have sort of like pushed us towards.
And, and I know that NordCraft has components, so I'm, I'm curious about like. You've talked a lot about how like NordCraft is like HTML and CSS and JavaScript. It is the basics of the web. But I'm curious how it like bridges the gaps or the, the mental model between like how folks may be developing like, you know, JavaScript frameworks or whatever else they're doing. Um, like how does it like combine those worlds, the visual editor and the like framework mindset. Like what does it look like under the hood?
Salma: It is. It was an interesting shift for me actually because when I started using NordCraft, a lot of the questions I had were, how do I do this in NordCraft? And the answer was just like you do it on the web. And I think frameworks have trained us. To not think about the web, but think about the framework.
And that was a really strange realization in me because I was trying to do everything in NordCraft like you would do in React, right? React is the framework I've used the most, I guess. And it's like how do you put props into a component? Oh, and NordCraft is attributes. Oh, but isn't. That HTML attributes.
Oh no. But like what about web component attributes? So they've taken a lot of, um, inspiration from web components in the way, like they name things in, in the whole ecosystem. But I guess the biggest shift was, um. That it was just the web and I didn't need to learn. I didn't need to learn anything new, any mental model patterns.
I just had to go back to the web that I'm creating. H-T-M-L-H-T-M-L has attributes. Um, JavaScript has events. Oh, oh look, there's just an event I can add there. And it's a type of click, you know, and it's like, and I have seen developers struggle with this. I did a lot of user testing over the summer. And obviously the, the biggest, uh, gripe was why would I learn this when I can just use ai, which was upsetting.
But, um, the biggest thing is that people can't match that because they don't have that fundamental understanding of it's just HTML, it's just CSS, it's just JavaScript. Um, and I guess as head of developer education, that's like part of my, um. Manifesto in what I need to, um, communicate in, in everything I do.
But, um, also what I've, I, what I've, um, really come to realize is that frameworks are a religion and it's very hard for people to want to change their religion. And obviously there's a core group of people out there who are just. Like me, like they love the web. They don't care what framework they build in.
You know, they'll build in all of them. I've built in probably all of them as a test at some point in any time, because I don't care. I don't have a framework religion, but I think the biggest challenge is it's not the mental model of NordCraft versus the other frameworks. It's actually try to convince people.
This is just another way to build for the web. And what's very interesting is that people are very hesitant to use gooeys.~~ They think that using a gooey, I'm really sorry, I just need to start that sentence again because I'm getting echo feedback from one of your, um, things and I'm voice jamming myself.~~
Sorry. Thanks. Um. A lot of people struggle with gooeys because they think it's lesser than text, it's lesser than code because of the previous experiences they've probably had with other visual website builders and the reputation that they have. Take for example, Figma sites, right? Um, it, it's a gooey, you are doing it visually.
Um, what it generates is garbage. And also you don't have flexibility. You can only do what the platform lets you do. With NordCraft you can do anything. 'Cause you can write code, you can even import, um, NPM modules if they, you can load them from a CDN, right? You can, you can run that kind of stuff if it, if it runs in a browser.
And, and I don't know what it is about people who, who've looked down on Gooeys because they think they're for beginners or they think they're not professional because they're so used to growing up with these kind of. Fun EYs to learn computers with that. Then when they graduate to writing real code, then they're a real developer. And it reminds me of this very interesting talk by, um, someone called Filine Hermans. And she, um, she's a professor of like academics, frameworks, technology, uh, programming languages. And she gave a talk once, um, where she, uh. Was talking about programming languages, and uh, she invented a new type of programming language that you could write in your native language.
And, uh, even right to left languages and it would compile down to Python. Now, she presented this to people and uh, they were like, why would you ever wanna make something easier like that? Why would you ever want to remove that barrier of learning English? Uh, if you wanted someone to be a developer, right?
