193: Why You Can’t Skip the Fundamentals w/ Henri Helvetica

[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to Syntax. Welcome to a brand new episode of the Front End Happy Hour podcast. Welcome to this week’s JS Party. Live from Ship Shape Studios, this is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. With your hosts, Robbie the Wagner, and me, Charles William Carpenter III. That’s right Charles. We drink whiskey and talk about web development.

[00:00:27] Intro: I mean, it’s all in the name. It’s not that deep. This is Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Do not adjust your set.

[00:00:36] Chuck Carpenter: Welcome everyone to another episode of Rum React and Ramblings. This is the special edition for React Miami. I find myself here with my co-host Aaron Francis. Hello. Thank you for having me. Yes. And , we are normally whiskey web and whatnot, but that’s not how it’s gonna roll today.

[00:00:54] Chuck Carpenter: our special guest is Henri Helvetica. For those who do not know who you are and what you do, [00:01:00] let us know.

[00:01:00] Henri Helvetica: First of all, thank you for inviting me. Thank you for

[00:01:03] Chuck Carpenter: finally agreeing. I have asked you a few times,

[00:01:06] Henri Helvetica: you know, sometimes the timing is just, you know, you know how that goes.

[00:01:10] Henri Helvetica: Yes. but no, thank you. And you know, when you did reach out this time, I’m like, hell yeah, dude. without a doubt, so, yes, my name’s as, , you may have heard. And just now RI is, spelt with an I because I am French speaking. , it’s my mother tongue, so some people say they can hear the accent.

[00:01:30] Henri Helvetica: Sure. I’m here at React, Miami because I was invited to speak and I came, , to talk about, uh, the performance space, which I, I tend to hang out in. And I talked about dev tools, , because they had, uh, some updates that I thought people probably didn’t know about or hadn’t seen or paid much attention to.

[00:01:51] Henri Helvetica: So I definitely want to talk about that.

[00:01:53] Chuck Carpenter: what else? Yeah, we could just start with that. That’s good to go. Yeah. Yeah. Let this go. That is who you are. You are ri [00:02:00] we,

[00:02:02] Chuck Carpenter: a lot of people don’t know. I took French from fourth grade until about my sophomore year in high school. And then for like a year or so in college and then I quickly forgot it and didn’t actually ever go to France until I was about 37 or something, was the first time. So my ability to use it and speak it is fairly small pu but I do understand when people speak a little bit more.

[00:02:29] Henri Helvetica: And Mr. Francis

[00:02:30] Aaron Francis: and I grew up in Texas and decided, you know what? I don’t want to take Spanish. I wanna take French. I too, you did. I too took French. I took French in ninth and 10th grade. However, my French teacher was also my soccer coach. And so it was not a very serious thing. And so we would always start, I went to a private Christian school.

[00:02:49] Aaron Francis: We would always start by saying the Lord’s Prayer in French. And then I would say, can I go to the bathroom in French? So that’s about as much as I have in terms of French, however. My wife majored in French in college, [00:03:00] so she is fluent in French.

[00:03:01] Henri Helvetica: What is going on right now? I know it’s

[00:03:03] Aaron Francis: weird, right? That is so weird.

[00:03:05] Aaron Francis: And get this, before we had kids, my wife and I both worked remote and we were like, what the heck are we doing in Texas? Let’s move to Paris for three months. Yes. So we did. I love it. So we just took our regular jobs. We didn’t have to get fancy visas ‘cause it was 90 days and we just went and lived in Paris and it was great.

[00:03:22] Aaron Francis: Wow. This is preki pre-kids for sure. Hundred percent. Much respect on that. Otherwise, you know,

[00:03:29] Henri Helvetica: it’s funny, I was talking about Paris a couple days ago because, well, a couple reasons, but, I’ve not been back there in a little while. I had family there, but I used to like to go for a number of reasons anyways.

[00:03:40] Henri Helvetica: I’ve been meaning to go back and, oh, I’m gonna interrupt myself. I should have gone last year. and uh, because my plan was to actually work remotely. In Paris during the Olympics.

[00:03:51] Aaron Francis: Cool. ,

[00:03:51] Henri Helvetica: it didn’t work out like that. And then I realized I probably should have just volunteered to work during the Olympics.

[00:03:58] Henri Helvetica: , but that came [00:04:00] too late either way. I always wanted to go back because, , if you do not know, , the Parisians, , pride themselves on, um, bakery, croissants, baguettes, sants,

[00:04:11] Chuck Carpenter: baguettes. My daughter, who is almost six, , she hasn’t been to France, but she is obsessed with baguette. She wants French butter and baguette, and she would eat that every single day.

[00:04:21] Chuck Carpenter: Good taste.

[00:04:22] Henri Helvetica: Well, there are people who eat that every single day. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, uh, but they actually have, a, well, I don’t wanna say world famous, but a, certainly citywide famous, if not famous in France. , a ri la baguette. Which is a baguette Grand Prix. Literally translated, and they rate the best baguette in Paris.

[00:04:43] Henri Helvetica: Huh. And it’s a prestigious award. I bet. , because the winner then, , is the official supplier for the French, , oh my God. What’s it called again? Like basically the French White House. Wow. Whoa. Yeah. And so for the next year, they’re the ones that, and they do it

[00:04:57] Aaron Francis: via competition and then a hundred percent.

[00:04:59] Aaron Francis: [00:05:00] That is so cool. Yeah. They have

[00:05:01] Henri Helvetica: like, they’ll have like 130 baguettes and they have these judges that go through it.

[00:05:06] Aaron Francis: Why are we not doing that? I don’t know. I, we need to be having baguette competitions for like the US White House. That’s a great idea. That would be amazing. Yeah. Like.

[00:05:15] Chuck Carpenter: The official, I don’t know.

[00:05:16] Chuck Carpenter: What would it be though? It wouldn’t be baguettes. What would be, I know. Yeah.

[00:05:20] Henri Helvetica: Hot dogs probably. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Hot dog.

[00:05:22] Aaron Francis: Hamburgers, pizza. Yeah, I don’t know. You can’t do the best diet Coke. ‘cause Diet Coke is just diet Coke. But like, yeah. Something more American like. Casserole the best. Casser oil. The official White House

[00:05:32] Chuck Carpenter: casserole.

[00:05:33] Henri Helvetica: Apple pie. Apple, apple pie.

[00:05:34] Chuck Carpenter: There you go. The best apple pie. That’s true. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:36] Chuck Carpenter: Well, before we go too far down that, yeah, we do have to get to the first part. Okay. Which is drinking rum. I almost said whiskey. It’s hard, you know? ‘cause that’s just my bread and butter. Reference and tenders is your

[00:05:48] Aaron Francis: baguette and butter is what you meant.

[00:05:49] Chuck Carpenter: I would, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, today we are having rum barko. Uh, this was recommended by you and this is the 15 year expression. Is there anything else you can tell us about [00:06:00] this?

[00:06:00] Henri Helvetica: Well, the first thing I’ll say, it’s, pronounced Barko.

[00:06:04] Chuck Carpenter: Barko.

[00:06:04] Henri Helvetica: The only thing I can say about it is that, , it was a staple in, , our house.

[00:06:11] Henri Helvetica: so my background, you grew up on this room? Well, I don’t know about grew up, maybe my parents did. , my background is French Caribbean, , Haiti specifically. And by the way, we react, I know he’s not here, so, but he was mentioned this morning, oh my God, from remix, Ryan Florence Ryan.

[00:06:31] Henri Helvetica: Yep. , he did some volunteer work, mission work,

[00:06:35] Chuck Carpenter: I think maybe. Oh, yes. ‘cause he’s Mormon. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:06:37] Henri Helvetica: And he, one day he tells me, he’s like, dude, I totally like hung out with Haitians for like two years.

[00:06:43] Aaron Francis: Really? I’m, that’s Where did he do his mission in Haiti.

[00:06:46] Henri Helvetica: I can’t remember if he said in Haiti or not, but I just remember hearing my jaw drop and I was like, dude, what are you talking about?

[00:06:56] Henri Helvetica: And he started to tell me X, Y, and Z. And I just couldn’t get that outta [00:07:00] my mind. I’m like. And you hung out with Haitians and he’s like, yeah. Yeah. So does he

[00:07:03] Aaron Francis: speak French? if anything he, it wouldn’t surprise me. He’s good at a lot of

[00:07:07] Henri Helvetica: things. He would probably know a few Creole words. Uhhuh. Ah, but I always remembered that.

