The value is in learning, not execution
Coding agents are most valuable as learning accelerators, not execution engines
bobae kang
Full-stack product engineer building quality & impactful software
Latest posts
Will UI survive AI?
What will happen to UI when you can just talk to AI to do stuff?
A normie software engineer in the age of code generation
AI may write the code, but I'm still accountable for my work
My six months at Netflix
My early impressions on working at Netflix six months in
Agent engineering as UI engineering
A brief note on where engineering for LLM agents meets engineering for user interface.
What we talk about when we talk about server
Exploring varied ways of how server is used in web development today
What is a server, anyway?
A short musing on the meaning of server as a concept
Leaving Spotify
My time at Spotify has come to an end. What do I think? What have I learned? What next?
Signals aren't monads and that's ok
A critical evaluation of a claim that signals are "reactive monads"
React, Solid, htmx: Part 2
Revisiting React, Solid, and htmx a year later
I barely write React code at work
I was hired as a Web Engineer. Now I'm writing Java daily. What happened?
Two ways to the two Reacts
Next.js App Router and TanStack Start represent two distinct ways to the full-stack React
Serverless servers and the challenge of new React architecture
What Vercel's new feature revelas about the new React architecture and its challenge
My second Spotiversary
Reflecting on my second year of working at Spotify
To students reaching out to me for career advice
Things I share in almost all conversations I have with students and recent grads--in writing
Component, colocation, composition: A note on the state of React
My take on the latest React drama and what it reveals about React's evolving strategy and ecosystem
UI concerns are verticals
UI engineering is about product as a whole and goes beyond frontend.
React, Solid, htmx
React, Solid, and htmx shows new ways to cross the network gap.
RSC is React Server + Component
React Server Component is best understood as React Server + Component, not React + Server Component.
Mediocre corporate software engineer
In 2023, I've learned to be a mediocre corporate software engineer
React vs the world
A short note on the competing visions between React and the rest of the JavaScript frameworks.
My first Spotiversary
Reflecting on my first year of working at Spotify
Revisiting my thoughts on React vs Vue
Reflecting on my earlier comparison between React and Vue, and how my opinion has changed since
Surviving somehow
A brief note on the recent wave of layoffs in the tech industry
So, is React a library or a framework?
My attempt at answering the age-old question of what React really is--a library or a framework
My first month at Spotify
Reflecting on my first month as a software engineer at Spotify
From building to engineering software
Reflecting on my journey into software development and toward software engineering
I got a promotion
Reflecting on my recent promotion at work and my new title Senior Front End Web Developer
Making sense of useEvent
My attempt at grokking the new useEvent hook RFC and the React mental model
On hydration: A non-technical perspective
My attempt at explaining hydration--what it is, how it's done, and where it's going--from a non-technical perspective
My thoughts on "Types as Comments"
My initial impressions of the new TC39 type annotations proposal and why I'm not sold
Will 2022 be the year of Solid.js?
Recent highlights of Solid.js and its ecosystem in early 2022
To Twitter, or not to Twitter, that is the question
Why I finally decided to try Twitter as web developer and what I hope to gain from it
Tis the season to be jolly in Reactverse
Recent highlights of React and its ecosystem in late 2021
Some thoughts on Jamstack Conf 2021
My thoughts on the evolution of Jamstack after watching Jamstack Conf 2021 talks
Dipping my toe into Solid.js
My first impressions of Solid.js, a new JavaScript framework
So it has been one full year of getting paid to write code
Reflecting on working as a professional web developer for a year
React innovates, again
My initial impressions of React Server Components after the official annoucement
GitHub as a minimal CMS for my blog
Decoupling my blog app and source materials by using GitHub as a CMS
My first one-year GitHub contribution streak
A short reflection on my one-year streak of GitHub contribution
I know what your Electron app is doing
My experience with using Debugtron to monitor network traffic of someone else's Electron app
What does Vue 3 mean?
My first impressions of the Vue 3 stable release and its potential implications
How I finally understood .reduce()
A better mental model for understanding what .reduce() does
Using "open" command in WSL
A simple trick to mimic MacOS's open command in WSL
In search of CRA alternatives
Exploring and comparing some alternatives to Create Reacet App in 2020
My first month as a developer by title
Reflecting on switching jobs and starting a new position as a developer
Multiple entry points for Vue applications
Setting up multiple entry points for Vue applications for simple code sharing
Mixing CSS-in-JS and Tailwind CSS
Experimenting with organizing Tailwind CSS classes to get DX similar to CSS-in-JS
Saving my GitHub contribution graph
A small trick to keep GitHub contributions when leaving an organization
More than what I thought
My experience with handing over a project and what I learned from it