And, and she didn't understand it, and she then. It gives an anecdote about glacier study, right? There are two types of glacier study. Um, one of them you do down in the villages where people live because some people can live on glacial land, right? And the other type is high up in the mountains, in the glacial mountains.
What do you think is the most popular glacier study type high in the mountains or down in the villages?
Justin: I'm not really sure. Um, high in the mountains, maybe?
Salma: Yes. Why do you think that is?
Justin: I think there's like, maybe, yeah, I don't know. They feel like there's less to learn, uh, you know, in the village where the like people are. I don't know.
Salma: Ah. Now the village glacial studies are too easy and people want to challenge. They want to go up and make these crazy discoveries at the top of the mountains and go through all of this toil to say, I did that. I did something really difficult and have found out some difficult things about the mountain glaciers when you could have found out something just as valuable in the village glaciers.
[00:30:02] The Illusion of Complexity in Development
Salma: And so the bottom line is that people want the want to immerse themselves in the illusion that they are doing challenging work. They are doing really difficult things and therefore they are better and cleverer and smarter than the person who is doing the easy thing. And so this is the problem that I'm seeing, is that gooeys are easy and, and therefore I'm not gonna use a gooey, I'm gonna toil away in my terminal.
And in my text editor, I'm going to look like I'm doing really complicated, smart things. But at the end of the day, you're just making websites and, and you can make a very terrible inaccessible website in a. Text based IDE, and you can make an absolutely gloriously, wonderfully beautiful creative website in a gooey like NordCraft.
And, and Andrew was just telling me before we recorded that he loves the new NordCraft homepage that was released last week. It's an absolute delight. It's got sounds, it's got interactions, it's got all sorts of crazy stuff. And that was built in Nord Craft. And so I think that the industry likes the illusion of complexity.
The industry likes. To look smart, and therefore you must do the hardest thing possible and the most complex thing possible that requires lots of knowledge. But the problem is building in a visual editor also requires that same knowledge to make a quality product. And I think this whole thing is at odds with the, the, the.
The stereotype of visual interfaces because that's how they've always been. They're aimed at children, they're aimed at beginners, and I don't know right now how to change that perception.
Andrew: Yeah.
what you
guys provide.
with NordCraft. There's a lot there to dig into. Like I think when most people hear visual editor, they're gonna think like, oh, it's, I put the stuff on the page and then I have no control over anything after that. Like just going through your sidebar, you guys have variables, you guys have formulas, which are just functions that you can define with like a node-based workflow editor, which is super cool. Uh, you have actions, you have context. You have all these things that actually let you do more and more in the editor.
[00:32:16] The Value of Visual Editors
Salma: Yes, everything you can do, anything and everything you can, like the Nord Craft editor is built in Nord Craft. And if you can build that in itself, if you can build this. Ridiculously complex editor in the editor itself. And I think you can build your company website with it. You know, I think you can have a bit of fun and, and build anything you want with it.
And you know, let's be honest as well, I, in the grand scheme of things, we're not generally day-to-day as an industry building exciting things. We're actually day-to-day building websites, the hookup to A CMS or an API or a database, right? And so it's not that complicated, and I think there's a lot of the times when.
For example, when I was streaming on Twitch more regularly, and I would go to start a new project and I'd say, oh, I'm just doing it. In an HTML file right now, I'm just prototyping. And then people will come in and say, but why aren't you using React? Why aren't you using Angular? Why aren't, what are you using for your state management in this HTML file?
It's like, bro, I don't need state management. I'm just having a bit of fun. And it's like, because we're so trained in our profession to have these huge stacks because generally we're inheriting legacy stacks when we, you know, start a new job or whatever we are so. Misguided that the default for everything we need to build has to have layer upon layer upon layer of microservices.
Have you seen that Zam video about the microservices? I mean, that's, uh, that's what our life is, and that's what we have come to expect as the default. But we don't have to do that. Like things can be simpler, but that doesn't mean they're less good because. The, the real thing that sets these projects alight and, and makes them what they are is the human being.