[00:07:12] Henri Helvetica: How funny. Yeah.

[00:07:14] Aaron Francis: It doesn’t surprise me.

[00:07:15] Chuck Carpenter: He

[00:07:15] Aaron Francis: does it all.

[00:07:15] Henri Helvetica: Okay. So what’s going on right now?

[00:07:16] Chuck Carpenter: Well, I usually start with the smell just to get an idea of like, what a aroma. Yeah. What are we picking up here? Yeah, your olfactory response. Okay. To this,

[00:07:25] Aaron Francis: this is dependent on Omri. So if it’s not good, he is the one that recommended this.

[00:07:30] Aaron Francis: Well, so there’s a lot of pressure here, h

[00:07:31] Chuck Carpenter: rums, and this is a 15-year-old, so I think there’s that. And I think it’s a Haitian rum. So it’s gonna, it’s, it’s not the one you’re gonna, all signs are pointing to. Yes. You’re not finding this at like the seven 11 or something like this. Is definitely’s a specialized?

[00:07:43] Chuck Carpenter: That’s a good thing. Okay. Yes. Smells good. All so a lot of times if there are Taste and aroma references made. You said apple pie and I actually am getting a little apple cinnamon on the smell. I don’t know. give it a wh and see if you’ve picking up.

[00:07:55] Chuck Carpenter: Alright. I’ve smelled it

[00:07:56] Aaron Francis: a couple times. I can’t smell it. You don’t get that. I’m just gonna go ahead and drink it now. Yeah, that’s fine. There’s, here we [00:08:00] go. Yeah, get in there.

[00:08:00] Aaron Francis: Oh yeah. That one’s much better than the previous one. It’s, yeah, it’s way better. You passed. Oh, well thank you. Uh, I’m glad I’m not gonna be thrown out. Yeah,

[00:08:11] Henri Helvetica: like I said, it was a staple in the house and I remember on my way down to React Miami, I’m like, man, I know it’s Miami.

[00:08:20] Henri Helvetica: There’s a large Haitian community in Miami, by the way. Okay. . I thought I was gonna have time yesterday, but I didn’t. I’m hopefully on Saturday, I’m trying to go to Little Haiti. Mm-hmm. , hang out there maybe for an hour or two. , and like I said, for me coming down here was the idea of just kind of like being in a Haitian community environment.

[00:08:42] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Which is why Yeah. Having like

[00:08:44] Chuck Carpenter: close cultural connection there. A hundred percent. That’s, I love, I

[00:08:46] Henri Helvetica: brought up KU because it is a Haitian staple.

[00:08:50] Aaron Francis: And how long have you been, you’re in Toronto now? Yes. So how long have you been there? ,

[00:08:54] Henri Helvetica: I’ve been in Toronto 20 some years. 25 now.

[00:08:59] Henri Helvetica: Nice. [00:09:00] Exactly. So I, I’ll be honest, , part of the reason why I love Toronto so much, , there’s a very large Caribbean community in Toronto really, I believe or not. Interesting. You know, with all the winter climate and all that brings. Yeah. Like

[00:09:14] Chuck Carpenter: why you all want to go up where it’s cold. Yeah. What do you attribute that to?

[00:09:18] Henri Helvetica: . At the time, , a couple things, but mostly immigration. So there was a moment where a few countries, like the UK specifically, and , Canada as well, , they had a very open immigration policy. They invited, a lot of communities, , over and for some reason, , the Caribbean community kind of like vibed with it.

[00:09:42] Henri Helvetica: So, , one of the biggest Caribbean festivals in the world is in Toronto. Yeah, it’s called Caribana. Well, officially not, but it was always called Carvan. so massive Jamaican community. , some of the best Jamaican food on the planet is in Toronto, by the way. Hmm. again, the [00:10:00] majority of the English speaking, , Caribbean, , is represented in Toronto.

[00:10:04] Henri Helvetica: and a few others and, and whatnot. Like, you know, there’s a very, very, very, very, very small, , Haitian community there, like, not even worth mentioning at times, , because the majority of Haitians are in Montreal.

[00:10:15] Chuck Carpenter: Okay.

[00:10:16] Henri Helvetica: And then there’s also a large community qua, like more natural. Exactly, yes. Okay. Wow.

[00:10:22] Henri Helvetica: And there’s actually a fairly big community as well in Ottawa, which is about 90 minutes from Montreal. Yeah. Four hours from Toronto. Yeah. but yeah, Toronto is, uh, for me, the Caribbean community makes it feel like so at home. Yeah. Which is why I love London, England as well.

[00:10:36] Henri Helvetica: Hmm huh. You know, same deal really, you know, and that came from what’s called the wind rush generation. when the UK was looking for more staffers, more workers, You know, within the Commonwealth and Jamaica being part of it, , you were able to sort of like go there and just literally, you know, start working asap.

[00:10:55] Henri Helvetica: Like you

[00:10:55] Chuck Carpenter: said, immigration was a direct and easier path. A hundred. Yep.

[00:10:58] Henri Helvetica: Yep. So you have a [00:11:00] large Caribbean community, in um, London as well. In London, yeah. Totally. Which is why I love London so much. Oh, interesting.

[00:11:06] Chuck Carpenter: Not because you are own ri and you like teary own ri, so you’re probably a gunner, right?

[00:11:12] Chuck Carpenter: Right. Yeah. Okay. We’ll get into some of that a bit.

[00:11:14] Chuck Carpenter: We do have to draw it back to rum. I’m whiskey again. Let’s go. Yeah. That

[00:11:18] Henri Helvetica: means

[00:11:18] Chuck Carpenter: I wanna come back to this just to get through this and we can sip and whatever else, all that. But I want to get your feelings about its taste if you’re picking up any kind of flavor, nuance or whatever else.

[00:11:29] Chuck Carpenter: ‘cause for me, I drink this and I feel like, , it’s a coffee cake. It’s got like, you know, like a coffee cake that kind of crumble, cinnamon brown sugar. Those are the flavors I’m kind of picking up there.

[00:11:41] Henri Helvetica: So I, I’ll be the first one to say I’m not a rum connoisseur like that. would not be the person to trust on, you know, tastes and reviews and, and whatnot.

[00:11:53] Chuck Carpenter: so a long time ago on a, a bourbon tour, this old man gave me like, incredible advice. And I think it applies to like [00:12:00] many things, but like, it was from Buffalo Trace with this, this big distillery that’s known for a few different things.

[00:12:05] Chuck Carpenter: And Pappy Van Weal is one of the things that they make there. And so people will come for this famous hard to get whiskey, and he’s like, and that’s great. If you’re here for Pappy Van Weal, that’s the one that you want to try. That’s all right. But the best whiskey is the one that you like. And if that’s a $20, that’s a good word, Weller.

[00:12:23] Chuck Carpenter: Then that’s great. Yeah. And if it’s $1,200 Pappy Van Winkle, then that’s okay too. And it’s exactly the same for many things. So it’s can can I

[00:12:31] Aaron Francis: make, can I make a statement? Can I try this one on? Absolutely. On for size.

[00:12:34] Aaron Francis: How about this? The best JavaScript framework? Uhoh is the one that you like.

[00:12:38] Chuck Carpenter: I think it

[00:12:38] Aaron Francis: applies.

[00:12:39] Aaron Francis: Is that okay? Can we say that?

[00:12:41] Chuck Carpenter: I think hundred percent. I think in our industry that’s okay, right? That there are many answers that are not wrong. And I think

[00:12:46] Aaron Francis: when it comes down to a lot of the arguments are, that’s the one that I like and like That’s okay.

[00:12:52] Chuck Carpenter: You can just like things, this is kind of a little throwout to our currently not present co-host.

[00:12:58] Chuck Carpenter: Okay. Where Robbie is an [00:13:00] ember JS dev to this day. Mm-hmm. His job is primarily ember js. He has been a core contributor to open source projects, including Ember js. He’s on the learning team, he’s still there. And I think like for a lot of people that are in the sphere of the last five years of the hotness, like that’s kind of like, oh wow.

[00:13:17] Chuck Carpenter: Mm-hmm. Why are you riding that garbage to the end? But it worked for him and he likes it. And like, why is that That’s good word. I like that. No, I,

[00:13:25] Henri Helvetica: I, I absolutely agree. I think, you know, we’ve gotten into this, , by the way, I have a bit of a raspy voice. I have to apologize. That was, uh, partly due to last night’s sort of night.

