In today's episode, I interview Brad Frost, known for coining the term "Atomic Design." Brad literally wrote the book on this subject, and now consults with companies on how to express their brand from language all the way down to the smallest piece of their UI.
In today's episode, I interview Brad Frost, known for coining the term "Atomic Design." Brad literally wrote the book on this subject, and now consults with companies on how to express their brand from language all the way down to the smallest piece of their UI.
Whether you call it atomic design, or if you want to call it component creation, or something entirely different, in today's episode we're going to discuss what it means to break a design down into its smallest components. And I couldn't think of anybody better to discuss this with than Brad Frost. Today we'll be interviewing Brad Frost. My name is Jonathan Cottrell, you're listening to Developer Tea. My goal on this show is to help you as a developer level up in your career in whatever way possible that I can help you, whether that's some form of virtual career coaching, or if it's bringing people like Brad on to talk about these concepts that are so important to our careers. I want to help you develop the mindset of a great developer. So that's my goal here. It's going to require some hard work. It's going to require dedication. It's going to require some dedication on your part. But for those of you who are willing to put in the hard work, for those of you who are willing to dedicate yourselves to becoming better, to leveling up in your career, then this show is dedicated to you. It is entirely made for you. So thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea today. I'm so excited to have Brad on. I'm going to get out of the way and get started with this interview with Brad Frost. Welcome to the show, Brad. Hey, thanks for having me, Jonathan. I'm really excited about this. I've been kind of following your work off and on. In fact, we were talking before we started recording about how you came to Chattanooga once. And I'm pretty sure that was the first time I had heard of atomic design. If I remember correctly, you had already authored that concept at that point. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. It's been around sort of since I've been working in this fashion for since 2013. And it's been a long time. It's sort of evolved as a concept and I've sort of put it into different formats as far as mediums are concerned, sort of blog posts, you know, conference talks and stuff. And then eventually sort of turned into a book. So it's been a nice evolution. Awesome. So we'll go ahead and announce. We're going to give away, I believe we're going to give away five copies of Atomic Design, the book, which, by the way, where can people find out more about that? Sure. It's at atomicdesign.bradfrost.com. There you go. Yeah. And I have the whole thing available to read online. But if you want to get a paperback version or sort of an e-book or Kindle version or whatever, I have those as well. Awesome. And for the people that we give these away to, you can choose the paperback or the e-book. We might just do both. We'll see. We might just do both. So on this show, I usually ask two questions at the end of the interview, but I've decided to switch it up a little bit. I'm going to ask one of these questions at the beginning of the interview because it actually opens up kind of an interesting type of conversation that I end up wanting to have at the very end of the interview. So I'm going to switch it around a little bit. And the question is really simple. It's what is one thing you wish more people would talk to you about? Holy smokes. That's a very deep question, actually, to kick a show off with. I'll say just for the sake of sort of going in a non-industry-related topic, I love talking music. Music is my life. I always consider myself a musician first and foremost. But I've just spent... I've spent a long time. I love it. I have a great appreciation for it. I studied it in college. I've learned music theory and forgot it twice. I love popular music. I love all sorts of different kinds of music. And so I love geeking out about that stuff. You could talk gear. You could talk different whatever. But yeah, that is one of those things. Whenever people sort of learn that about me or sort of other people. I have sort of followed my work or whatever. There are these very special times whenever you can really sort of get lost in a conversation about music. Because it's something everyone loves. You know what I mean? It is such a universal language. And everyone has some opinions about music. Or they enjoy some things or despise other things. So it really is such a bridge into... