Software and technology I use and specialise in.

Typescript

I read recently that Microsoft used to write code in C# before translating it into Javascript using an internal tool. Thank god they decided enough was enough and blessed the world with Typescript. I converted my team at Immersify Education over, and after some initial pushback over development speed, they quickly came around to the fact that not only were they quicker, but they also wrote code with hardly any bugs.

Javascript

Don’t get me wrong though, Javascript has its time and place. As the language that unlocked the web for me, I still hold it dear, despite its many quirks.

Python

My Phython experience so far has been short little programs that need to run really efficiently for doing tasks with lots of data. It’s a joy for that kind of thing, and what a community it has behind it. The programme I most enjoyed was retrieving every user email from a database (over 100K), processing them, and sending information to the applicable ones. Yes, I know I basically made Mailchimp, but without a UI and with only one feature 😂.

Go

I needed to create Google Docs but for a CMS for creating 3D lessons for university students. I spun up a Go server and created websocket connections to the CMS to monitor and send changes. It did the job great. I think I’d like to try and recreate something similar in Rust one day.

C#

Despite recruiters seeing C# and .NET as interchangeable, my C# experience is actually via Unity. Another example of having to learn something new because I really wanted to make a VR game, and I did! It was great, you could assemble weapons and then use them, my favorite being the lightsaber. I did toy with the idea of releasing it on Steam but quickly realised I didn’t have the legal prowess or motivation to get around whatever Disney might throw at me for stealing George Lucas’ idea.

React

I’ve tried Svelte, I’ve tried Angular, I’ve tried Vue, but I always come back to React when I need something done quickly. The community is great with how many modules and libraries are open source and free to use. There are certain quirks, and as with any framework it needs constant revision, but I trust the team and the direction they are going with it. Sad to see Dan Abramov leave, but I trust he is doing great work over at Vercel.

NextJS

Recommended by React now, but once you figure out the basics it really is a joy to use, and some amazing things you can do so easily. I’ve never felt held back by any of it.

NodeJS

If you use it correctly it can tie in amazingly for monolithic apps. Also just incredibly useful to be able to write code that works on the Node runtime.

tRPC

What a joy this library is to use, everything just makes sense. The perfect mix between REST and GraphQL for me and ties in perfectly with the T3 stack, something I am a big fan of.

Prisma

Prisma makes things easy for me. The type safety it provides is so powerful when developing, but also when things go wrong you feel like you’re in safe hands (your own).

Tailwind CSS

I feel like this has to be the way forward for React. Yes, there are the benefits of encouraging component reusability, and the speed you can make things look beautiful. However, I think maybe more importantly it is AI friendly. To have all of your logic and styling within the same block of text is going to be immeasurably useful for the AI coding future we are transitioning into.

ThreeJS

Wow! You can make anything on the web now. This is probably what has slowed my Unity usage down in recent years. People are doing incredible things, and I for one am loving being part of this early stage where we are witnessing it all for the first time.

Unity

Unity is so fun. When I worked with it professionally it did definitely annoy me, but now I can’t help but enjoy the editor as a game all in itself.

PostgreSQL

MongoDB

Firebase Realtime Database

AWS

Heroku

Vercel