[00:13:36] Henri Helvetica: That’s a ton of night. It’s part, part parcel. It makes for great

[00:13:39] Aaron Francis: radio. So don’t be self-conscious. It sounds awesome.

[00:13:42] Henri Helvetica: Thank you. Um, thank you

[00:13:43] Chuck Carpenter: very much. I’ve got a

[00:13:44] Henri Helvetica: Exactly, I’ve got a face for

[00:13:45] Chuck Carpenter: radio.

[00:13:45] Henri Helvetica: Exactly. You know, James Earl Joyce is related. You know, you could have

[00:13:49] Chuck Carpenter: been, yeah, you could have been, uh, dark Vader, who knows?

[00:13:52] Henri Helvetica: Dark Vader, uh,

[00:13:57] Chuck Carpenter: all. So, alright. There’s no boundaries on this show, that’s [00:14:00] why. Exactly. Right. We

[00:14:00] Henri Helvetica: just started, I believe a, and it’s unfortunate that we’re in a place right now where people do not deep dive and you end up jumping from like. Product to product to product and never really having any kinda mastery and you know, what ends up happening that, suddenly, having mastery in a particular framework that might be quote unquote outdated Yeah.

[00:14:26] Henri Helvetica: Is supposedly looked down upon not valuable in some way. Yeah. Right.

[00:14:32] Chuck Carpenter: If you’re productive. , that’s what it is.

[00:14:34] Henri Helvetica: Absolutely.

[00:14:35] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. You

[00:14:36] Henri Helvetica: know, it’s, uh, I think is another

[00:14:37] Chuck Carpenter: good point.

[00:14:38] Chuck Carpenter: I’m gonna, I want wrap up the rum. Yes. And I, sorry. Then get into I’m, no, no. Oh yeah, that was, I think that you were giving me good ideas.

[00:14:44] Chuck Carpenter: No, that was good points here. I think it was a nice tie together because those are some things that, that’s pretty good. Yeah. That I try to get at for sure. Alright. And I’ll lead it. But I’m first gonna let remind our listeners and let re know that we have a highly technical rating system from zero [00:15:00] to eight tentacles, zero being horrible.

[00:15:03] Chuck Carpenter: Throw this stuff out. Four is being like, it’s not bad, it’s not great. Middle of the road, you know, fine. Eight being amazing. Clear the shelves and clear the shelves. I must clarify because that is more whiskey vernacular in that like, if you see something you love, that means just buy everyone you see?

[00:15:19] Chuck Carpenter: That’s what clear the shelves means. so on, on this one. And this one isn’t crazy too. I do take price into account personally. Mm-hmm. And I’ll take some accountability in this episode of setting the standard of what I feel about this rum. Mm-hmm. so this one was only like $60.

[00:15:36] Chuck Carpenter: Okay. And I think for $60 this tastes great. And this is what I like about other age spirits outside of whiskey because whiskey has gotten a little crazy and like $60 is a baseline to like even have anything decent these days, which is bullshit. That’s a lot. Yeah. You can find things like Maker’s Mark and Buffalo Trace and spend 30 bucks and get something decent.

[00:15:56] Chuck Carpenter: That is fine. But in general. There’s this weird [00:16:00] $60 baseline, and this being only $60, I think is very tasty. like I said, I was saying Don Ri is like, this tastes like a coffee cake a little bit to me. And it’s like , but not too sweet. It’s got a little, little coffee cake. It’s got a little like, punch back.

[00:16:15] Chuck Carpenter: I call it the hug, the whiskey hug would be like a little burn. I want a little burn. I want to know that I’m having alcohol. Mm. But I don’t want it to like, make it hard to move from sip to sip. Mm. And so I like all these things about it. I think it has a good value. And for me on a rum spectrum of, of six and a half, Ooh, yeah.

[00:16:34] Chuck Carpenter: I don’t, I’m vacating between six and a half to seven, but I think six and a half is like I can easily lean into, would have, again, would recommend. And I appreciate being able to try this because of you.

[00:16:44] Henri Helvetica: you’re very welcome. And, , my selection was. , predominantly based on, you know, what I discussed, sentiment, you know, sentiment, you know, family , and being in the environment where I think it would be likely very available.

[00:16:59] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. [00:17:00] You know? Yeah. Because when you’d ask, I’m like, oh dude, ba MoCo. A hundred percent. Yeah. They’ve got it. Get it. Yeah. It’s probably being sold in like corner stores. Yeah. You know, , ‘cause we’re in Miami.

[00:17:09] Chuck Carpenter: I think this 15 might be like the level up. Yes. Because they did have a couple others, but Yeah.

[00:17:12] Henri Helvetica: I mean, I, it would be hard for me to, to grade this. ‘cause like I said, I, I don’t know how, whatever, just pick a number. I, it doesn’t matter. I’m, I’m gonna throw out a six and I say that’s because in part, I, I’m not, , don’t be afraid to

[00:17:25] Chuck Carpenter: say eight. If in your context this is

[00:17:27] Aaron Francis: just the best for you.

[00:17:28] Aaron Francis: Yeah. This brings you back, if this brings you back to childhood.

[00:17:31] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Alright. You got me nine.

[00:17:33] Aaron Francis: Yeah. There we go. Let’s go. The memories, the memories count for a bonus point. Absolutely. I like, like that. Absolutely. Yeah. I’m gonna give it a strong six. It’s, it’s way better than the last one we had. This is great.

[00:17:44] Chuck Carpenter: It’s night and day and this is awesome. I like this. I, I’ll be sharing this so that we can elevate for Adam, like his own context too. Yeah. , because yeah, we had some Appleton estate rum before. Okay. And it was fine, but it’s not really a sipper, it’s more of a, like, [00:18:00] this is better than bottom shelf to put in your mixer.

[00:18:03] Chuck Carpenter: Mm. Got it. That’s what I would say. Got it. It’s good for, and this is like tasty. Have it on your own. Put a cube in there if you want to make it a little cooler, like Yeah. It would go down that path.

[00:18:12] Henri Helvetica: You know. Here’s a, a question since uh, we’ll remain on topic for a few more.

[00:18:16] Henri Helvetica: What makes a good rum?

[00:18:18] Chuck Carpenter: I think good natural ingredients from my understanding, and that I don’t have. Anywhere near as much information about the process as I do about whiskey. Mm-hmm. , but my understanding is that you want it, , a lot are made with cheaper ingredients and ‘cause you start from a sweet mm-hmm. So like molasses or just a corn syrup or that kind of thing mm-hmm.

[00:18:39] Chuck Carpenter: Will be your basis of your regularly available one. Mm-hmm. Versus sugar cane. And so if you have a sugar cane starter, that is the key. Mm-hmm. And if you don’t want it to be super sweet, they’re often aged in used barrels. Mm-hmm. Which means you want something like 10 years plus for it to really draw out.

[00:18:58] Chuck Carpenter: And then you’re probably [00:19:00] looking at, , what it was aged in beyond that. that’s all I know though I can kind of, ‘cause one of my favorites is, uh, is Z COPPA 23. Mm-hmm. And that one, , I mean the fact that it’s 23 is like a huge thing and it’s got a great balance between like sweet and deep profiles.

[00:19:16] Henri Helvetica: Interesting. Yeah, good to know. I mean, we got plenty of sugar canes in Haiti, so Yeah. Probably doesn’t work. Plenty. Plenty many extra. Absolutely. Yeah. Cool. I learned something. Well, there we go. That ends my usefulness has come to a grand end, but, we’ll,

[00:19:33] Chuck Carpenter: yeah, I think it’s a great conversation and I know like in the grand scheme of things, like the internet isn’t that old.

[00:19:40] Chuck Carpenter: Mm-hmm. So it’s associated technologies are not that old, at the end of the day, what we are doing is kind of serving HTML. Yes. And that is sort of the output that our consumer, which is first a client and then is a user to do and interact with things there. So I think just a lot of our responsibilities are around like being as [00:20:00] standardized into our consumer and then kind of enhancing.

[00:20:06] Chuck Carpenter: Mm-hmm. You know, progressive enhancement is something from a long time ago that isn’t. Quite as du jour as had been. And I think performance, unfortunately, to a lot of things, performance has gone out the window in the way of accessibility. Mm-hmm. Has, or I don’t want to necessarily pin people down and say they don’t care, but their ability to care has been highly like, thrown off or it’s just priorities have been shifted down for various reasons.