It's the creativity, it's the execution, it's the care and the craft. It's the making it accessible, it's making it joyful, it's making it, um. Intriguing. Right. And I think we're losing a lot of that craft that existed 20, 30 years ago because the industry has kind of become a bit of an assembly line and, uh.
We don't have time for our passion projects anymore. And you know, and so the whole industry has fallen into just cookie cutter websites. And, and the same can be said for design as well, right there, there was a, a viral tweet in like 2015 or something, which was like, which one of the website layouts are you making in Figma today?
And it was just, you know, the three column or the one column. And it's like, we are so trapped. In this default mode because we have to build so fast, and a lot of the time, businesses don't give us that space for creativity and for thinking and for experimenting, because deadlines, arbitrary deadlines, and we must make money for the shareholders, you know?
Justin: Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. I think you, you mentioned earlier like the religion of frameworks and you know, it's worth acknowledging, especially for like. S you know, web developers, software engineers, whatever. There's a lot of identity like tied up into our tools and our areas of expertise. It's like, you know, when someone asks us like what we do, uh, we often like relate it in terms of, of those things, right?
And I, I like, broadly agree that I like, I wish. Folks were a little bit less, like they tied their identity less to the specific ways that they did things and, and more to the like act of doing. But it is a hard thing to change behavior. And, and then sometimes I, I do wonder if it's like useful for some people to have that anchor,
um,
Salma: But it doesn't tell you anything about what people are doing. I remember writing about this, um, earlier this year in February. You know, you see a lot on social media. People are announcing their new projects. Hey, I built a new thing. I built it with this database, this framework, it's hosted on this thing.
Oh, and I've used Tailwind, but what have you built? I don't care what it uses. And I think we've put so much focus on the tools that we're using. Oh hey, I built it with ai, this ai, this model. Like, but what have you built and what have you learned and what have you contributed to society with this? You know?
And, and I think, I don't know whether it's a phenomenon of wanting to. Get 15 minutes of fame. So you tag superb base in your tweet or whatever and they retweet you. And then, oh look, you've got eyes on your app. I dunno whether there's a symptom of that. Maybe something is uh, there. But, um, we have become so focused on the tools rather than the process and the output, and it's.
Another symptom of that is people calling themselves a React developer. You know, that was a big thing or a no JS developer or an Astro developer, but like you are, you are not. You are, you are a web developer. You're building stuff for the web. It shouldn't matter what tools you use, uh, because the tools you use could change very frequently, especially if you work in an agency.
And you have to build with the tools they request so they can go on and maintain it when it's finished. And yes, it gives you a bit, does it even give you a bit of an identity? It just, probably just, it, I, I just gives you maybe a bit of an identity and that that's what you've done before and. But then it relies too much then on defining what you do in the future, and I think it removes flexibility from a lot of people.
I have never once identified myself as a X developer. I don't even call myself a NordCraft developer, but I build primarily in NordCraft right now because I think it just gives the wrong example. It sets the wrong example. It gives the wrong impression because I'm here for the web and I'm just wanna show you and share with you.
A really good tool to build for the web. And it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. I mean, it kind of matters 'cause, you know, signups, uh, and, and paying customers. But also that's not my end goal because also when you can teach people about the web through a tool that gives it a bit more. Kind of solidity in their mind.
Is that a word? Because they can, then, they have a way now that they can make anything they want. And yes, you can do it with just Htm, L and CSS and JavaScript. But then as I said before, there's the complexities of hosting and we know that those kind of. Hosting platforms. Everyone has their own downsides and upsides and everyone has their own quirks and oh, um, oh no, you got botted by by an ai so now you're gonna be charged hundreds of dollars and, and things like that that we see everywhere.
And tho there are problems with every part of the tool stack. And when you. When you use a tool like NordCraft, you can kind of take away some of those problems and just focus on the, the, the experience your, your ux right? And you know, there are so many times when I have wanted to learn a new framework.
