Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cutrell and in today's episode I speak with Christopher Schmitt. I met Chris as a part of CSS DevConf. Chris is one half of environments for humans they put on conferences for developers. You may also know Chris from some of his publications. CSS cookbook, adapting to web standards or professional CSS. Chris is such an inviting person. He's such an important part of especially the CSS community but also the web development community in general. So I was excited to sit down and talk with Chris and we'll get into that interview in just a minute. I want to thank today's sponsor Digital Ocean if you are looking for a cloud hosting solution that you can get up and running with in under a minute and that cost you $5 a month. Digital Ocean is a perfect opportunity for you. We'll talk more about what Digital Ocean has to offer you later on in the episode but first I want to jump straight into the interview with Christopher Schmitt. Thanks so much for being on the show today Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you. You have a lot of interesting things on your resume but most people know you because they've seen you. They've met you at conferences around the United States. I suppose you've been around the world to conferences. Is that true? Yeah, I go to conferences. I speak at conferences and with my partner Ari Styles I produce a lot of conferences too. We will talk about environments for humans in just a little bit for sure. Some people may also know you from the CSS cookbook and some people may know you from non-breaking space. There are a ton of things actually that you may know Chris from. Chris, I'd like to go back to the beginning and ask you how did you get into web development from the start? Oh, well it goes back in time a little bit or a lot. It was in the early 90s. It was a autumn baby pro jam. I was in college in design school. Learning graphic design, print design, learning everything you needed to know. That goes through graphic design school. I love design. I love being able to formulate and bring content, imagery, editing, all the design techniques that you need to put together a presentation in a fixed medium. But I was really interested. One way I was getting those bang for your buck in terms of if you give a print designer X-Mount money, how many people will be able to see a pamphlet or a business annual or a commercial on TV or whatever. I found this web. Well, actually before that I was finding what's called Microsoft Help Files, which I don't think is going to use anymore. It was like this. You could write your own help files. That was kind of like big business. It doesn't matter. When it was kind of rolled the world by that time. It was like, wow, there's a great way to disseminate information. It was kind of limited in terms of design of typography and all that stuff. It was really terrible. Then almost in the same weekend or month I discovered the web. I was like, wow, this is great. The web back then was just really cheesy bullets with links to the few hundred websites that were on the web that were popular. The Nest Cape Aquarium came. It was back when AOL had the keywords that would take you directly to a website. Yeah, exactly. You actually send you CDROMs in the mail. You could get the internet as a program. Install the internet really. Yeah. Pay by the hour kind of stuff. Oh, man. That was terrible. And the modal noise we need to log in. Yeah, so I was at the university so I didn't have to worry about I don't know if that much. Sorry, I made a couple custom web pages and I showed my design mentor at the time. What the web was because we have always had discussions about stuff that I was looking into and when she was bringing into class and all that stuff. And so one of these moments I was just like, hey, this is the web, this is what does. And she saw the pages, saw what's out there and saw what I was doing. And she looked at me and said, like, Chris, you should be doing web design. I looked at her and I said, what is web design? And then shortly after that, I looked more into it because I love the idea of being able to design for on the web, you know, with the same amount of money that you would get for a project for a brochure like I was talking about before. But the potential to reach more people over vast distances really piled to me. So that's so I went to the bookstore, which is crazy for web. Got David Seagull's creating killer websites. And Linda, I'm in creating web graphics, designing web graphics. I'm here with 20, it's called. Well, we'll we'll include it in the show no tea the way. But it was like the Linda's book was the first web book that was in color. And then that told you that kind of the basics of how to build web pages. And then David Seagull's book was just taught you like designing techniques, designing for the web in terms of a more traditional designer's approach. And of course, they were all bunch of hacks. Now it was like HTML table layouts, mixing, mix of gifs and what have you. But they made kind of visual sense of the web back then that's those tools that we had. Either that or everything was going to be a line center, which is. Yeah, somewhat we have now with your sponsor design a little bit of things like design. So that was pretty much and I got rolling on that. And David Seagull has his studio in Timber Cisco called Studio Verso. And he ran a little what called blog I guess now called high five. And every week you would write about this great looking website and talk to designers and tell me made it. And it grew into this kind of like almost daily publication. But not really the other new stuff