Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of my JavaScript story. This week,
I'm talking to Rakesh. How do you say your name? Yeah,
Funday And yeah he's up in the middle of the night talking to us.
But yeah, why why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, let us
know who you are, where you work, what you do, all that
stuff, and then we'll dive into your story. Hey, folks, this
is Charles Maxwood and I just launched my book, The Max Cooder's Guide Defining
Your Dream Developer Job. It's up on Amazon. We self published it.
I would love your support. If you want to go check it out,
you can find it there, The Max Cooter's Guide Defining Your Dream Developer Job.
Have a good one, Max out. So my name is Dacas Funday.
I'm co founder and CEO of JAS Tigers. The focus of JAS Tigers
is too art, especially on dallascip on cool and uh yeah, we had
a little bit of a chat yesterday. Got introduced through somebody else to tell
me on Twitter. But I'm always interested to talk to people in different parts
of the world and get a feel for, you know, where people are
at, what they're doing, what their communities are like and things like that.
So yeah, we'll get into that stuff in a minute. One thing
I'm curious about, though, is how you got into programming. I think
I was in my eleventh standard in school, so I had an optional paper
between computer science. That's what I started. That was in I think ninety
three. Yeah, the year was ninety three. The first language read I
learned was Pasca. Oh cool. What was it about programming that got you
excited about it or made you want to do more of it? Then you
can write things and make computer too. Things that you write the computer was
like, you know, an interesting device. Nice. So you get in
you're learning how to program. How old were you at the time nineteen we
must be sixteen sixteen. Yeah, so you're writing code in Pascal. What
did you do next with regard to coding and learning to code? And what
kinds of things did you write? I think we started with normal. I
remember one particular project that we did. This was in next year, that
is twelve standards. One of my my friends we developed a kind of a
quiz program using was it or paste, using pastor and file systems, so
like I PEG nominalature international. This was for chemistry for learning chemistry, we
build a project on that. So it was so diagram or any compound on
the screen with the timer and the person has to answered enter the correct answer
and he gets scores. There have a different kind of test, one of
rapid fire round whatever. There was another round where he could say, I
don't remember exactly everything, but yeah, this kind of a quiz quiz program.
So that was one program that I remember if we wrote in school as
part of the project. Right, that's interesting. So as you're learning how
to build programs like this, at what point did you know that you wanted
to do this as a profession. Okay, so I did my bachelor's in
physics. Actually, oh yeah, in physics there was a paper and microprocessor
it's a raat fight, So I found that very interesting. Then there was
another it was not a paper, I think it was boolin and zebra.
So these tyde of things, digital electronics, these type of things interested me
a lot in my physics. So actually after twelve, I was interested in
going to study computer science only, but my family was on in support of
this, so they asked me to first first physics. So after I finished
my graduation, then I passed an interest as for a master's course in Delirioust,
which was an I m s C. I okay there, I but
but I worked on my fundamentals there. I sat down in the library and
really involved on my fundamentals there and computer architecture modishment and all those things.
I tried to make deeply inside the concept. What what languages were they teaching
programming languages? Okay, in my MSc we had it's up to you,
actually, but I think Java they don't actually, okay, C plus US,
Yeah, they were teaching CUSS. Yeah, that's probably around the same
time I was getting my bachelor's degree computer engineering, and yeah, the computer
science departments were teaching CSU. They were teaching Java and C plus plus so
they were teaching there too. So yeah. Interesting. What is the university
system like over there in India? Is it pretty comparable to the rest of
the world or do you do things a little bit differently than you do,
Say in the United States, we have a bachelor's for three years and then
we have master's. A Bachelor lot of Science is three years course and then
we are Masters of Sciences two years course. I think I'm not sure about
US, and I think the US MS is one here probably and Master of
Science, yeah, I think here the bachelor's degree is four years and a
master's degree usually around two years, but BID is four years four years in
India also, yeah, b C is three years and four years. Okay,
so I actually did complete my MSc. I saw by the final year
of my master's I had decided I wanted to be an entvieur and self employer
and all those things right in DC. So finally the year I didn't appear
for the finals, so I didn't complete it per se. Yeah, knowledge
wise, I'm satisfied. I did try to learn as well as possible.
Makes sense. So you go out and you start your own business. What
kind of business did you start up with? Exactly a business I started,
So for one year I just took up a job as a marketing executive in
some marketing agency, just to learn how to do marketing. And then after
that, after one year that I started freelancing. And I started as a
freelancer. So my first project was on BB six and zero And that makes
sense. So you were freelancing. At what point did you get into JavaScript?
Okay, I was just thinking about it, so probably in two thousand
and six, I got a project to development client. So there I remember
writing Joe javaskipt for the first time, form validations, M redirecting a page
and all those things, very basic, normal on the top of the page,
right on some midfunction, these kind of things. That's why it's unda
And I remember at that time because that's about when I was getting into web
development. JavaScript is kind of a thing that you had to deal with.