I've had to learn so many other weird things at the same time, which has really, number one, made me feel stupid. Because you know, the worst DX is when you get made to feel stupid. And also, number two, like I can't transfer that skill to another framework to my next project if I need to use a different framework.
And obviously, frameworks are worth learning because. You might need to use them, uh, in different jobs and whatnot. But also what text-based frameworks can often put in the way is you have to change your mental model. You have to do it this way in this one, but you're used to doing it in that one. And you know, don't even get me started on the complexities of a framework like Angular that has gone so far from web that I don't even.
No, I mean the last angular project I built to be fair was in 2020. Um, but before that I was using angular js at my first job. And the differences in that were incredible, obviously. But you know, with, with something like Angular, oh, so in order to do this one tiny thing, you have to create. A factory thing or a pipe thing, and then a class thing, and then another thing, then another thing.
And it's like I've made 10 files and to create one reactive HTML element. And I'm probably exaggerating, sorry, uh, to all you angular lovers out there, but like, it, it seems a bit much just to, to make a bit of HTML with maybe a little bit of interactivity that looks nice, right? Sometimes.
Andrew: Yeah, I think especially in the times we live in now, defining your job as a specific part of the stack is like really selling yourself short.
Like we're, we're not, we're like, as software developers, we're not just coders. Coding is a part of it, but like we live at a higher level where it's like there's taste and craft and intention that has to be there.
And, uh, like just saying like, oh, I, I'm a React coder. That's what I do is like in the future, react could go away. Code in large part could go away. Like, where does that leave us?
Salma: Exactly, and I think this is one of the big issues with AI as well. Like AI has reduced software development to lines of code produced. And what really upsets me as well is that I know quite a few people working for big companies who are performance reviewed on how many tokens they use. The more tokens they use, the better.
They do at their job, and that's ludicrous. It's absolutely ludicrous because that's not a measure of how good the end product is. The measure of the end product is, does it do what it should do? Is it accessible? Is it joyful? Does it keep people on the site? Does it allow users to get their tasks done?
And I don't know how we got here. I don't know how we got to lines of code as measure of productivity and measure of value. Um, it's, I, I mean, I know why it's because. The industry is all connected in this spider web of money sending here and there. Uh, but you know, we, we have to stand up and question that.
We have to fight against that. We have to say, this is not the way because it's, it's turning the web. Into, as I said, just this assembly line of ship lines of code, not make good stuff like, and have you seen the user experience deteriorating on the web now with every single app? And I think we, people like us are quite fortunate because if we encounter a particular bug, we can, we can get round it.
Sometimes we can open up the network tab and see actually what the error is. Um, we can maybe. Change an attribute on an HTML element to actually make the form submit and things like that. I think I've done that before. Um, we can get around these things, but the average person using the internet and using all of these apps, because obviously every, you have to need an account for everything.
You have to log into everything to do anything and get a subscription and blah, blah, blah. Um. I don't know how people are surviving on the internet in, in these these days. And it's not just a symptom of vibe coding and AI generated code and whatnot. It's a, a symptom of how we are. Neglecting our craft, um, because we are being told to, because that's not what the priority of businesses are.
And I don't wanna sit here and be all like, floaty, floaty. Like web is art, web is craft, but it, but it is. But it, it, it's, it's, it is, and that's where it came from. And we are losing it and we need to get it back. I, I think we will see a renaissance. It's gonna take a lot of work and it's gonna tire us out a lot, but I think it's needed.
Justin: Something else that I think to like add to that. To, at least for like us and, and maybe even the listeners here, is that I feel like we are in a little bit of a, of a bubble. The folks who actually talk very openly about the tools that they're using and, and care a lot about the technology, and there's this like whole class of people who write software who just like are trying to get something done. Um, and they're competent, but like the things that they care about are just like, I want. You know, I want this like site for my boutique, you know, I want to build this thing for this band. I want to, you know, do this real work. And the thing that I care about is getting this thing done. And I think that's like where tools like Nord Craft, like really shine.