every day. Not really probably like every other day. And I got hired right out of college to help produce it. And that's what I think starts myself in the series is go and do the dot com rush and start producing sites and just talking to all these cool people, building cool sites and just you know, and everyone has to be over so it was I was able to have to be over so office and everyone there was so amazingly talented and smart. Smart than I was. So it was a very humbling but really cool experience. That's that's really cool. Yeah, so I got started. Yeah. Yeah. So there's some I was reminiscing back to my early days as you were talking. I was remembering back when we had web safe colors. There was a limited set of colors we could use in not not even that long ago when there was a limited number of fonts really that we could use reliably. And that was it. You know, you had your basic font stack and everybody used those fonts. And you know, using something beyond that typically we used like flash replacement. Do you remember what was the name of the tool? Well, it was something called swiffer or something like that or yeah, there was a swiffer which which replaced like you could embed a swift thing. But then there was this other tool. CooFon. It was if I remember correctly, it was actually a canvas that it would replace the font with rather than rather than flash. Yeah. And then and that was supposed to help solve the problem because we would always make our headings out of gifs. Yeah. Adobe came out with a tool or a service ID tool that would take your HTML headings. Oh, yeah. I remember that replaced them automatically. And you know, I remember like Jeff being video promotion like talking about how awesome it is. And everything like that. And I was just like, yeah, it's pretty cool. But I just don't know if I'm going to install a server. Just not going to have it cool. Cool header. Yeah. But yeah, the fight thing is that I actually made and designed a mouse pad that had the website colors in a color wheel arrangement. So it was a circular mouse pad because of the safety palette for a website color palette was it's based on the cube. So it's mathematical cube. And so it's programmed or engineered very well. But as a designer, it doesn't really talk about the you know, palettes of color, how to like, you know, color, colors, you know, whatever. So actually took the website colors in a website palette and put them into a color wheel. And then I put that onto a really, I think a really nice mouse pad. And that's my first thing I sold actually. I made and sold was a at least like over 25,000. Oh, it's great. House pad. It's about that. So I still use it. It's on my desk. So it's it's nice to just have like, I need a color for this. Oh, okay. Perfect color. That's great. Really, really fun time in the early days of the internet. That was that was also back when I was doing interactive flash ads like banner ads. Yeah, the good guy kind. Yeah, not the not the pop up kind, but you know, for bands and things like that. Not like the click which state you're on to get a refire house. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So then you, you know, you practiced web development presumably for a few years. And what ultimately inspired you to write the CSS cookbook? Well, I love CSS. It's it's a mixture of design skills, you know, the artistic side and then also a mathematical sign. And and just to produce something of a visual, you know, aesthetic, which is, you know, which has a designer, which I toil up. So and I think it's still true for print design as it is for design. And so I just I love CSS. I love what I could do. But at the time when the CSS cookbook first edition came out, there was, you know, it like browsers today have you know, robust CSS support. It's almost like a given that browser comes out and it has like robust uses support. But there was a time when that wasn't the case, we were all just doing font tags in line. We were like, uh, space or gifts like we were talking about like there's like center tags that we had to deal with. Uh, multiple nested tables. And so CSS came out mostly from i.e. I'm going to I'm going to probably tell you this didn't want to happen. Whatever. But, uh, yet that's came out with their version of CSS. But it was kind of JavaScript power CSS. And then i.e. realized that oh, oh snap, we really need a browser. Yeah. Because everyone's good love this internet thing. And that's kp is is owning the market. So I came up with a browser. And so we're from two to three. They started like bringing in kind of native nested native CSS support without. So if you turn on JavaScript and that's keep you wouldn't getting a CSS support and in your web pages. So i.e. came out with a browser that like, that had native CSS support. It was still very limited and i.e. three. But that was kind of like the turning point of CSS. And so I'm not sure really where it happened. But, um, you know, there's certain kind of hacks or techniques that we're looking at that were kind of coming from place and practical and maybe a little too much for our bookmarks, you know, to me on will D. So I was like, no, we should really, you know, someone should write a book. They said it's kind of like catalogs. Not everything that you could do with CSS. Because that's, you know, kind of what the spec is about. But kind of like just focus on what's practical in the browsers today. So the first version of the book was like, about close to 100 recipes of CSS tricks. They were very practical. So, um, so you could do some things, but if I couldn't do it cross browser, uh, at the time I didn't put it in the book because it just, you