Kent C. Dodds

The Call Kent Podcast

The Call Kent podcast is a regular podcast where you call in with a question and Kent answers. Call in with your questions right from your web browser with any device at https://kentcdodds.com/call

Author

Kent C. Dodds

Category

Technology

Podcast website

kentcdodds.com

Latest episode

Mar 9, 2026

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Episodes

How small should components be 19.10.2021

I was wondering how to decide when the html is too trivial to turn into a component. For example turning msg into a component. Maybe it's useful for styled components? Thanks When to break up a component into multiple components

Using Fly.io Replays 18.10.2021

Finding out more about the best places to use Fly.io's request replays, when to use it and when not to use it. How I built a modern website in 2021

Why is forwardRef required to limit re-renders? 18.10.2021

In the "Fix perf death by a thousand cuts" exercise in the Epic React Performance workshop, extra credit 3 "write an HOC to get a slice of app state": why is forwarding the ref in the HOC required to actually prevent all the Cells from re-rendering? 06.extra-3.js Production deploy of that example

Traditional logins vs. passwordless magic links 14.10.2021

Your website currently uses magic links to sign in users. This seems to be a completely secure method of authentication, yet is still quite uncommon compared to the traditional username + password combo's. Why do you think that is? If it's just as secure, or perhaps more secure, how can we improve adoption of this method? How I built a modern website in 2021 (I've got a section in here that descri...

How to plan curriculum 13.10.2021

I need some tips to write a course and suggestions to choose the app idea, decompose it into lessons, things to focus on, deploy the app and writing tests. Taylor Bell Chats About Effective Teaching How I Teach

Why Remix over other React frameworks? 12.10.2021

What brings you to Remix over other React frameworks like Next and Gatsby? Remix is going open source soon so I'd love to pad my excitement even further with knowing truly what it brings over its competitors. How I Built a Modern Website in 2021 (blog post) How I Built a Modern Website in 2021 (slides) Have Single-Page Apps Ruined the Web? | Transitional Apps with Rich Harris

What did paypal-scripts do? 11.10.2021

I'd like to learn more about paypal-scripts. What tasks did the package cover: linting, transpiling, CI, deploy, etc. Please share any advice you can about starting a similar toolkit. Tools without config Concerning Toolkits

What are your thoughts on Svelte? 09.10.2021

Cam asks Kent his thoughts on the uprising JS framework, Svelte. Remix

Where did those diagrams come from? 09.10.2021

I wonder how you created those architecture diagrams with that hand drawn feel to them. How I built a modern website in 2021 Excalidraw

Filling CS concept holes as a non-CS major? 07.10.2021

I come from non-CS background, MIS. Since you also come from a non-CS background, did you find that you needed to fill in any holes in your knowledge to get to where you are today?

How to buy for EpicReact in "installments" 06.10.2021

Epic React has been on my radar ever since you started teasing it on Twitter. To me it feels like a "must have" that I "can't have". Obviously, it has a pretty hefty price tag, which I'm sure it more than warrants. But because of that price tag, it becomes unaffordable to me personally, and with my workplace being quite small, they're not always as forthcoming as I'd hope when it comes to paying f...

Best approach for building headless components 06.10.2021

Which of the approaches you have talked about (prop getters & compound components) is best for building UI-free components? Inspired by this thread . P.S. I think you should definitely rename prop getters to the IKEA pattern. downshift How to give rendering control to users with prop getters

Cypress Component Testing Library vs Jest 29.09.2021

Libraries comparison: pros and cons of cypress Component Testing Library vs RTL Cypress Testing Library

How does Remix manage many CSS files in a page? 24.09.2021

That’s a follow-up question to Call Kent Podcast 09 “How to style?" Did you mention on "Call Kent Podcast 09 - How to style?" the remix capability to get the link tags removed from the page when the route is no longer active and with that, the styles could get removed as well, helping to avoid CSS clashes. How does Remix manage situations where the page that is active has multiple components, and...

Mirage JS over MSW? 23.09.2021

Want to see what would be your opinions regarding MirageJs and if it could be a potential replacement of MSW .

Work Life Balance 22.09.2021

There's no doubt that Kent C. Dodds is a top teacher on the web helping people write quality software. What does the work life balance look like for someone at this level? How can one continuously be on top of the latest changes on the web, while maintaining that work life balance.

How much of seniority is about code skills? 21.09.2021

Coming up with a huge precedence from testingjavascript people can tend to come up with unfair expectations for other content such as "Epic React", I would love to hear your thoughts on what to expect from your content while looking for seniority levels The Coding Career Handbook How to get experience as a software engineer

Firm skills 20.09.2021

Question about documentation / tests / naming convention as an important software engineer skill

How to style? 19.09.2021

Nowadays, we have a bunch of approaches that we can take to style our applications, like: pure CSS, pre-processors, CSS Modules, utilities, component UI’s, CSS in JS and for some of them, we have another bunch of libraries that we can choose as well. Sometimes we can get lost in the middle of them trying to find the better one for our needs. What do you take into consideration when choosing an app...

SSG Hype 15.09.2021

Why do you think there’s still so much hype around JamStack and SSG, when form submissions and server redirects for data mutations tend to work better a lot of the time? There’s not a lot of ecosystem interest (outside of Remix) to lean on this baked-in superpower of the web, and I find that interesting. This is less about the tech, and more about the psychology in the JS ecosystem. Maybe it’s a f...

Managing Burnout 10.09.2021

I’ve been feeling burned out lately and wanted to hear how do you deal with it. Boundaries, Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

Make It Stick: Interleave Curves 07.09.2021

In the book Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. They suggest that for mastery of a subject you should be using interleave curves. The analogy given in the book to explain that is while practicing baseball you should be switching between straight and curveballs instead of doing just one or the other. What does that look like in practice while studying a topic? 

What is the best way to go through EpicReact? 07.09.2021

As a self taught dev who is looking to get their first job in the industry, how do you think the best way to balance this course and personal projects is? What do you think is the best use of my time as a developer to not only gain the most from this course, but also show off and apply the knowledge. How to get experience as a software engineer Solidifying what you learn

How do you find new technology 07.09.2021

Asking Kent for insight into how he finds new technologies to use for his projects. Zero to 60 in Software Development: How to Jumpstart Your Career - Forward 4 Web Summit

Difference in methods emanating from screen and render 03.09.2021

What’s the difference between `screen.getByText` and `const { getByText } = render()` More generically - what’s the difference between methods originating from these different objects Common mistakes with React Testing Library - Not Using Screen

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