0:00

I build what I want. What does

0:02

that mean? It's actually kind

0:04

of a spin on a quote

0:06

from my childhood. My cousin used to

0:08

always say, I do what I want.

0:11

And so it's just, I don't know,

0:13

it's just like a joke. So I

0:15

build what I want. And, but it's

0:17

true. This is, it's what I do.

0:19

Am I gonna build this charting thing?

0:21

Yes, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna

0:24

follow through with it. Why. There

0:26

is a view of looking at

0:28

this. The problems all developers suffer

0:30

from which makes him a bad

0:32

business owner. Developers just like pull

0:34

a thread and just can't stop

0:37

pulling like an addict, you know,

0:39

or just obsessed with like mental

0:41

gymnastics, the mental gymnastics

0:43

of coding and problem solving and

0:45

never like pull their head out

0:47

of the silicone to like look

0:49

around and realize if this is

0:51

the best use to their time,

0:53

you know, that sure, you could

0:55

look at it that way, fine.

0:58

You could also look at it

1:00

as Caleb is, whatever, like maybe

1:02

obsessed with details or, I don't

1:04

know, whatever, I don't care how

1:06

you look at it. This is the

1:08

reality that I need to ground myself

1:10

in. When I talk to someone like

1:12

Ian about charts or I mean

1:15

a lot of people like him

1:17

that we're fundamentally, we come from

1:19

fundamentally different places.

1:21

He wants a library that

1:23

can do it all. Good for

1:26

him. A lot of developers

1:28

want that. It's totally legit.

1:30

And I in a certain situation also

1:33

want that. But I have

1:35

to ground myself in my

1:37

experience as a developer because

1:40

that is the invariable truth

1:42

of this whole game and

1:44

of all this stuff is

1:47

you have to ground yourself

1:49

in your own experience. That's

1:51

the only truth that you have.

1:54

is your own experience. And if

1:56

you're not grounding your principles and

1:58

your actions in your own experience,

2:00

experience, you are off to see,

2:02

you have, you have nothing to

2:04

go by, and your, your principles

2:07

won't, whatever. You, you, you risk

2:09

not resonating with people. Okay, here's

2:11

the thing. My, I have to

2:13

remember my experience of charting. Despite

2:15

what others might say, and by

2:17

others I mean Ian on a

2:19

podcast. Sorry, now I'm dogging on

2:21

Ian like it without him even

2:23

here to defend himself, but whatever.

2:25

He did it on his podcast

2:27

the other week, right? So he'll

2:29

have to just come back on

2:31

to defend himself again. But here's

2:34

the thing. My experience with charting

2:36

is why is there nothing simple

2:38

out there? All I need is

2:40

something simple. Why am I wrangling

2:42

this giant thing and trying to

2:44

generate config from like pasting config

2:46

and nowadays you're just generating config

2:48

from like an AI from like

2:50

an AI? that AI is trained

2:52

on like it's half trained on

2:54

two different versions of your configuration.

2:56

You know that world it sucks.

2:58

This is a sucky world and

3:01

immediately this very tangible things. I

3:03

remember pulling in chart JS plenty

3:05

of times and the first thing

3:07

right off the bat you pull

3:09

it in and you go okay

3:11

chart JS to me is like

3:13

sweet alert. Do you remember sweet

3:15

alert? It was like ooh. This

3:17

makes modals really easy and it

3:19

looks kind of sexy. Like it

3:21

looks a little modern, a little

3:23

balmy. Well, the thing is, is

3:26

what looks sexy and modern just

3:28

changes so quickly. So it wasn't

3:30

that long before Sweet Alert. A,

3:32

looked like everyone used a Sweet

3:34

Alert at all looked the same

3:36

and that's not good. And then

3:38

B, Sweet Alert just kind of

3:40

turned in this... the style wasn't

3:42

modern anymore, you know? It's... overly

3:44

bulbous and colorful and wumpy, you

3:46

know, whooshy. It's not... What's in

3:48

vogue at all? And Chart yes,

3:50

I think similarly has had the

3:53

same style for a long time

3:55

and at first it was like

3:57

ooh Apex charts looks like a

3:59

spreadsheet You know the chart yes,

4:01

this is the sweet alert of

4:03

charting is like there's nice kind

4:05

of like Vibrenty modern colors and

4:07

it's like a little more minimal

4:09

It just has a vibe of

4:11

like fresh and new and whatever,

4:13

but that's not the vibe anymore.