know, it's like, I would, I really wanted to be a practical book and not talk about like, things that might happen. So, so that's kind of how that book gets started. It is at the third edition. Is it locked at that, do you think or? Uh, no. So the third edition is kind of, it was like, um, actually we'll be probably writing that next year for the edition and that, and that will, um, been a while. But it came out right before CSS 3 became white hot. So I sort of missed the whole like web font, you know, blow up. It's a tight kid and how easy this has been for us now. So, um, and there's a lot more to put into it. So, uh, so the first edition was like 100 pages. The second edition was 250. The third edition was 800 pages if you got the ebook version. So the fourth edition is actually talking to, um, uh, my editor that we're probably just do it in, um, like mini books, if you will. But so we'll be focusing on it. And I don't know if everyone knows what cookbook is, but cookbook is, you know, uh, set of recipes or like we'll call recipes like you have a problem statement, uh, and then you write a solution and then you kind of have a discussion as why the solution is better or there's other ways you can go about solving a problem. And each chapter, it deals with the separate issues. So you never, a chapter deals with images for the web, uh, web, typography, uh, two different data representation. We know the chapter and so on. And so we're probably going to, there's so much stuff. I think it's going to go in there like, uh, like, you know, the animations chapter alone, be a sounding. Uh, so we're probably just going to tackle it as a mini book. And then, uh, when you get down to the road to end the road, we'll probably just make this uber book that you can buy as a ebook. Superbook. There's going to be an entire chapter on centering things, hopefully. Yeah, there's so many ways to center things now. But, uh, yeah, I was just, uh, yeah, actually like learning more about flex box. Uh, yeah, last week. And so I'm like, really extending about flex box and, and really, uh, happy with the support it has in, uh, modern browsers. I think you picked a good year to update it because I believe i.e support for i.e. nine and, well, I know i.e. eight for sure. And I think it's i.e. and nine, uh, Microsoft is dropping support for those browsers. And presumably, you know, uh, I would assume that a lot of the content that you're going to write about in these upcoming individual chapter books, uh, will, will end up ignoring a lot of that older tech that, you know, those hacks and those things that otherwise are no longer really useful. Well, back in the day, right? Like a browser would take a year to release a new update. And then Chrome just kind of just like said, they let's just, you know, we're not going to play with those rules anymore. And so they just update like every two weeks, I don't know, I'll update the day to release their, the canary update, you know, every, every so often. And so, um, so we used to say like, that's eight 4.5, you know, we're like, you know, i.e. three, you know, this works in i3. And so now it's just totally like, you know, just as a book author now, it just like is washing hands of it. Just say, it's supported, yes or no type of thing. So it's pretty nice. But, uh, by i'm happy, by all, like that, we don't want to deal with i8 or nine anymore in the near future. So that's pretty good. I mean, it's, you know, I remember like going around to speaking at places and you see people saw this for i6 and seven and, you know, it's like, oh man, start. That's rough. That's rough. Yeah. And the amazing thing is, you know, we have level four selectors. I talked about this on your show. And I talked about it at one of the conferences, that environment for humans put on, actually. Um, but level four selectors are coming out. And some of them are already available on Safari. And that's, I mean, that's going to change the landscape of CSS again. And it's all moving so quickly. Uh, if you are using, or if you are creating a browser that doesn't automatically update, the spec is going to start moving faster than your browser does. And, in fact, I would say it already does move faster, uh, then the browsers typically do. Uh, well, yeah, we run the issue of like the spec, uh, falling behind a little bit, but it's, but it's okay with that. I think, uh, the more I'm going to turn about, is this, if the browsers start dictating what the spec should be, but it's always been like to give and take. It's been all like a big, uh, tug of war, if you will. Like, you know, the, I mean, you need to have browsers to innovate and find new things and, and try things out. And then you always have the spec right. So like, well, we need, you know, these, these, uh, certain, uh, features into a browser. But, you know, at the end of the day, is the browser that implements, you know, the spec. So yeah, they kind of hold the keys there. Yeah. So, so, you know, that's, you know, there, as they say, the rubber hits the road with, you know, with the browser. So we just, you know, whatever, you know, we're out there immersing a little bit, but at the same time, it's, you know, I think it's, it's been a great, uh, Ranshance, I think, which is having to spec what writers and the browser vendors working together. And also, I feel like it's, you know, you can look at that with the responsive images, community group, which is, you know, this kind of like thing. I felt like it was kind of like this, W3C had like, oh, a community group really, really want to talk to us a little bit, very, you know, for community group. And then, uh, I don't think they were