Jed Watson

Jed discusses the sustainability of open source, the value OSS creates for us all individually and as a collective, and then proposes some small steps we can all take to ensure the future of our vibrant community.

Jed wraps up ReactConf AU by discussing the sustainability of open source, the value OSS creates for us all individually and as a collective, and then proposes some small steps we can all take to ensure the future of our vibrant community.

2020

ReactConf AU

The Value of Open Source

How I accidentally built the most popular React component, experienced death by a hundred props, got buried under hundreds of PRs, invented a component extension API, learned that styles are also a function of state, influenced some major design systems and finally got some sleep.

2019

React Conf

Building React-Select

React.js is changing the way developers think about mobile app development, especially with the recent announcement of React Native. However, in many ways hybrid (web + mobile) app development is here to stay for a large number of mobile apps. Everyone's heard "you can't build a native experience in a web view". We disagree. You just have to know the right tricks. And when you do, the web becomes an incredibly powerful platform for delivering amazing user experience using the technology you know. At Thinkmill in Sydney, over the course of developing several commercial apps, we've experienced the power of using ReactJS for mobile apps built on web technology, and developed a framework we call TouchstoneJS (which Tom Occhino called "the best looking and feeling implementation of this that I've seen" during the Q&A session at React Conf) to share this capability with developers around the world. In this talk I'll share what we've learned and how we've approached the unique challenges of mobile web apps - with tools that are useful to all developers building touch interfaces with React, as well as a walkthrough of our development process and framework. I'll also talk about what you can do with the web platform that you can't with native apps, and even React Native.