Because I think you're right that like, you know, well. The web is craft. It's an artistic endeavor. Like anytime we're going around this like creative problem solving, I mean, we are all sort of like. Doing these creative activities. Um, understanding the foundations is something that's like hard, um, in that, but like necessary to sort of like build these good experiences that, uh, especially, you know, when we think about accessibility, about like meeting the needs of everyone who are like coming to experience this.
And I think that like we do, do ourselves a disservice sometimes by. Um, glorifying the software engineering of it, uh, around like meeting complexity and losing the foundations a little bit. And I think that's what I, I'm, you know, what I'm hearing from you saying, and like, what sounds like really awesome about NordCraft is like, if it's a tool to get a thing done, let's like help you do it quickly, let's help you do it well.
But let's also teach you the like, foundations of like. We are interfacing with a web. We're not trying to hide that from you. We want to emphasize that. Um, because at the end of the day, like when you need to meet, uh, a user's like accessibility needs, it's like you go look on MDN for like, you know, what are the, what are the standards, what are like the things that I need here?
And like if a tool like hides that away from you or makes it impossible to do those things, then that's like, you know, a non-starter in some ways. And so,
Salma: And one of the cool things about NordCraft as well is that it actually has a lot of like MDN documentation built into the platform, like as well as links. Like for example, if you add, um, an. An A tag and you wanna add some attributes to it, we pre-populate all of the attributes that you could potentially add to it.
So you don't need to go looking on MDN, actually, because we're using the MDN APIs to get all of that stuff inside the editor. Same with the CSS keywords and the properties and the values we have auto complete on all of those. You can even get all of the obscure elements and attributes that you've probably never even heard of, but that's again, bringing that knowledge to the fore to help you learn what's possible.
And that's quite a new addition actually. And I love it because I don't need to remember the spelling for something or I don't need to remember if it's got it's cross origin. For example, if it's got a capital O in it, because it's pre-populated for me, I can just do a little fuzzy search for it and.
That's, it's bringing everything to you and we've got so much more planned for this as well. Um, it's bringing everything to you from the knowledge base of the web right there with you so you don't have to context switch anymore. You know, like, so for example, if you are, if you're coding traditionally in VS code, for example, you've got VS code open, you've got your browser open with your local development in, and then maybe you've got.
MDN or some Google tabs as well to look at to make sure that you're doing it in the right way with MDN or whatever. And I'm not saying that when you have all this pre-populated stuff in NordCraft that you don't need any of that other stuff, but it lessens the probability that you do, again, increasing your flow state rather than having to go back and forth between lots of different things.
And especially having that canvas there right in front of you that you can resize with shortcuts and so you don't have to go into. Uh, your dev tools. Press the button to make the mobile view come up, and then choose the right size that you want, and then resize that bit to the side to check that that's, and then zoom in probably.
Um, and then find the element in the tree like that's about 10 steps that just are eliminated by having the canvas in front of you. Having 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 shortcuts to resize it and then having basically dev tools open that's changing it in real time and then saving it to your project. So it eliminates all of that friction to allow you just focus on the art and the craft and the getting that stuff done without faffing between all of that stuff.
And yeah, I think you only really realize the benefit of that until you are. Kind of like not a power user, but until you've like, you know the shortcuts and you know actually that this is just like looking at dev tools and editing it, but it's saving it and it's all there in front of you and you have to kind of experience it to get the value.
It's one of those things. I can't just tell you that it's better or faster. It's one of those things that you have to experience. But again, in order to experience that, you have to have built something in it and take the time to learn and take the time to just strip all of your expectations away and then go back to the web.
Let's do some web stuff, you know?
Andrew: I totally agree.