expecting this, uh, this big group from the gather over responsive images and trying to solve this problem. And it was a, you know, multi-year, you know, it took a while, you know, we were on. And last solutions came up there, but it was, it was nice to be able to come to the browser and, and, and to the spec writers and say, like, hey, here are some solutions or test cases. Uh, you know, we, we actually need this. And, you know, in our first spec writers, we're like, no, you don't need this. And then, and then, uh, it's like, oh, then they kind of like glented into like, look at it some more. And then, you know, then we talked to the browser vendors and, you know, the engineers and some of what could have happened. And so it was like, so the solution that we have now is not the one that we would have, I think, um, everyone in the group, I don't want to speak for everyone, but it's feeling it's definitely not the solution that we would have started out with, but it's the solution that, you know, works. And it's great, but, and that's all because if people coming together and talking about it, and talking what they need, to actually, you know, build great web pages on the devices and so that. So it's, it's, it's a really just interesting dynamic of, of specs versus browsers. Yeah, it's like practical versus ideal, right? Like, you have the, the, the actual practicing developer. And then you have the person who is developing the spec that may or may not be, you know, in an agency environment. And when they get in a room together, they may have competing opinions, but they come out on the other side, hopefully. And again, ideally with something that, is both that, that works, you know, that it, that keeps in mind, for example, accessibility, but also is, is easy enough to use that it's adopt, it's easily adopted by people who are already using, uh, CSS in their everyday jobs. Well, great. I think we're going to take a quick sponsor break. And then I want to come back and talk with you, uh, specifically about conferences, uh, and talk about environments for humans, your experiences with environments for humans. Uh, and then we will, we will end out, uh, this part of the interview, uh, and then in the next episode of Developer Tea, you're listening to this right now, you're listening to part one of a two part interview with Chris in the next part. We're going to talk about a bunch of other things that I'm not going to give them away. Uh, so come back and make sure you listen to that second episode, the second part of the interview. Uh, but first, let's talk about today's sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by one of my very favorite services on the planet. That's digital ocean. If you are looking for an SSD cloud hosting solution that's super fast and incredibly affordable and incredibly easy to use, digital ocean is a perfect opportunity for you. Go and check it out digital ocean.com. The entry level plan for digital ocean is only $5 a month. That gets you 20 gigabytes of SSD super fast space, a terabyte of bandwidth transfer, and 512 megabytes of RAM on that machine. And you can put anything you want to on this machine. You get root access and you can get this thing set up in less than a minute. So if you are looking for a hosting provider, try out digital ocean. Now if that wasn't already enough, digital ocean is providing a $10 credit if you use the code Developer Teaat checkout. So that's basically like two months completely for free on digital ocean.com on their entry level droplet. So go and check it out digital ocean.com. Make sure you do not forget that code Developer Teaat checkout to get the $10 credit just for being a listener of the show. And of course that helps out Developer Teaas well. Thank you so much to digital ocean for being a longtime sponsor of Developer Teain 2015. And of course, as always, those links will be in the show notes at spec.fm. So Chris, we've been talking about CSS primarily. You wrote the CSS cookbook for O'Reilly. And that's going to be updated. You said hopefully next year. Yeah, so right now I'm working on a book called Responsively Retrofitting. Cool. And it's responsive what design makeovers. And so I just did a Kickstarter for that. And so is that one through or for O'Reilly is it published? Yeah, it's going to be through O'Reilly. And so Kickstarter to help me flip some of my time. So I can actually focus on it. Great. And so that one's focused more on it's rich. It's niche-y, but it's to help people who can't invest either time and or money to start from scratch to build a responsive website. And just to help them, their website to get more mobile friendly with to be as invasive as possible. I mean, it's put in one extra script tag or one extra style tag. Sure. And so they're citing to make it work. It'd be more multi-divisely. Yeah. Yeah, I did that. So this is then we have a few demos in there. And just and you know, it's it's going to be teaching your response to a design by way of this kind of like really neat niche thing. So I feel like there's a really big focus on on that, especially when you know, so many sites out there that that are updated content-wise, but you know, their their shell, they're is still trapped in you know, legacy websites that they don't need to be able to lay out. It's a road fixed with layouts and so you want to just want to and with Google kind of penalizing them for not being more friendly. I just want to so there's like a big big cryoff for that. Yeah. So it makes the web better. It brings up the kind of the bottom end of the floor, I guess the minimum quality of a given website. Hopefully this is this is one of those injections of