Product Development

Technology

September 6, 2022

August Engineering Monthly Round-Up

Ugur Oruc

Tech Lead

At OAK’S LAB, knowledge sharing is part of our DNA. It’s one of the principles that help us build state-of-the-art products from scratch, and it’s the reason why our internal Engineering Newsletter has finally made its way to the pages of the internet.

Our engineers are not afraid to innovate. Every month, we keep an eye on current news, insights, and events related to our industry and relevant to our work, and we share them with each other. The topics range from the newest platforms, extensions, and tools to educational articles, the hottest conferences, inspirational white pages, and more. Now, we want to share them with you. We hope that you too find inspiration in the news, insights, and events below.

This past month at OAK’S LAB we released new products, kicked off new projects, and said goodbye to others. Throughout it all, we gathered insightful articles, explored new platforms, and challenged existing frameworks to improve the way we work. Here’s what we discovered in August 2022.

Engineering News and Insights

Webhooks.fyi — a universal platform for webhooks

Webhooks are the backbone of API development. They are universally used, from payment services to receiving SMS messages, but they remain unstandardized API contracts. Webhooks.fyi is a platform that provides a directory of webhook providers and a collection of best practices for providing and consuming webhooks. Created by ngrok.

Modern (and free) web application design patterns

Are you curious about modern application design patterns? What they are? How they are done? Patterns.dev is an excellent source for you to discover patterns, tips, and tricks for improving how you architect apps. For a more interactive version, you can explore JavaScript Patterns.

Avoiding useEffect with callback refs

Are you using “refs” effectively and correctly? If you have a basic understanding of refs in React, then this article is a great write-up on ref usage. Key takeaways include: always be careful of what the dependencies are in your useEffect. And don’t forget that “ref” is a function!

Container Queries and :has() have landed on Chrome

Container queries help developers to query the parent selector for its size and styling. But there’s more to it. The developers at Google Chrome go into detail on why this is such a huge release — alongside the :has() feature — for developers everywhere. You can also watch this explanation video for a deeper understanding.

Are 3rd-party resources more harmful than helpful?

Using third-party resources is necessary to track user behavior and even to check if your application is failing. However, they might do harm to your website or application. The developers at Google Chrome have a future vision of the web where third-party scripts provide value without disrupting the performance or user experience of websites. They share their information and insights from experiments with third-party scripts.

Why does React re-render? The real answer.

Have you ever wondered what triggers React to re-render? Even the most experienced developer might give you different answers if you ask. At OAK’S LAB, we are using “useCallback”, “useEffect”, and “useMemo” constantly in React, and it might cause some re-renders in different scenarios. To finally understand the behavior, Josh Comeau provides the explanation.

Inspiring Engineering Ladders for Engineer Managers

Engineering levels and ladders differ from company to company. At OAK’S LAB, we found inspiration by looking at this framework for engineering managers. It’s an excellent way to evaluate how we are doing and how we can improve the way our department works.

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Upcoming Events:

Now that summer is almost over, the event calendar is filling up for the fall. Here’s what we’re watching.

GraphQL Conference

Date: September 29th

Learn about GraphQL best practices from industry experts and become part of the thriving GraphQL community.

This is a free and virtual event.

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ViteConf

Date: October 11th-12th

Stackblitz is hosting the Vite Conference to bring you a full day of launches, learnings, and celebrations from the projects reimagining Web Development.

This is a free and virtual event.

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React Brussels | The First React Conference in the heart of Europe

Date: October 14th

The first React conference in Brussels will feature a list of speakers ranging from talents at Netflix and Postman to SolidJs and Typescript. You can also attend workshops about different tools and technologies that are part of the React ecosystem.

This event is online and in-person. Tickets are on sale now.

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Firebase Summit 2022

Date: October 18th

The 7th annual summit of Firebase in New York City will teach you how Firebase can help accelerate app development, run your app with confidence, and scale your business.

This event is online and in-person.

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Past Talks:

Creative CSS Layout

From Web Conferences Amsterdam, this talk about creative CSS layouts stood out and can be found on YouTube now.

From 0 to 100, the story of React

The UI Dot Dev team has put together a video of how React entered the ecosystem and evolved into what it is today.

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A Final Challenge

To celebrate the first edition of our monthly round-up, we’re closing it out with a small engineering challenge.

Do you know how JavaScript works? Let’s see how deep your knowledge is!

What is the output of the code below: (Answer at the end of the article.)

‍If you or someone you know is looking for an engineering position either remotely or in Prague, check out our job openings. We’re hiring!

Our Jobs

Do you want to shape the future and help build companies from scratch? Here is a list of job openings available right now at OAK’S LAB.

That’s the end of the August 2022 Engineering Monthly Round-Up. Thank you for reading the first edition, and we hope you’ve enjoyed the articles, platforms, insights, and events we shared. We look forward to seeing what next month brings our way. If you have any comments, suggestions, or other interesting material to share, please feel free to comment below or send me an email directly at ugur.oruc@oakslab.com. Thank you again, and we’ll be back next month.

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ANSWER:

Output: First, Fourth, Third, Second.

It’s all connected to the JavaScript event loop at the end. JavaScript treats all events in a different order, and putting “0” in setTimeout does not make the timeout an immediate call.

VIDEO: Watch how event loops work.