When programmers unlocked James Long’s chest of treasures.
An AMA with James Long, creator of prettier, ex-Mozilla, Contracting as Shift Reset LLC.
Theophrastus, the successor of Aristotle said “Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend” and James spent a little more than two hours of his time to answer questions quizzed to him.
The founder of Shift Reset LLC, James Long recently hosted an Ask Me Anything session on Hashnode. There was an interesting exchange of questions and answers with James sharing info on the projects he is working on, his ‘aha’ moments and why he started his own contracting company.
Here are a few excerpts from his AMA, the full AMA can be found here.
How is Prettier different from any other formatter?
James: Prettier is different because of one crucial thing: it takes into account the width of the code and will lay it out accordingly. This allows it to handle…Read full answer
How would the JavaScript eco-system look like after 10 years? What’s your opinion?
James: JavaScript is a pretty crazy beast that’s hard to predict because there are so many interested parties, and so many things that can influence it. Not just leaders trying to shape the language, but everyone…Read full answer
What made you stop working for others and create your own company? Was there a trigger?
James: Several things, but ultimately I had been at Mozilla for 6 years so that’s long enough to start to get an itch for something very different. I’m interested in a lot of things so I was getting… Read full answer
What are some other projects you are currently working on?
James: Right now I’m not working on anything open-source, but I am building a product that I’m hoping to release soon-ish. I’m currently trying to get a beta in front of a few people and… Read full answer
How vital is it to adhere to established coding styles?
James: I absolutely think it’s low priority, and should just be automated as much as possible (hence prettier). It’s really annoying to me that PRs would get blocked on such simple… Read full answer
Do you need to contribute to Open-source software to become a great programmer?
James: I would not say that OSS is necessary step to become a good programmer. Many people became excellent masters of programming before open source was even… Read full answer
James gave some insightful answers for other questions. They are listed below.
- Do you consider Javascript Framework fatigue a big problem?
- What are the pros and cons of freelancing?
- Have you ever had a eureka’ish moment?
- What are the books that made an impact on the way you work?
- How was your time at Mozilla? What are all the project you were involved in?
- How much time did it take for you to create prettier?
- If you had a startup, which framework you would choose?
Do check out the complete AMA here. James answered a lot more questions.
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