quality into the atmosphere. Right. Well, I'm so hope it's quality. So but the season's good book. Like you like you mentioned is right after that one, I get to dive into working with season's good book. Yeah. Well, other than writing, though, you run at least your part owner of environments for humans, for developers who are currently listening, what do they miss out on by not going to a conference? I guess, you know, when I first started out, I felt like there's the major ways of learning or of course, like online. There's one thing I love about our community, I think, and I love about like this podcast is that we actually share what we learn very easily on like other industries. However, things just change really fast. Right. Yeah. Things is, you know, technology's changed fast. What we're, what we're building up with today is different than it was yesterday. Like, you know, like this past week or so, we're pressed as that they're focused more on JavaScript. And another they would shy away from PHP, that just kind of shows me that they're going to more JavaScript solution in the future. And so, you wouldn't think about that like one year ago or five years ago. And since things change so fast and we're so busy, you know, with our, with our jobs and, you know, our families or, our lives, you know, things that, you know, that other things that matter to us, it's, it's kind of easy to fall out of rhythm of what's going on, what's the latest and greatest. And so, I find conferences are a great way to either underscore or let you know that you are on the right path of what you're doing or that you are doing the right thing, as well as learning, you're able to bring your mind to new ideas and new approaches to new new technologies and seeing what's on the horizon. Like, you know, we do the CSS DevConf conference. And one of the things that people always love is seeing the stuff that's like almost here. So, they can prepare and learn more about it. So, when they come, they're not too surprised. Like, like last year we had CSS DevConf. The best presentation was Jen Simmons and she did a great presentation, a new layout technologies that are available through CSS. They're, they're coming like CSS shades and grids and so on. That's cool. So, so really cool stuff, but it's not here here, but it's, it's almost here. So, so, so that's something you can find out about it, but also meeting colleagues and like, and having what's what we call like hallway discussions. And so, and the first time I came, I associate like I knew about them was through South by Southwest when it was more like, you know, web focused, if you will. And it was on this, you know, interactive Southwest was like just probably about 10 rooms in the top floor or the Austin Convention Center. And the best things were having meeting all these cool people who I knew via their websites. And just, yeah, and, and getting to know what they're up to and what challenges they were having. You know, not just with the web, but, you know, with everything else that was going in and get to know my friends, those are the best part of, you know, South by Southwest. So, it's a, you know, in, you know, just kind of miss those days because now South by is kind of a different piece, but so is our industry is kind of different than it was then. But, but, but, you know, there's other conferences out there, we're meeting, meeting colleagues in front of what they're doing and what kind of solutions, what problems are they're tackling and what solutions they're looking forward to. So, I found that that's probably the most interesting part of conferences as well as learning new things. And, like I said, like, WCSA's DevConf, which is our like our most famous, I guess, or our in-person conference that we do. We've spent a lot of time trying to find ways, not just to make sure we have great speakers in moments of it, but for the entertainment and trying to find ways for people to talk and get to know each other because, you know, we, we, we, we find that that, you know, there's lots of introverts in there. Yeah. Which is sure. I'm totally introvert, so, but it's, you just, yeah, and to get people to talk to each other and find them, you know, kind of find those icebreakers and do, do new cool things. And so, like one of the things that we've done the last couple of years is, be able to do tours, whichever look how. So, like one of the things we, which is that DevConf is that we actually try to find and inject some of the flavor of where we are. So, we were able to do like ghost tours at the, at the Stanley Hotel, because we had the DevConf a couple years ago. And then we did like a, you can do history or, you know, if we do tour in New Orleans, we were last year. And you do a tour, the, the Queen Mary this past year. So, and that was great. And so, you go tours on groups and get to know each other on that way as well as, you know, other activities and so on. Yeah, I think that's something that a lot of people kind of take for granted in the web development community. And that is, you know, the importance of actually talking to people. And I do want to talk about your remote conferences, but, but these, these on location conferences, I actually did an episode just like I was last week, I believe, about taking advantage of conferences and, or may have been a few weeks ago. But in any case, it was talking about taking advantage of conferences and being certain that you're, that you're intentional about the people that are there. Because if you're just there for the content, if you're just there for the sessions, it quite honestly, you could probably get a good amount of that content online