It wasn't something that people actually usually opted to go and learn, right,
So what what was it that made you eventually decide to go all in on
JavaScript? Yeah, at that point, if you're right, Jawski was on
a primary skill set somebody was somebody would love you would say, I'm a
PHP developer, on a Java developer, on a continent developer, not a
so like I I did after that, like I started a company with my
co founder Ma that didn't work well. Then I went back to felancing.
So then once some somebody said something to me which I can't tell in detail,
but yeah, one one day this happened to me that why am I
doing this free glancing and everything if I'm not enjoying it. At that point
of whime, I was working on PHP, and I was not really enjoying
it. I was like, okay, find whatever work I get, I'll
do it. So I decided, okay, let me think what is it
that I really like doing. So I felt, okay, JavaScript is interesting,
let me focus on jobs. So from their point probably this was two
thousand and thirteen or fourteen, I said, okay, from their hair onwards,
I will only work on Jaska and nothing else. I try to build
my specialization in this. But I did get the projects in Jabbo Javaskip.
I got got projects on a lot of projects in actually Google apscript that we
spoke on the other day also, which is also JavaScript. Everything is it's
also Javaski. It was just that we have spread shtub, talks object and
other Google side object. These are objects are available to us because we can
use maniplate to create a solution for that time. So I did a lot
of work on using JavaScript for times on this. So that's why I would
say I gotcha. So between two thousand and six and twenty thirteen, did
you wind up picking up any JavaScript frameworks like Backbone or Ember seemed to be
some of the some of the frameworks that came out early no, no,
no. I was like, okay, my skill would have been very basic.
I remained on the praying javaskip only and probably moved to PSP. A
lot of PHP during that time, coding night a framework. We did a
project for us, so we did a lot of work PSP at that time,
not specifically frameworks. Makes sense. So when did you start js tigers?
So ecided in twenty sixteen around December sixteen, your JavaScript consultancy, right,
yeah, the idea is to work on pully on jobson. So what's
that been like consulting in the JavaScript space for the last three or four years?
Okay, So I already had clients for my freelancing, my freelancing experience,
so we have already been working. So one client, I had already
done a lot of work on Google Adscript, so she wanted custom back end
application kind of a thing which we like, which we started building and almost
finished. Now it took some time using Angler and over, so it's basically
automates complete business. Another client is that also a financing client that also keeps
on giving and giving us work on jobs. So we see where we can
use Josy gotcha. Last year in March I moved to Bangalore. So there
here I started a project that we spoke last time that was a software company.
We're building a joy competent library for them using reacts. So these are
the three major products that the important last three yeares. There are some smaller
products. Yeah, so what's it like building a UI framework like that?
Because it seems like a lot of people are working on things that are similar.
Either they have a handful of components they need to share across things,
or you know, you see companies like VMware right creating an entire framework for
like Angular, and I've seen others for React and view. So yeah,
well, what's it like building something like that versus building an application? I
think, Okay, maybe it's my opinion, but I find it more interesting
because the problem is not straightforward. Like when we started this UI library project,
neither the client nor we we had any experience in working components, so
we had to do a lot of hidden trial kind of things. We have
good I think, what actually will be useful one year? Two year down
the line? They thought The clients thought that, okay, suppose we moved
to React in future, will this library be useful if we make it into
your Java Sile were competent, so that that was one design decision that we
had to take. So in that thing, yeah, like it's more interesting
I find it, like if the problem. My sense is that I try
to look for problems where the solution is not obvious, might not be like
the client has defined requirements and you just know I just have to gold it.
That's only I try to look for such problem. So this was one
project that I really got that kind of situation where I didn't know what to
do exactly. And luckily they also had a technical team. They also had
a technical life. They helped a lot. They knew things that they told
us to explore that was helpful. Yeah, are you freelancing or moonlighting or
maybe you've thought about going out on your own? Every week we have a
group of developers at various stages of a freelancing journey on the Freelancer Show to
talk about becoming better at freelancing. We also bring and experts to talk about
marketing, SEO and delivering high quality to clients. So if you're interested in
going freelance or you are freelance, check it out at freelancershow dot com.
So what what are the aspects of JavaScript that you really like. I mean,
why not, why not remain a PHP developer or a Java developer or
something like that. I think it's it's the simplicity how just a few lines
of code you can you can see the effect in those that Also, like
in Chrome Console, you can write some code and see how it's work.
You can't do that in that. It's basically the simplicity of the whole thing.
Just write through line of courtes and you can see it running in the
dowser. Right. I guess what I'm looking for is I talk a lot
talk to a lot of people who really really love JavaScript. I mean they're
they're super into it. They write a bunch of it their spare time.
They have all of this passion for it. And I'm always curious where that
comes from. So, you know, when when you settle into a language
like JavaScript, yeah, I mean there's that instant feedback. But does that
get you excited or is there some other aspect of the language that makes you,
you know, want to get up and write JavaScript code every day?