[00:20:32] Chuck Carpenter: But,

[00:20:33] Henri Helvetica: you know, I do not disagree at all. And, it’s funny because, , I enjoyed accessibility and performance and in my mind I was like, okay, I think I just have to pick one the other. And I went performance wide because I just kind of like, like the idea of number crunching. I talked earlier about, user experience being completely intangible.

[00:20:53] Henri Helvetica: You know, it’s kinda like, how do you measure this? I find. Accessibility is kind of there. Mm-hmm. You know, and not that I don’t like [00:21:00] accessibility. Like I really, I love accessibility. I fight for it. but I really like the idea of just like crunchy numbers. I used to love seeing like, decimals that went like eight deep, you know?

[00:21:11] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. , the advantage I think that accessibility had over performance, you know, and you’re like, oh, you know, they’re sort of like the same. , I think accessibility was given some legal support where suddenly you had a reason to pay attention to accessibility because of, , Domino’s lawsuits or mm-hmm.

[00:21:33] Henri Helvetica: Target or whatever it may be over the years that we’ve heard about. And performance was like, okay, we’ll, , we’ll deal with that a little later. , and I, I understand, you know, performance, where it’s at right now, , it can get a little complicated. , but that’s also because the web’s gotten complicated, right?

[00:21:49] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. What’s capable online has sort of reflected in, you know, what it is required to sort of build it. And, , you know, things sort of like fall by the [00:22:00] wayside. And, , people like, you know, I don’t know Tim Catholic, , and so many, even some who are here, , like to remind folks that like, Hey, there’s actual impact and implications, you know, in not paying attention to performance.

[00:22:14] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. Squeaky wheel syndrome. Mm-hmm. To a degree. Yeah. ,

[00:22:18] Henri Helvetica: but sometimes the, the wheel’s squeaking and they’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, the car’s still running, so we’re fine. A car operates still with blue smoke, it does, it will

[00:22:26] Chuck Carpenter: get you there until the tire blows a hundred percent.

[00:22:29] Chuck Carpenter: You run out of oil or Absolutely. Those kinds of things. Yeah.

[00:22:32] Aaron Francis: So, tell the people, where are you working these days? What are you doing? And in your role, how are you pushing, trying to push people forward to care about performance?

[00:22:42] Henri Helvetica: So, , I’ve been independent right now , I have a couple priorities.

[00:22:46] Henri Helvetica: , performance I find is part of me. I’ve spent, uh, quite a little bit of time talking about it, you know, whether it be at work , or just, , on my own. , because I’ve always believed that, , at some point people are gonna realize how important it [00:23:00] was.

[00:23:00] Henri Helvetica: Right. And, we were always kind of a small community. We still are to an extent, but we’re seeing, , you know, more involvement, more people paying attention. You know, on stage today I talked about like, Hey, you don’t have to listen to me. Go check out Gauillermo. He tweets about it. Right? Quite often.

[00:23:16] Henri Helvetica: Mm-hmm. Right. , you know, Hey, you don’t have to listen to me. But, there are like five sponsors here who have performance as part of their day-to-day operations. Yeah. You know, so it is being, , dealt with. It’s good to know about, . But I, I do believe there’s, , a sort of like a literacy, , situation that needs addressing.

[00:23:37] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. And I’m not gonna do it on my own, that’s for sure. But, time after time I could sort of sit there and probably talk forever, you know, and, and have people sort of like, oh, I had no idea. Mm-hmm. You know, and something as simple as, browser dev tools, which is in the browser they’re actually using.

[00:23:53] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Like, they’re literally not keys stroking into another, part of the browser because X, Y, [00:24:00] and Z it could be a number of things, you know? and I shared it, you know, in the hallway here, , performance involves like a bit of a fire hose of data. Sure does. And I think that’s what the scary part is.

[00:24:12] Henri Helvetica: Mm-hmm. And then people don’t tend to walk into scary on their own. I

[00:24:17] Chuck Carpenter: think the junior to knowledgeable path is not great. Around that too. Yeah. And I think a problem that we’ve had in the last, like five years is that people, for a lot of folks entering in is they’re not learning about web fundamentals.

[00:24:31] Chuck Carpenter: They’re not learning about like the basic APIs available from your client. Like, what’s that in JavaScript? What’s that in HTML? What’s that within your browser? What’s, the window give you, you know, that kind of stuff. Yep. And instead they just learn, react. It’s kind of like , if you started learning the web by Jake Barry or something of that nature, then you can get zero to an app, but you kind of don’t know what’s happening along the way.

[00:24:58] Chuck Carpenter: so that, all that is to say [00:25:00] is like trying to approach a thing called web vitals seems really scary. when you can’t walk backwards to what it’s talking about because you can’t map that to JSX easily, you can’t map that to, , use effect easily. Like all of those things, just kind of on a one-to-one parallel.

[00:25:16] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Yeah. And what you said about the zero to an app in no time, , is precisely the challenge. And I’ll never, , downplay that opportunity to really whip something up in no time and be like, oh my God, this operates.

[00:25:30] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, it’s cool. That gets you the fire going, but that shouldn’t be like the ML moving forward.

[00:25:35] Chuck Carpenter: And,

[00:25:35] Henri Helvetica: and unfortunately, , I think we are in a position right now where maybe a year or two ago we were criticizing that like, ah, you know, I’m not sure they know what’s going on. It’s actually getting worse now for obvious reasons. And I, I always remember this example. , someone honestly just tweeted out like, Hey, you know, I have one client and I whipped up this app using ai this.

[00:25:59] Henri Helvetica: And [00:26:00] the client came back and said, here’s an issue. , he could not solve it. And he publicly asked for help. Brutal. And that thread was, longer than the I 95.

[00:26:11] Chuck Carpenter: Okay.

[00:26:11] Henri Helvetica: It was long. That’s

[00:26:13] Chuck Carpenter: bad.

[00:26:14] CTA: This just in! Whiskey.fund is now open for all your merch needs. That’s right, Robbie. We’re hearing reports of hats, sweaters, and T-shirts, as well as a link to join our Discord server. What’s a Discord server? Just read the prompter, man. Hit subscribe. Leave us a review on your favorite podcast app and tell your friends about our broadcast. It really does help us reach more people and keeps the show growing. All right, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[00:26:47]

[00:26:47] Chuck Carpenter: I’ve got a, I’ve got a hot take and it’s kind of, this is that, I think that , there’s a certain detriment to current learning paths that I think helped me a lot in that, earlier in my career, I was subject to folks who just weren’t [00:27:00] that nice about helping me.

[00:27:02] Chuck Carpenter: Mm. And they, you know, RTFM. Mm-hmm. Yes. And you get told RTFM enough times that you figure out how to learn to ask better questions. And that is like, well, you’re being rude. Or, I think career pathing actually is fucked this up a little bit too, because there’s an aspect of. And where that is in your own career ladder, where you’re supposed to be a force multiplier to your team, which is essentially like you quasi manage and mentor.

[00:27:31] Chuck Carpenter: And I think it’s good when it happens naturally, but I think it’s bad when it’s a force part of like, you know, I’ve been doing this eight years and I’m trying to be a senior and now I have to make Aaron the junior better and force multiply as part of my path and I’m just not well suited to that.

[00:27:49] Chuck Carpenter: Or it’s just not happening well, or I’m too nice along and I’m just helping Aaron. And I’m helping Aaron. And now, you know, Aaron’s shipping more. So now I get my bump. I think there’s some rudeness. I [00:28:00] think there’s a level of like, go read the fucking manual. Go figure out how to dig a little bit, because that is how we get better at our craft.

[00:28:09] Chuck Carpenter: I don’t know. Hot take wrong, right? Bullshit. Maybe. I think directionally correct. Okay. I don’t think we need to go back to the stack overflow days of Yeah. Question closed. Do better. Yeah. I don’t think that was super productive. I do think it’s incredibly productive when somebody comes to you as maybe a senior or a mentor type situation.

[00:28:31] Aaron Francis: Somebody comes to you and asks you a question. I always think an appropriate question back is, what have you tried so far? And if they say nothing, then you say, okay, why don’t you go try a few things, figure out what you can, and then I am always here to help you. But if you ask somebody, what have you tried so far?