already, right? Like, and that's, you know, that's not to say that there's no value if you're just there for the sessions. You can definitely get extra value by being there because you can walk up and talk to the person about that session or you can raise your hand and ask a question, which you can't really do effectively if you're, you know, watching this on YouTube after the fact, right? It's two totally different situations, but actually sitting at lunch with another developer who lives on the other side of the country from you and faces similar problems to what you face, that's, that's actually really valuable. And ask yourself, you know, how often do you get to talk to other developers face to face, who are in similar situations to you, particularly other developers who are not on your team? That's, that's a really important thing. In my opinion, at least, that's a really important piece of the conference puzzle. Yeah, I definitely agree. I think it's just, you know, just to find people who have that have common problems or and might have a, you know, a solution that you would never thought of or it or expound on some, you know, technique or what not is that speaker and was talking about is this pretty awesome. It's, you know, there's, there's a learning by like looking on the web or a book, but then like when you're actually there and you actually like, you know, a really great presentation is something that we, you know, is someone who could tell the story and even, you know, tell us a technology problem, tell us a really great way of solving the problem and then also, you know, talk about different ways they can solve it, you know, just is a way better and almost priceless in comparison to a blog post. Yeah. Because you're a member of the presentation so much more vividly than you would like a blog post. So not to say a blog post can be great and well designed. It's just a different medium with different values. It's like saying you can't equalize a tweet and a blog post either, right? They both have certain amount of value, but honestly, it's much much more likely that you're getting more value out of a blog post than you do out of a tweet because they're different formats. Right. Yeah. So one thing I remember from CSS DevConf this year, somebody asked about, you know, they were asking about the people on the stage and they said, yeah, you all have, you found a way basically to make it on the stage. And how do we as the people who are not on the stage, you know, get to the place where we are, you know, building content like you are? And they were, they were asking specifically, they said, you know, I go to write something and then either somebody else has already written it or it's just not interesting enough for me to write. And I think the element that you just pointed out Chris is kind of the magic element. And that is story and the individual's experience. You know, there's there's so many different ways of doing certain things, but eventually you kind of hit a threshold. There's only so many ways that you can change a font on a page, right? However, there are in nearly infinite, I won't say infinite because that's probably not true, but there are a lot of situations where typography is really particular to that story, to that use case, to that particular project. And if you tell your story and you do it in a entertaining or compelling way, people can learn from you even if it's something they already technically know. Right. That's that is probably the most insightful thing. That's actually the reason this podcast exists. I'm not saying anything that nobody else has uncovered in some way or another. I learned it from other people. I'm not unearthing some hidden secrets deep in a cave or something like that. I'm just I'm talking with you, Chris, and we're talking about our experiences. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, like, you know, one of my heroes is like Chris Quirer. And I think everyone knows about CSS tricks, right? And the way he blogs is who he is. Right. And so like I make Chris, you know, he's been spoken of stuff. He's just a great guy down the earth guy. But I because I've gone to conferences and I've met him. I hear him when I read his blog posts. And I know his and that was before I met him, you know, I could spot a Chris Quirer blog post just because the way he writes it, right? And so it's very authentic to who he is and how he writes. And so I could go to him because I know what I'm reading is his point of view and how he approaches the problem. And he also like finds he's he's almost right to see his script because he's like always has other alternative ways to solve a problem. But that doesn't mean that, you know, just because, you know, someone else has already solved a problem or has an issue with the web or what not. And has already posted a blog. Does it mean that you don't need to push it up there as well? It's like saying like, you know, Chevrolet already made a car. Why do I need, you know, why do I make, you know, what is Honda need a bigger car? You know, as long as the authentic and you're publishing something from a true source or true point of view, I think people will resonate with that. Yeah, I totally agree. So in that spirit of telling stories, I want to round out this part of the interview by asking you if you have any to share some stories from this year's conference or conferences rather that stuck out to you. Maybe it was just a presentation or maybe it was somebody who came up and talked to you specifically. Can you share a story about this year's conferences that kind of sticks out to you and is a good memory, maybe? Well, as a conference organizer, one