Well? I'm looking at looking at JavaScript from the point of view of building
a company, right, a world trust company which which can do grade work
using one thing. So my my I'm thinking from our intereprene's perspective, like,
can we stick to this thing for next five to ten years and build
up, right, say, a world trust company which does great work.
That's that's my focus. I'm not really looking at from it and programmers.
I say, no, that's fair. What is it then, that you're
seeing in JavaScript or the trends or adoption or things like that that makes you
think that it will be around then for five or ten years. I mean,
we're seeing white adoption now, but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be here
five years. Well, we'll have to look for something, some some alternative
way of accessing Internet other than browsers. Less are inter stay here, Yeah,
brothers, that's my sense, that's true. I do wonder though,
if eventually the way that we access the web, you know, be it
through browsers or anything else, will change. I mean, we're already seeing
massive adoption of voice based systems, right like Alexa or I think Apple has
an I Home and Google has the you know, their their assistant, right,
so you know, is that functionality moves into the browser and as we
interact with devices in different ways if some of that doesn't get consumed by other
things, and you know, the traditional way of doing work in the browser
changes to the point where we're either not using JavaScript or we're using it in
a different way. Yeah, I've given this a thought sometime, like how
will search work? Let's say there is how Google search work and get indust
problem wild. The voice assistant read out all the other sarcisms one by one.
Yeah, I don't know. So, so what areas are you focused
on in JavaScript? Is it mostly web or are you doing any like mobile
or IoT or anything like that. So the idea as far as the companies
concerned, the idea is like anything in anywhere JOBSKPT is used. We are
into it, like we would love to work on this, but right now
it's mainly web only, Like whatever work we have done so far is on.
But is there is there kind of a journey that you feel like you've
gone on where you've learned specific things or seen particular theme to your journey over
the last twenty years, Like what would people learn if they watched you throughout
your career? Would they come away you know what? What big lessons would
they come away with? Okay, I think one thing that I can say
is I don't know. Most of the people are trying to rush through a
course and look for a job. What I would say is, if you
are interested to be self employed or be a freelancer or do something of your
own, I think you should give it a short You should try as early
as possible in your career, and you should not be scared of it.
And yeah, and you should try to focus on and build a couple of
core skills, like not rather than doing and trying to learn ten things and
be an average in all of them, pick up one thing or two things
and be extremely good in that prob be that way you will you will get
better projects, better rates, and probably succeed as a freelancer. That's that's
my learning, that's my code learning. As a free answer, stick to
a few things and do real do them really well. That's probably I would
say, Yeah, makes sense. What are you working on these days?
So yeah, this is YUELA component project is like first phase is almost over,
So I don't know if your client wants to go for the next ways
or not. Then we are looking for new projects, new opportunities, Yeah,
new challenging. Like my sense is either you asked us to me,
Okay, this is the library. We want you to customize this library for
us, or you build a library for us. That's the kind of problem.
And if people want to get a hold of you or hire you or
anything like that, or just follow you online, like on Twitter, where
where do they find that stuff? I'm okay, not very active. I'm
I'm on Twitter, but probably they can just stop me an email like cool.
All right, Well, I think we're going to wrap up and head
toward picks. Now, picks on this show are just shout outs about things
you like. So I'm going to go ahead and do a couple of shout
outs of things that I've been enjoying. First of all, one pick that
I have is I've been listening to the what was it a cash Flow Quadrant
by Robert Kiyosaki and now he also wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and
uh yeah, a few other financial books. I've heard rumors that he's done
some things that people don't like. I haven't looked into it more deeply than
that, So don't toubt me as a true believer of his or as somebody
who doesn't like him. I just I don't have opinions that way on him
in particular. But the books are terrific both Rich Dad, Poor Dad and
Cash Litow Quadrant. So if you're if you're looking for kind of a breakdown
on how people make money and how to become wealthy and things like that,
I think these books are pretty spot on and and I've I've really really enjoyed
them, So I would check out those books. Yeah, terrific book.
Also on the money front, another one that I really like is Dave Ramsey's
The Total Money Makeover, and that's focused much more on getting out of debt.
But I also really like that one. So I'm going to shout out
about those financial books and just remind people to go sign up for JAS Remote
Comp coming up in May. It's going to be an online conference, so
you don't have to worry about getting sick. We've got some top notch speakers
and it's going to be exciting and awesome. So JS Remote comp dot Com.
All right, raqsh do you have some things you want to shout out
about on the show that people know are awesome and that you're enjoying. I
recently read a book, recently finished this book on Extreme Ownership by how us
TVCs lead and win. M Jaco Willing, Yeah, that's one of my
favorites. That's one of the ones that I make people that I hire read
a great book. All Right, well, we're gonna go ahead and wrap
up this interview. Thanks for coming and talking to me for a half hour
of cash Thanks, thanks a lot. All Right, folks, we're gonna
go ahead and wrap this up until next time. Max up bandwidth for this
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