[00:28:48] Aaron Francis: And their answer is, oh, I don’t know. Just I saw the error and I came to you. It’s like, okay, for your sake, yeah, I want you to go back and try some stuff because at some point I’m not gonna be here yet. Yep. Or you’re gonna find [00:29:00] somebody who doesn’t want to answer your questions. Or maybe even worse, somebody will answer your questions.

[00:29:05] Aaron Francis: And then what did you learn? You didn’t learn the whole process. Nothing. Yeah. , I don’t know that rudeness is the answer, but I do think what you said that is extremely important is you gotta figure out how to try. Yeah.

[00:29:16] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.

[00:29:17] Aaron Francis: Because if you don’t figure out how to try, you’re gonna be this time, the next time or the one after, you’re gonna be totally lost.

[00:29:22] Aaron Francis: And guess what? That never ends. It never ends. So if you don’t learn

[00:29:25] Chuck Carpenter: that

[00:29:26] Aaron Francis: skill, never end. I, and it’s not just our industry. It’s not just work. It’s raising children’s. It’s figuring out how to fix something in your house. It’s everything, everything. You

[00:29:35] Henri Helvetica: know, failure is part of the, , process of, , as Obama famously said, the teachable moments.

[00:29:41] Henri Helvetica: Right?

[00:29:41] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. ,

[00:29:42] Henri Helvetica: you don’t have any of those, you know, you haven’t done it, right? Yeah. You know, you have to figure out like something went wrong Here, you go back to, the manual, whatever it is, I. And sometimes that’s when you find out that the, the docs aren’t well written. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, by reading them.

[00:29:58] Henri Helvetica: Yep. Yeah. You know, [00:30:00] so, , I’m about this teachable moments you have to figure out, where did I fail here? And, chances are it’s not cataclysmic, you know, your mistake. But the, the idea of having that, like what just happened here, you know, and being able to poke around and just being like, okay, let me go back here.

[00:30:18] Henri Helvetica: And

[00:30:19] Aaron Francis: part of that, it’s like, train your own intuition. Yeah. So when it happens, next time you have a slot in your brain that is shaped like that. You’re like, I’ve seen this before. Let’s go pull up those archives in the old brain and see if that fits here. And if not, you get to try a new path that is now in your brain for the next time that happens.

[00:30:38] Aaron Francis: And that’s, the path to senior Exactly. Is finding out What I say is, how do you think we got here?

[00:30:43] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. Failing a whole bunch of times. It’s really hard because I’ve been a manager a number of times and you have folks that are like, how do I become senior? And it’s like hard to quantify. Mm-hmm.

[00:30:52] Chuck Carpenter: Right? Like it’s not because you’ve done this five, 10 years, whatever else. Mm-hmm. , and it’s not because you have the answers, it’s because you know how to find the answers. Correct. [00:31:00] And is this, when,

[00:31:00] Aaron Francis: when was the last time you dove into the source? Like when was the last time you read the documentation?

[00:31:05] Aaron Francis: Yeah. When was the last time you experimented with 10 different things that may not work? Those are the things that I feel like, especially source diving. Yeah. ‘cause you’ll have some people that like read the docs and you’re like, I don’t know. It’s not in the docs like, yeah, yeah. Right. My, my brother in Christ, the code is there.

[00:31:20] Aaron Francis: you have said, if you command click into it, that is the most key thing that you can say because. We’re blessed to have a time. And your, your Jesus comment apparently triggered me too. , hashtag blessed. no, we’re in a time where documents are better than they had been. Mm-hmm. For a lot of things, because library level documentation is actually pretty good when it hasn’t been for quite some time.

[00:31:42] Chuck Carpenter: And at the end of the day, that’s the other thing that you need to know about finding the answer is it’s less about human words, and it’s more about digging into what’s behind the curtain. Mm-hmm. What is the man behind the green curtain doing? That’s like the source code, and you find undocumented features Totally.

[00:31:59] Chuck Carpenter: Every time. [00:32:00] That’s the magic.

[00:32:01] Henri Helvetica: Yep.

[00:32:01] Chuck Carpenter: Every single

[00:32:01] Henri Helvetica: time. And, and there’s , in finding the undocumented, features , and finding that magic, it was magical. It was like, oh my God, you feel real good? Mm-hmm. This amazing. Yeah. You feel like you’ve accomplished something. You’ve made this discovery that very few people know.

[00:32:17] Henri Helvetica: And you know, my fear now in this sort of like new, environment that we’re in is that persons will ask, chat, GPT, whatever it might be, , that’s de I love that reference and they get that one answer and they move on. Yeah. You know, and I remember just making like discoveries on page three of, Google searches Page place where no one goes.

[00:32:46] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Something that was poorly indexed. Uhhuh. Yeah. That’s the good stuff. Yeah. The good stuff. And, that made me so happy some days, like, oh my God, my next talk is gonna be like a banger.

[00:32:59] Chuck Carpenter: You know, [00:33:00]

[00:33:00] Henri Helvetica: because I’m gonna pull out some stuff. You’re gonna be like, yo, did you hear that? Holy smokes. I have no idea.

[00:33:04] Henri Helvetica: You know? So, There, there are arguments about this, but I really believe that research is potentially and not, you know, for the immediate future, but give it like four or five years. Yes. Like I think research is just going to be pretty bland. You know, people are gonna, sort of put out the same kind of, you know, content.

[00:33:23] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. And you’re not gonna get that person with like, that depth of knowledge.

[00:33:27] Aaron Francis: And I think that is a potential unfair advantage available to everyone in the world. Both finding that kind of stuff. You’re talking about on page three six, you do that a couple times and suddenly everyone in your office, your workplace, your little community is coming to you for answers.

[00:33:43] Aaron Francis: And you’re like, it’s just ‘cause I like did a bunch of research. So that is an opportunity that is available to literally everyone. I’m always screaming, you can read the documentation and that will put you ahead of 98% of Other people. Because nobody reads the docs.

[00:33:58] Aaron Francis: No. But then on the [00:34:00] other hand. That’s an opportunity to produce content.

[00:34:04] Henri Helvetica: Like there’s a

[00:34:04] Aaron Francis: wide open, wide open field of like thoroughly researched, thoughtful, nuanced content. Yeah. That may not be like the tweet du jour. If I can get on the du jour train, it may not be like the hottest tweet of the day.

[00:34:18] Aaron Francis: But it is that kind of blog post that lives on your own website. Hopefully that lasts for five years and people like will be like, Hey Henri you wrote about this, would you wanna come speak about that? And it’s like, Hey, you’re in the game now. Absolutely.

[00:34:30] Chuck Carpenter: And that’s available to everyone. It is. Because I think there’s another layer there too, which is something I actually still struggle to resonate with me and probably stops me with a hundred things all the time, which is it doesn’t matter if someone else has done it.

[00:34:45] Chuck Carpenter: Yes. They haven’t heard you do it. Correct. And you might be the voice that clicks for them. Yes. Because you know when you learn new, new things, sometimes you’ve heard it a few times. Mm-hmm. But it just has been like, I don’t know. I don’t know. And then, yep. I read Aaron’s article and I was like, [00:35:00] there it is.

[00:35:00] Chuck Carpenter: Mm-hmm. There it

[00:35:01] Henri Helvetica: is. I mean, how many raw romance novels are there?

[00:35:04] Chuck Carpenter: Right.

[00:35:05] Aaron Francis: That’s a good analogy. Pick a number and then double it. And then double it. Yeah. That’s how many there are. Double it nonstop. It’s nonstop

[00:35:12] Chuck Carpenter: insatiable appetite. Absolutely. To that sometimes. And Yeah, that’s a good thing. Even if I understand it and I’m on the train, I’m still absorbing that content.

[00:35:20] Chuck Carpenter: That’s how you tell the story,

[00:35:21] Henri Helvetica: you know? And there’s so much

[00:35:22] Aaron Francis: of it about tastes like you, like one author. I like a different author. The same thing. You like one YouTuber. I like a different YouTuber. Well, you’re wrong. That’s why. Yeah, exactly. That’s perfect. That’s what happens already. But now we’re on Twitter.

[00:35:34] Aaron Francis: This is a Twitter conversation. Well, you’re an idiot. Whatever. Wrong reason. It’s so much of like, who speaks to the way that you learn? Mm-hmm. Yes.