thing that we do differently in it was from kind of day one, I was using DevConf is that we do a double blind voting. Yeah. Yeah. For our people who submit a conference and to do a spinout talk to the conference. And so one of the reasons we do that is that we want to make it don't give me bias. So we, and by double blind, if no one is listening to that, is that we strip out a person's name and their kind of bio from their submission and then have the community at large vote on it. And so that way we can figure out what content people really want to see versus people they want to see. And we referenced the Rappup panel earlier. And so in the Rappup panel is kind of a tradition as DevConf is that every available speaker, some people have the catch flights or whatnot, but so they can't be there. But everyone who can be there, we invite them onto the stage. And the idea is sort of just to see if there's any questions you wanted to ask about any topic that was presented during before that before the end of the conference pretty much. This is your time. This is your chance. And the idea is not to like, you know, put you your speakers on a pedestal, but mostly to say like, you know, we're all colleagues and we're all the same. There's one thing that I think Moli Haushlag actually told me is that is that I think Zoltz saying is that there's more knowledge in the audience than on the speaker on the stage. Yeah. We really want to get a dialogue going between the speakers and the attendees. And you know, one of the things that you mentioned, the question was like, how can I be a speaker at the event? One of the questions asked was, I think this is what it was. I think it was the question was asked. For the audience was like, when you submitted your talk to the DevConf, did you already have it written out? Or like, did you already know what the topic was? And just raise your hand if you did not. I think most people on the stage raised your hand. They didn't have it. So it was just like, so between the time they said that the progress that they want to talk about this and the time they actually showed up, they actually worked hard on producing a like a new new presentation. And so I think that kind of like, well, that shocked me one as a conference organizer was like, oh my gosh, these people just signed up and they were really like, but at the same time, I like, you know, I, you know, we're really professional. We really trust everyone to show up and do a great job, but it helped inspire people to like, when it comes time, when someone does a call for speakers or conference, just to think about what they would want to see. And it doesn't mean that you've done and talked before, but think about what you really want to see on stage and have the authentic voice in there. It's like, well, you know what, be really cool. If you had to talk about this and then slash that ideal a bit and then submit that and see how that goes because I feel like, I mean, this, you know, the industry needs new voices all the time and the need your voice, we're talking to you right now. We need your voice and just don't, don't keep it quiet. Yeah, I would say that more than any other industry, more voices doesn't necessarily mean competition like we're fighting, right? Like that's the, that's the one of the most amazing things about this industry to me. I could talk about this all the time, but it's that uniquely from most other industries, we are mostly non-canibalistic. In other words, my business getting better typically doesn't hurt your business because everybody needs the wet like there is a massive hole, I guess you could say, a massive need that the demand is much larger than the supply right now. Presumably, we'll be for the foreseeable future for development of some sort, right? Whether it's web development or other types of software development, demand for this is not going anywhere except up. And so because of that, when we have more people taking taking leadership, stepping up and inserting their voice into this discussion, well, I mean, it just makes the industry better. More knowledgeable people step into the gaps and the new technologies are unearthed, new ways of using old technologies are unearthed, and new stories ultimately, they inform us and they teach us new things that we otherwise never would have known. So if you feel like there's a gap between, if you're listening to this episode now and you feel like there's a gap between you and publishing and becoming, I don't know, the next Chris Collier or whatever, there's not. There's not a gap there. It is just about, you know, taking those steps. Now, am I saying it's easy? Absolutely not. Like nothing worth doing to quote whoever it was that said this, I couldn't tell you, but nothing really worth doing is all that easy, right? But is it worth it? I would say yes. I totally, I totally think that getting involved in these kinds of things, publishing your opinions, publishing your stories, and stepping up and taking leadership in the industry, there's space for you. Well, that wraps up the first part of the interview. Chris, thank you so much for joining me today. And we will continue this interview in the next episode of Developer Tea. Well, thanks for having me. This is awesome. And thank you for listening to Developer Tea today. Thank you so much to Christopher for joining me on this episode and the next episode of Developer Tea. If you don't want to miss out on that episode, make sure you subscribe to the show and whatever podcasting app you use. You can always find the show notes for this episode and every other episode at spec.fm. 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