4:15

The chart JS vibe is not

4:17

the vibe anymore. It's minimal And

4:20

it's not as minimal as it

4:22

is now. Anyway, so even that,

4:24

even the styling. But again, grounding

4:26

it in my own experience, I

4:28

remember pulling in chart yes and

4:30

okay, the first thing I got

4:32

to do is find a way

4:34

to get my data into this

4:36

chart and I have to wrap

4:38

my head around how this chart

4:40

speaks. What data does it, okay,

4:42

do I need to separate out

4:44

all the labels and then, okay,

4:47

what's the concept of data set?

4:49

So, all right, I know that

4:51

I need to generate some sort

4:53

of array of data. I don't

4:55

know if it's one array of

4:57

multiple keys in each object or

4:59

if it's multiple arrays just kind

5:01

of representing each thing. And then

5:03

there's these data sets and then

5:05

it's like, well, you know, axes

5:07

assignment, whatever. And how do I

5:09

even access like to do? in

5:11

chart yes is get rid of

5:14

the legend on the bottom. I

5:16

remember that was a struggle for

5:18

me. Like multiple times I've totally

5:20

been here where I pull in

5:22

chart yes I go like this

5:24

is going to level up you

5:26

know this this game here I

5:28

need charts and they got them.

5:30

Which by the way I've only

5:32

ever used line charts. Maybe that's

5:34

just me. I've only ever used

5:36

line charts and I haven't... maybe

5:38

I've gotten into like trying to

5:41

put a gradient area under a

5:43

line but maybe that's probably about

5:45

it. Anyway, so the first thing

5:47

is like, how do I get,

5:49

is stripping it down. I have

5:51

memories of sitting there, wrestling with

5:53

Charge A.S., getting rid of the

5:55

legend on the bottom, getting rid

5:57

of Axis ticks, getting... of too

5:59

many grid lines. And then it's

6:01

like, oh, how would I even

6:03

begin to style the tool tip?

6:05

That seems like really horrible, but

6:08

the tool tip has like too

6:10

much information there. It's not formatted

6:12

properly or whatever. Anyway, you get

6:14

the idea. The idea is that

6:16

I have to grind, I have

6:18

to ground myself in my own

6:20

experience. And that is my truth.

6:22

And my truth in this scenario

6:24

is that there is a need.

6:26

by many many many many developers

6:28

for lightweight easily styleable Simple charting

6:30

line charts. That's it and they

6:32

don't have to wrestle with all

6:35

sorts of words that they don't

6:37

understand Right away because they don't

6:39

know the domain of this current

6:41

of this specific library. They don't

6:43

know if you're using the word,

6:45

you know, scale or axis to

6:47

mean two different things or the

6:49

same thing or bottom left or

6:51

X and Y or whatever. You

6:53

know what I mean? It's just,

6:55

yeah. So anyway, I, so I

6:57

recorded these episodes and so I

6:59

posted a video today of like

7:02

a little screencast of me showing

7:04

like a chart, you know, doing

7:06

stuff, this line chart. And a

7:08

lot of replies that I got

7:10

were like, you know, I listen

7:12

to your podcast and I kind

7:14

of doubted that this would be

7:16

any good, you know, but this

7:18

looks good. And I'm not saying

7:20

that like the styles don't look

7:22

particularly good. It's what most people

7:24

need out of a chart. What

7:26

I showed on Twitter today is

7:29

a working thing that I have

7:31

and the code works and you

7:33

could put it in your app

7:35

and it's zero dependencies and it's

7:37

two kilobytes of JavaScript. Yeah, and it

7:39

does what most people need to

7:41

do and I can't just walk

7:43

away from that fact. I don't

7:46

know. And maybe this is the

7:48

marketing that Ian and Aaron are

7:50

saying that I'm doing unintentionally. the

7:52

marketing of just like I go

7:54

deep on stuff that's just what

7:57

it is so anyway I don't

7:59

know but I'm not giving up

8:01

on this. I am doing it

8:03

and I am pretty pumped. And

8:05

again, it's like at the end

8:07

of the day, I get it.