[00:35:43] Aaron Francis: So Ari, I’m curious for somebody who is a junior and is trying to like, learn Ari’s a

[00:35:49] Chuck Carpenter: junior,

[00:35:50] Aaron Francis: no. This is your advice to juniors for someone who is, , early in their career and they’re hearing all of this stuff of like, , just ask Che GPT.

[00:35:58] Aaron Francis: You don’t need to, like, what is your [00:36:00] advice to a junior if they want to get serious about like, learning performance and bettering themselves on that vector specifically?

[00:36:08] Henri Helvetica: So the first thing I’ll say is someone who is, a junior and they’re using chatGPT I believe that as a junior and really lifelong, but ultimately, especially as a junior, you should be curious.

[00:36:22] Henri Helvetica: Unfortunately, I do not believe that the zero to answer path that a lot of them are being put on right now is not being curious. Right. Yeah. because they’re basically saying, can I have this answer now please? And they’re hitting enter and they’re getting an answer and they’re moving on.

[00:36:40] Chuck Carpenter: It’s like taking Viagra at 18 Ha ha

[00:36:44] Henri Helvetica: ha amazing. You know, it is

[00:36:47] Chuck Carpenter: like, you definitely don’t need this right now. Just go,

[00:36:50] Henri Helvetica: you know, the 18 year old’s like, well, I was having heart problems. No you weren’t. I wonder why it ain’t

[00:36:55] Chuck Carpenter: for you, bro. No you

[00:36:56] Henri Helvetica: weren’t. But, anyone who’s willing [00:37:00] to, , spend some time to understand performance, I think if they needed to go to one area.

[00:37:07] Henri Helvetica: , or one sort of like, , source, , for information I’d probably mention, , going to Google’s web dev. Mm. Oh yeah. Because they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with that and they’ve basically, , combined all their learnings and information and case studies on web dev. Cool. Now granted, there’s a lot of content out there, that, , would certainly compliment that.

[00:37:35] Henri Helvetica: , but if you’re starting I would probably go there. Yeah. they’ve been around for a little while at this point, and they likely have enough to get you, , started without you being too confused. Mm-hmm. You know, because, , I’ll be the first one to say, It does take a while to really get it, you know, because if you start at the wrong place, it can be a little challenging.

[00:37:59] Henri Helvetica: And, you [00:38:00] know, I bring up this one example where there’s one international conference, , called, , performance Now. And, , it’s a little heady, the sort of like performance leads tend to show up there. , and others were, were trying to learn as well. But I was with, uh, this one young lady who came to see me, , I think a couple years ago.

[00:38:17] Henri Helvetica: And I was there and, and she pulled me aside and she’s like, listen, so and so got on stage and whatever he was talking about flew right over my head. And she started to panic and she was like, what is going on? Yada, yada, yada. And I was like, Hey, I explained some things to her, but I realized that that could easily happen.

[00:38:36] Henri Helvetica: Mm-hmm. You know, because. , especially the way performance is right now, we’re really, , focused on like, optimizations within optimized material already. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, so there’s so many little parts that we can sort of like chip away at because at scale it really comes and, you know, manifest in snap your app, , but they might not be like that low hanging fruit mm-hmm.

[00:38:59] Henri Helvetica: That we used [00:39:00] to talk about, say, like five to 10 years ago.

[00:39:02] Aaron Francis: So if I can Yes. Follow up. You can.

[00:39:05] Aaron Francis: What is your advice to the junior who is trying to learn mm-hmm. And is trying to use, , AI chat, GPT trying to use it well mm-hmm. Trying to use it as, , a point of leverage mm-hmm. Without shortchanging themselves.

[00:39:19] Aaron Francis: what’s your word of wisdom there? Like how do you use these tools without sabotaging your future learnings? I think unfortunately it’s going to take, . For you to listen and read what, chat GBT has sort of provided in terms of guidance. Mm-hmm. And I think you’re going to have to potentially double check that.

[00:39:39] Henri Helvetica: Okay. Along the way.

[00:39:41] Chuck Carpenter: let me make sure I’m understanding what you’re inferring here. Yeah. Because I think what I’m hearing and what I was thinking also is that, is you have to be proactive enough to not just take the answer ask your ai, mentor at that point mm-hmm.

[00:39:55] Chuck Carpenter: To explain why or how they came to that conclusion.

[00:39:58] Henri Helvetica: Absolutely. So ,

[00:39:59] Chuck Carpenter: we just need a [00:40:00] better culture of like, if you’re early on using these tools, that’s okay, because it’s a tool. Sure. It’s not bad. Yeah. But when wielded appropriately. Yeah. So if you are going to use them, make sure you’re answering or asking follow ups as to how they came to that conclusion.

[00:40:16] Chuck Carpenter: Show your work and the math problem, you know, that kind of thing.

[00:40:19] Henri Helvetica: I can sort of even provide a kind of like a, a very commendable, real world example. , it’s like Googling news now. Mm-hmm. If you do not, especially in this current climate, if you do not try to have this answer supported in other areas, fact-based support.

[00:40:40] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Fact-based support, you’re doing it wrong.

[00:40:42] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.

[00:40:43] Henri Helvetica: And

[00:40:43] Chuck Carpenter: I think that’s a life lesson also. Absolutely.

[00:40:45] Henri Helvetica: And, can’t remember the exact quote, but, , it might have been around, maybe vaccines. I don’t know what, but someone said something, you know, are you going to trust, the fake news with the best SEO, you know, something along those lines.

[00:40:58] Henri Helvetica: It was like a better [00:41:00] quote, so I have to apologize, but I was just like. Ah, bingo. Yep.

[00:41:04] Chuck Carpenter: You know? Yeah. Yeah. ,

[00:41:05] Henri Helvetica: and can this news, the lazy

[00:41:07] Chuck Carpenter: answer isn’t the right answer always. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Often it’s not. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You

[00:41:12] Henri Helvetica: know, it’s, it’s, I heard this and you just do quick Google. It’s like, I’ve not seen this anywhere else but here.

[00:41:17] Henri Helvetica: Like, what is this all about? Yeah. You know, so that’s reasonable. So that’s what I’ll tell a, a junior, it’s just, you know, Hey, junior. cool. This is a great starting point. , I unfortunately have to tell you that you might want to, , search a little deeper, more often to make sure that you’re, you know, there are parallels in this answer in other sort of, corners of the internet.

[00:41:39] Henri Helvetica: And then confidently say, okay, I think I’m, I’m started. Mm-hmm. You know, where I need to start. Yeah. And then, you know, go through this, , whatever it is, optimization or whatever change that you’re trying to make that. Because you know, there’s an error or something’s not loading, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:41:55] Henri Helvetica: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:56] Aaron Francis: Yeah, that’s helpful. ‘cause I don’t, I don’t think anyone is promoting, like, don’t [00:42:00] use ai. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But very few people are promoting how do we use AI and not like hamper hamstring ourselves in the future. So that’s helpful.

[00:42:08] Chuck Carpenter: I think that’s good. Yeah. They’re trying to subvert humans rather than enhance humans.

[00:42:12] Chuck Carpenter: Yes. And that I think is the problem. I

[00:42:15] Aaron Francis: would prefer to be super powerful versus left behind. Yeah. So that’s kind of, that’s where I’m trying to be. We’ll see if it works out, but we’ll see. We all take a risk. Yeah. I

[00:42:24] Henri Helvetica: mean, you know, what’s gonna happen to research with this new crop of this new gen of folks, right?

[00:42:29] Henri Helvetica: Like if they’re so, you know, they’re hanging on to every,

[00:42:33] Chuck Carpenter: somebody has to keep fueling the model, right? Mm-hmm. The model doesn’t independently think at this point to do the research or to fuel, fuel the information. Mm-hmm. So that exists. At least as far as our lifetimes go, I think in perpetuity. Yeah. But hey, who knows?

[00:42:49] Chuck Carpenter: It’s

[00:42:49] Aaron Francis: a, it is a tough question because I think the rewards, you know, the SEO rewards are diminishing. Yeah. Because people are just asking the models now. And [00:43:00] so some of the incentive to publish original, you know, esoteric kind of content has gone away. But I hope that there are enough people that are still out there publishing content and pushing things forward that we can still do some, like honest to goodness research.

[00:43:17] Aaron Francis: Yeah. Yeah. Before it starts eating its own tail. Yeah. Which, you know, that’s gonna happen at some point.

