Devin Fitzsimons Makes Stuff

Tools I like:

  • SST

    SST has a robust community, great docs, regular live streams and an awesome tool. SST is a wrapper for CDK. You can dive into CDK whenver you want. However, for common things, SST makes the API a little simpler and the developer experience awesome.

  • React

    I love React. I really can't say enough good things about it. It has some quirks (I'm looking at you useEffect and Fragments), but it's so straightforward and the community has built everything you could possibly need. I prefer tools like TanStack Query to Redux where possible.

  • Tailwind

    Tailwind is a design system based around utility classes. It's great because it provides a bunch of sensible defaults. It's also dead simple to learn, scales super well because it's just CSS. I've yet to find the downside. When possible, I'll default to Tailwind.

  • XState

    State get complex fast. Rather than underestimate the inevitable complexity explosion, I prefer tools that help. XState lets you visualize your state, transitions and actions, so you can understand, change and navigate updates to your application.

Bio:

I'm a software engineer. I mostly work on the front end, but I dabble in serverless tech on AWS. I really like state machines because state charts help us understand complexity. I'm also excited about React, Typescript, Tailwind and DynamoDB.

In my personal life, I enjoy hiking, learning about SaaS, business ideas and fitness.

picture of me in the mountains

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