8:10

Nobody cares that it's two kilobytes.

8:12

I get that. But let me

8:14

tell you what you do care

8:16

about. You care about a feeling.

8:18

When I'm pulling in these big

8:20

libraries, I feel like I'm putting

8:23

a big sack of potatoes on

8:25

my back. No worse, I am

8:27

Santa Claus with an oversized sack

8:29

of presents, and I'm carrying that

8:31

around now. You know, in every

8:33

one of these libraries that I

8:36

pull in, I'm adding that as

8:38

I'm walking around, working on this

8:40

app, where this, to me, feels

8:42

like, I don't know, it feels

8:44

like an iPod nano in your

8:46

pocket. you know, compared to pulling

8:49

around like a big Santa sac.

8:51

It's a feeling. It's not just

8:53

concerned about low or slow load

8:55

times over the network because of

8:57

too much JavaScript. It's the feeling

8:59

of too much in every way,

9:02

in configuration, in scope, in visuals,

9:04

in JavaScript, and all those things.

9:06

It's the feeling of too much.

9:08

And I want to create something

9:10

that has the feeling of just

9:13

enough. That's what it is. I'm

9:15

going for just enough. That's what

9:17

Flux is going for. That's what

9:19

it's all the tools are going

9:21

for, is just enough. And if

9:23

you need too much, if your

9:26

needs are too much, if I

9:28

cater to everybody, if I cater

9:30

to everybody, if I have, if

9:32

there's a thousand people in front

9:34

of me, and there's different, they

9:36

all have different, you know, if

9:39

they're all building web apps, they're

9:41

all this stuff. The average person

9:43

is going to need a normal

9:45

charting setup, right? But a few

9:47

of them are going to need

9:49

a really intense heat map scatter

9:52

plot, crazy radial chart, crap, right?

9:54

Well, I'm not going to cater

9:56

to... that right okay but like

9:58

think about what I'm trying to

10:00

what I'm trying to say is

10:02

so that person who doesn't need

10:05

the big old chart crazy thing

10:07

they might need a crazy date

10:09

range booking setup you know they

10:11

and but their chart needs are

10:13

pretty simple and then the other

10:15

person needs like a really intense

10:18

like media library setup but the

10:20

rest of their needs are pretty

10:22

simple and then the other person

10:24

it's like everybody has that area

10:26

of like need that is just

10:29

beyond the average app, right? So

10:31

what I'm, it's like if you

10:33

cater to the maximum, then most

10:35

people will find most of my

10:37

product too much. The thing that

10:39

they need, it's going to be

10:42

perfect for. Maybe that's a good

10:44

business model, and maybe that's a

10:46

good principle. But to me, it's

10:48

like, no. The person who needs

10:50

the crazy data visualization stuff, should

10:52

go to the dedicated media library

10:55

package. They should go to Peken,

10:57

Pekenya, or file pond, or whatever,

10:59

you know, Chris, Schnex, or Rich,

11:01

Shinx, or Shinx, or whatever, his

11:03

stuff. He's dedicated his life to

11:05

that problem space, and they should

11:08

go to D3. Or Apex charts

11:10

or something and double down because

11:12

their needs are higher in that

11:14

realm. But then everything flux is

11:16

a place where you're not penalized

11:18

for everyone else's extreme needs. You

11:21

come here and it has just

11:23

enough and it's lightweight and it's

11:25

easy breezy and it looks great

11:27

and it's minimal. And you feel

11:29

good about using it. And then

11:31

you break out and talk to

11:34

Claude and build whatever else you

11:36

need to build for the crazy

11:38

stuff you need. Anyway, what are

11:40

we even talking about here? I'm

11:42

building charts. You can't stop me.

11:45

I build what I want.