[00:43:22] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. I was gonna say, never say never. Yeah, for sure. If there’s an economic force behind it, that’s something else altogether. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:29] Henri Helvetica: You know?

[00:43:30] Chuck Carpenter: Anyway. Whew. That’s really, uh, brave New World. Yeah. It’s kind of depressing and a bummer,

[00:43:36] Chuck Carpenter: , before humans do eventually like.

[00:43:39] Chuck Carpenter: Fall to jelly in a couch on, you know, UBI or who knows, whatever fills that void. , you’re here as a performance advocate, not just for the web, but I would dare say for humans themselves. Mm-hmm. As you lead or had, did lead. I gotta say, I’m naive to this because I’m an outta shape dad, so I cannot go on a [00:44:00] 5K.

[00:44:00] Chuck Carpenter: , or won’t be to, , but totally fine. I think it’s a good, like this is a part of your life. You’re into running. I am. Am You’re, you are. You just started running and you kept running.

[00:44:10] Henri Helvetica: I started running just under 10 years ago, like nine now. before I can go any further, are either of you physically active running?

[00:44:18] Henri Helvetica: Well you’re not running. Yeah, not running. Definitely not running active at all. You have a home gym?

[00:44:23] Chuck Carpenter: I have a home gym. Gym. I do a little bit of rowing. I do a little bit of like pedal bells. Yeah. I. Start and fail programs frequently within the last five years or so of my life. So

[00:44:33] Aaron Francis: yeah, I haven’t, I haven’t been super active in the past four years.

[00:44:37] Aaron Francis: Before that I played a lot of soccer. Okay. Lot of soccer.

[00:44:39] Chuck Carpenter: I, so I and your kids

[00:44:41] Henri Helvetica: are four

[00:44:42] Aaron Francis: and my

[00:44:42] Chuck Carpenter: kids are four. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So there you go. There’s a parallel there. Yeah. I played soccer until I was about 37. There you go. Like on two or three teams. Yep. Regularly. All that stuff. And then best time ever.

[00:44:53] Chuck Carpenter: Loved it so much. I have, I have glass ankles and they eventually hit me and I had a surgery and that was kind of the end of it. Yep. So I’m now a spectator still. Yep. But [00:45:00]

[00:45:00] Henri Helvetica: I hear you.

[00:45:00] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah.

[00:45:01] Henri Helvetica: Um, so

[00:45:02] Aaron Francis: sorry we can’t help you there, but tell us about your running. Certainly,

[00:45:05] Henri Helvetica: uh, I’ll try to edit this as much as possible, but you know, I don’t fucking do that.

[00:45:10] Henri Helvetica: Alright. So let’s go. Okay. your brother?

[00:45:12] Chuck Carpenter: Yes. He’s fat too. Yeah, I know. No, no, no. We were just talking

[00:45:15] Henri Helvetica: about, uh, sorry. Bikes and I used to cycle. Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, I mean, even before that, sorry. Yeah. High school played, sports, you know, university played sports. , got away from it for a second.

[00:45:26] Henri Helvetica: But, I started cycling, uh, fairly heavily enjoyed it, loved it. , there was like a design element to it ‘cause I, I loved sort of like putting together my bike. , and then, uh, my bike was stolen. Ooh. Uh, which is kind of like a rite of passage in Toronto, unfortunately. I did spend a little bit of time not really doing much.

[00:45:44] Henri Helvetica: And, , I was never a big person. , but I do remember putting on a little bit of weight and I was like, Hey, what’s going on here? And, uh, at the same time, I used to see a friend of mine, , who, uh, was the lead of a run club. And I used to love watching [00:46:00] them take off from like their start point, , every Tuesday.

[00:46:03] Henri Helvetica: And it was like a huge group. And I was like, man, that’s. Pretty cool. And, , a friend of mine was another friend of mine who was part of that group and he got running he spoke to me once, , ‘cause I caught him either on a walk or on a run. And, uh, we spoke for like a few minutes and he told me how to get started.

[00:46:19] Henri Helvetica: , there’s this thing called couch to 5K. Oh, I’ve heard of that’ve heard of it. I have not. This is nice. Basically, literally, gets you off a couch and running a 5K in anywhere from like eight to 10 weeks. Wow. Right. So I tried that, you know, did it over like 12 weeks. , and I ran my first 5K and honestly when I finished it, like I might as well have been given a gold medal.

[00:46:43] Henri Helvetica: You know, that’s how its felt. Pretty good. Oh my God. It was the best thing ever.

[00:46:47] Chuck Carpenter: Nice.

[00:46:47] Henri Helvetica: And you were hooked. Hooked. , it was such a great feeling. , side note, you know, I went looking for a 10 k right after. , then I went back to five longer story. , I do believe like training for five and 10 K is like all you need, [00:47:00] you know, for fitness.

[00:47:01] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. , and then, I found myself starting this hashtag devs who run. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because I felt like this little guilt that I was the only one having fun and getting fit, I mean, I’m sure I was wrong. People are running or whatever, but yeah. Let’s see. I I wanted to share this with a community, which is known for spending a lot of times, a lot of time on the computer Yeah.

[00:47:24] Henri Helvetica: For work. Mm-hmm. And, , we are a generation to an extent kind of watch TV online as well. Sure. And, you know, multi monitors. We’re comfortable doing a bit more work with a little basketball game, playing with a little soccer, you know, fifa, whatever it is. Yeah. You know, or just playing games. Yeah. And, you know, I, I really want to see people a bit more active. So I, I start to pitch a few, uh, conferences with the idea. Now I’m actually going to sort of, uh, take a mild off ramp here. And, , were you listening to Gabe this morning? I [00:48:00]

[00:48:00] Aaron Francis: have not, no. We were setting this up this morning. This all happening this morning, so, no.

[00:48:04] Aaron Francis: So

[00:48:04] Henri Helvetica: ironically I saw him down the hall and I was gonna approach him, but had enough time. And then he was on stage and he kinda shared his, , health journey. Oh yes. I know

[00:48:13] Chuck Carpenter: some about his health journey. Exactly.

[00:48:15] Henri Helvetica: So, , and I was actually gonna ask him about that before he shared it on stage. I actually started to remind, , men especially, , about health and health literacy.

[00:48:27] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. And, so while I was running, as I got going, I I found myself, uh, habitually pinging my doctor. Mm. I’m like, can I come in? I’m seeing this. I’m, I’m feeling this, whatever, whatever. And it just got me into this vibe right. Of like, really looking after myself. And, , I remember I wanted to go for checkup, whatever.

[00:48:48] Henri Helvetica: And, , it was during the pandemic and so I couldn’t Yeah, of course. Like anyone else. So when things kind of cleared up and whatnot and I was like, okay, dude, uh, I’m a little busy, but you know, I gotta set up the [00:49:00] schedule. I went in, I had two polyps. Oh, wow. And I was like, what do you mean?

[00:49:07] Chuck Carpenter: You’re right.

[00:49:08] Henri Helvetica: We don’t know exactly.

[00:49:10] Henri Helvetica: So, , ‘cause what happened was, uh, you know, I did like a fit test, whatever the, uh, fecal immune, whatever, FITI think it’s called. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, uh, I failed that. I found out like 24 hours later and I was like, what the hell’s going on? Then, I had to go for a, uh, full on, , colonoscopy.

[00:49:27] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah, right, as we get older men.

[00:49:30] Henri Helvetica: Exactly, yes. And I found out, like I said, I had two polyps and , I was just kind of like, holy smokes, you know? And, , I’ve been like tripling down ever since. So for me, the health is like secretly, hey, these are things that you can do to sort of like stay fit. Yep. And I’m not saying that’s gonna solve anything, but it gets you into like a different mindset, And so for me, , you know, running is, I love it. Yeah. I enjoy training for it. I [00:50:00] love staying fit, but it’s also sort of like this reminder, it’s like, hey,

[00:50:04] Chuck Carpenter: there’s a mental health aspect to it. Hundred natural proven a hundred percent. Uh, and then obviously physical help. Absolutely. I have young kids. I want to I want to extend the time when they can outrun me.

[00:50:17] Chuck Carpenter: Yes. Like, I want to keep that going for a little bit. So I, I have a lot of interest around that. Yep, yep. And then yeah. And then hopefully be a fit grandpa. Yeah. I mean, and be around. I wanna be around Yeah. To be a grandpa. And

[00:50:30] Henri Helvetica: the point is that, you know, some of these situations are happening a lot younger now, and, uh, I think people are not realizing it.