[00:50:02] Future of Web Development and NordCraft
Andrew: So, looking to the future, uh, what are you excited for? What's coming out with Nord Craft? And then more broadly, what are you excited about in webs, in trends in web development? Like CSS in particular has like kind of had a renaissance as of late, I.
Salma: Yeah. So, um, what I'm really excited about is what building on that documentation inside the. Platform of the web platform. We've got a lot more of that planned. And it's like, what can we surface to users without being overwhelming, but with, but being enabling. And, uh, you know, we might not get it right first time, but like some of the things that we're doing, I think are helping me especially, uh, in terms of.
Learning more about the web right now. I would be remiss if I, I did not mention that, um, the NordCraft AI assistant is being released, um, in the next couple of months officially to the public. It's in alpha testing right now, but the whole stance on that is five. Coding is dead. Let AI do the. Boring stuff and then create it.
And what's great about the NordCraft AI is that it explains stuff to you. It really helps you understand what's in the project. You can go into a project that you've never seen before in NordCraft and say, explain this to me. And it will tell you what every variable does, what every formula does, what every workflow does.
It will give you a rundown of all of the HTML and everything, and it will ha it like the purpose of. How we built this AI was to help you understand, rather than just help you do. And I think that's what sets it apart from, from other, um, implementations. It's like we don't, we want you to be able to maintain your products that, um, you are building and it's like you can let ai, ai scaffold something and then it's never gonna be finished.
We're not gonna tell you that this is gonna be like a one prompt wonder. It's like. Get the boring stuff done. Like I use it a lot right now for, um, how can I build a formula that does this? And rather than me having to go to the NordCraft docs, 'cause the AI knows all the docs, it, it's. Ingested it all, rather than having to go to the docs and search through all of the formula references, I just get a list of them and it's like, well, this one does this, this one does this, one does this.
And it's like, so again, I don't need to context switch between different places. So everything's there. And I don't like telling the AI to do stuff for me. I'd rather do it myself because then you learn. But it can do some stuff for you and it will do some stuff for you and it can create pages and all that stuff.
But that's not where I think the the fun lies. Um, and we're gonna be taking a few things out of beta and, and releasing an official 2.0 of NordCraft. I don't think anyone knows about that yet, so I don't, no one knows about that, but like that's the thing that's happening. Um, but, um, it's really about, um, bringing all of the tools together that traditional development users and putting them all in one place, including documentation.
Help and education. And also, uh, I'm very excited in, uh, January I'm creating a whole new course. Um, I created a course this year, but it went too deep and was really for existing NordCraft users. So I'm creating a course called NordCraft Fundamentals that is really gonna be for people who have never used NordCraft before and may not have used anything on the web before.
So it's kind of intended to introduce the web and the web platform at the same time as NordCraft, but without hiding. The fact that, um, it's just the web, right? And it's going to connect those dots between h Tml, CSS and JavaScript and NordCraft. Um, we'll see how that goes. And, um, we really just more of the same and really just improving on the stability and improving on just seeing if we can get people interested and.
Invested in learning, and it's about how we change people's minds somehow. Um, but maybe the bubble will burst next year and maybe we'll have a chance.
Andrew: Well, thanks for coming on and talking about all this. This was a really fun. And like thought provoking conversation about where the industry is at and uh, I'm excited to dig into Nord Craft and see what I can do with it. So thanks for coming on and talking about it.
Salma: you so much for having me. If you want any questions answered, you know where I am, I would love to take you through it if you are serious about that and, uh, I hope you can make some really cool stuff.
Justin: Thanks Salma. I especially appreciate your advocacy for the web. I think it's as important now as it is ever, and I'm glad to see a tool like NordCraft not trying to hide all those fundamental things away, but actually trying to accentuate them and to build on them and to build people as they build products.
And that's, um. I think that's an admirable product, an admirable goal. So
excited to see what y'all do and definitely rooting for your success because we need more tools that do this.
Salma: Thank you. Thank you so much.