[00:50:39] Henri Helvetica: And, you know, I, I don’t wanna come in here, you know, bear of bad news and scaring people away, but I think my fitness journey was fueled by like just wanting to be fit. Yeah. , but also wanting to stay fit. Mm-hmm. And I think the

[00:50:53] Chuck Carpenter: healthy body fights disease kind of thing,

[00:50:56] Henri Helvetica: it does. , and you know, I think it also [00:51:00] a healthy body makes you want to stay healthy by eating healthier.

[00:51:05] Henri Helvetica: Yep. and. it Is a big picture ultimately, but, , I do think that it’s worth taking the extra step. Yeah. That’s a reason of time, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. One step at a time. Yeah. Yeah. And one stride at a time.

[00:51:19] Chuck Carpenter: You know, you can tie it all in right here, where you can essentially say, this applies to like, so many things in life.

[00:51:24] Chuck Carpenter: This is like one step at a time for your personal health, one step at a time for your professional health. In many ways, it’s like, just take the step of you, you care about your users, you care about your performance. One step at a time, just do a little thing like, oh, these, crazy flame chart, whatever.

[00:51:44] Chuck Carpenter: All that stuff is nuts to you. That’s okay. Just boil it down to one thing that you can start to understand. Yeah. One at a time all along the way. ,

[00:51:51] Henri Helvetica: and again, I, I, I don’t wanna circle back, but I, I, I think that unfortunately, as, as you know. Three pen here. You know, we [00:52:00] tend to, , brush off little situations.

[00:52:04] Henri Helvetica: It’s like, yeah, whatever. It’ll go away, you know?

[00:52:06] Aaron Francis: I don’t think my dad’s been to the doctor in like 20 years, you know? Right. It’s just the dad thing. Like yolo. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:11] Chuck Carpenter: That’s it. You know, that’s what we do. We, we are providers and we push off our own needs mm-hmm. For those that we love and care for. Yeah.

[00:52:19] Chuck Carpenter: Are you

[00:52:20] Aaron Francis: finding that the dev running community, has there been some growth around that? Are you finding other people there or?

[00:52:26] Henri Helvetica: I mean, it happened mostly when I was tweeting it. Mm-hmm. Quite often. And people would be like, oh, I run, I run, I run and whatever. And people start to share their runs, which was what I was encouraging.

[00:52:36] Henri Helvetica: Mm-hmm. Yeah. , you know, I’ve never gotten into like , the sort of like the health and medical side of it. Mm-hmm. You know, , from time to time, like once or twice a year, I’ll, I’ll tweet something out. Like I was watching, uh, this one, , YouTube, this doctor had a, , video, it was like a 10 minute video on, , I think it was a colon cancer.

[00:52:54] Henri Helvetica: Mm. I have more or less no story, but like, let me watch this. but one thing I did notice, he had like a [00:53:00] million, some views in like 48 hours. Yeah. And the rest of his videos were like, 300,000 in like a year. Wow. like someone’s watching us.

[00:53:10] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and again, it’s the idea that, people are quietly fearing but not necessarily taking the steps. Yeah. They’re

[00:53:19] Chuck Carpenter: not creating community and kind of sharing those concerns. Gotcha. It’s, and normalizing it to a degree.

[00:53:24] Henri Helvetica: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, the, the running for me is, is that, you know, staying healthy, I enjoy training, for it.

[00:53:31] Henri Helvetica: , it’s, I enjoy running and racing five and 10 Ks. In fact, this weekend is the Boston Marathon. Oh yeah. I would’ve been there normally to run the 5K race. Yep. Uh, but, you know, conflict with this. And, uh, I wasn’t really ready for it. Yeah. But, uh, couch

[00:53:46] Chuck Carpenter: to 5K, I love that resource. Mm-hmm. It’s great.

[00:53:48] Henri Helvetica: it’s a walk, run, , program.

[00:53:50] Henri Helvetica: So you’ll walk for like two minutes, run for 30, and eventually it kind of, you know, it grows, it grows to like walking for 30 and running for two. I love, [00:54:00] love, you know, love and eventually just running.

[00:54:01] Chuck Carpenter: I love it. Yeah. I might actually try that just for fun. I don’t actually love run. Ever since I stopped chasing a ball, I basically stopped running.

[00:54:08] Chuck Carpenter: Mm-hmm. But I’d be up to that,

[00:54:09] Aaron Francis: just to, , the way it’s branded just makes it feel so approachable. So I am sitting on the couch. I am. Ouch. I am me. As

[00:54:17] Chuck Carpenter: you crunch the chips. Exactly. Exactly. Listen, chips are delicious. I asked my wife not to buy them anymore because if they’re in the house, they’re in my belly.

[00:54:24] Chuck Carpenter: Hey. Yeah. So

[00:54:25] Henri Helvetica: I’m not mad at that. Yeah. Yep.

[00:54:27] Chuck Carpenter: As we come up into time, I like to ask this same question. Mm-hmm. Which is, if you were not in tech Yes. What would you do? And you’re not limited by skill, time, whatever else. It’s just like, , what else would you love? Uh,

[00:54:39] Henri Helvetica: I wonder if I’d go back to music, you know?

[00:54:42] Henri Helvetica: Mm-hmm. There you go. Because I kind of came from that world and it was interesting enough, it’s like the people and, you know, watching someone perform. Mm-hmm. their followers just being, you know, so. enamored, there’s joy into seeing that, from a distance, like, oh my [00:55:00] God, like, look at this, look at my artist, or look at someone I’m managing, or some, someone I’m working with that, is having like an amazing moment.

[00:55:08] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. You know, so I, I think that might be it because there’s still like, it sounds very gratifying the way

[00:55:12] Aaron Francis: way you put it. So

[00:55:12] Henri Helvetica: yeah, there’s still community around that. There’s still people you get to kind of talk to and, and whatnot. Um, yeah.

[00:55:18] Chuck Carpenter: Musicians who Run is great. Hashtag Oh, that’s great. Yeah. That

[00:55:22] Henri Helvetica: or teaching, I think.

[00:55:23] Henri Helvetica: Yeah. Yeah. So it’s along the same lines. Excellent.

[00:55:26] Chuck Carpenter: Anything you wanna plug or talk about or where the people can find you?

[00:55:30] Henri Helvetica: man, there, there’d be so much to talk about, but you could find me on, uh, any socialist really. hel veka, uh, how, you know how to spell it? Ri, H-E-N-R-I. , I tend to share my thoughts there, so I mean, I’ll get into, you know, things like, like the command age stuff and like, , my vision of uh, what the in-person event could be, potentially a future, something I’m gonna try out as well.

[00:55:56] Henri Helvetica: So, yeah. Yeah, find me there. And, uh, yeah, that’s pretty [00:56:00] much it. Ask me anything, AMAs.

[00:56:02] Aaron Francis: Well, very nice. Thank you for doing this. This is, this was a lot of fun. Ah,

[00:56:06] Henri Helvetica: man. Thanks for having me. I actually enjoy these things. Yeah. You know. Awesome. Well we

[00:56:10] Chuck Carpenter: enjoyed having you. Oh see. And we very much appreciate the Ram recommendation.

[00:56:15] Chuck Carpenter: I’m sure Aaron appreciates the upgrade from the previous. This is an

[00:56:18] Aaron Francis: upgrade, so I appreciate you.

[00:56:20] Chuck Carpenter: Yeah. And we’ll talk more in the future and we’ll leave

[00:56:21] Aaron Francis: some links down below ‘cause you gave a talk this morning and we’ll, we’ll link that up when it’s live.

[00:56:26] Chuck Carpenter: All right. Now we beat Box out. No we don’t.

[00:56:29] Chuck Carpenter: That’s so, so funny. I don’t, I’m not good at that.

[00:56:31] Outro: You’ve been watching Whiskey Web and Whatnot. Recorded in front of a live studio audience. What the fuck are you talking about, Chuck? Enjoyed the show? Subscribe. You know, people don’t pay attention to these, right? Head to whiskey.fund for merchant to join our Discord server. I’m serious, it’s like 2% of people who actually click these links. And don’t forget to leave us a five star review and tell your friends about the show. All right, dude, I’m outta here. [00:57:00] Still got it.