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. running into a lot of musicians in the web design industry. Yeah, I have a blog post that I've been trying to publish for ages. And maybe this will be the spark to finally get it out the door. But yeah, I've joked around about starting a podcast about web people who are designers or developers or whatever, who also happen to be musicians. And I have a theory on it. And it's because basically what web design is, is sort of simultaneously in art, this very sort of abstract thing, like having this sort of intuition about design principles and sort of color, shape, and proximity and all of that, and having a good sort of eye for that stuff, which is you can't sort of quantify that. But then it's also ones and zeros. It's also code. It's logic. It's programming. And sort of the same thing goes with music, right? It's simultaneously this discipline that's locked up in notation. And there's specific rules about avoiding parallel fists and stuff like that. But at the same time, it is also this totally abstract thing. You can't just be a machine and play music back with the same... Same sort of art that a human can. So I love that. It sort of balances this... It's grounded in sort of logic and reason and discipline and stuff like that. And there's a lot of people that are attracted to this field for those very reasons. But then there's... Which is, I would equate that to someone who's used to or enjoys working in sort of a more structured format. Someone that's reading music, whether at a piano or in an orchestra, or something like that. But then, of course, there's people that I consider myself more this kind of person, but someone who can listen to a song and just play along with it, or just sort of have a feel for a groove or something like that. And I think that a lot of people in our field are attracted to the field for those reasons. It's sort of abstract. You can't exactly touch it, but it's more a feeling sort of thing. I love that. There's a lot of parallels between the two. And I consider myself to be really fortunate to have fallen into a field that I think activates both sides of the brain and sort of has that same sort of play. Yeah, I have a similar theory, actually. And I actually added a few other hobbies to this list. Or not even hobbies. I mean, they're professions for quite a few people. But woodworking is another one that's very similar. And actually, flying. So like piloting an airplane. And the theory that I'm, and maybe this overlaps entirely with yours, but what I think it is, at least for me, because I also am a musician, and I would say probably half the people at the firm I work at, Whiteboard, are musicians. And we didn't all start a band and then start a web firm. Yeah. I think what it is, is the ability to take this very common tool, right, like a guitar or a laptop, things that are relatively accessible to the average person, and then master that thing, right? Maybe a little bit less so for a pilot, but certainly for woodworking. The tools for woodworking are the barrier to entry to getting the tool itself. It is relatively low. But the mastery of that tool and wielding that tool, there's an art to the actual wielding of the tool itself. And then the outcome is quite expressive, right? So we have these constraints of the tool. And I guess you could take this and apply it to art, you know, your tools being a paintbrush and a canvas. But it seems like this outcome concept of, okay, I'm going to solve something. I'm going to make this functional thing that also has expression laid on top of it. And I'm going to master my tools in the process. That's really interesting to me. A lot of people that I've talked to, even in, not just in web development, but also in general computer science, a lot of them also have this overlap with carpentry and metalwork and that kind of thing, because they have these very basic tools that they're using to build these pretty complex stuff. It's a really interesting concept. So what do you play, by the way? What instruments do you play? Now, pretty much everything that sort of our setup has been a long time in the making. And so we have like a full sort of spread, which is great. But sort of by trade or, you know, whenever I play in bands and stuff like that was always as a bass player. So what about you? Okay. So I play... I started out on, I guess, technically, I started out on piano when I was very young. Like most musicians, you have this few piano lessons that get you at least in the door of music theory. But I consider my primary probably guitar. I also play bass. I also play mandolin. So it runs the gamut. I played saxophone in school. And I mean, pretty much anything that I really, you know, decide to play for the day, I can pick up and learn a new way of playing. to play something useful. It sounds like maybe you've played in some jazz kind of ensembles. No, I did have... Really? Interesting. The sax player in my band in college was a jazz guy. So some of the stuff rubbed off on me a little bit. But bizarrely, it was always more like, I don't know where this came from in Northwestern Pennsylvania, but I always gravitated to jazz. And so I've been playing jazz for a long time. And I've always gravitated towards like funk stuff. Nice. Cool. Really like sort of like groove oriented stuff. But yeah, like it's sort of also just like came up through like classic rock and stuff and like basically playing all Led Zeppelin records with my brother and my cousin, you know, sort of. So John Paul Jones was like in my DNA as a bass player, I guess. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is really funny. But like, as you were sort of alluding to earlier, it's like, you know, you have to have a bass player. And so I've always been a bass player. And so I've had these sort of simple tools. And as you grow, as you sort of develop either as like a developer or in any really in any craft, there is like this sort of focus on, you know, initially sort of mastering the tools, right? And sort of like, come getting to know the tools and knowing what they can do and seeing how far you could take them and sort of focusing on like the sort of technical application of things. Yeah. And then sort of, I feel like once you hit a certain level, you know, because there was a, you know, a period of time where, you know, I was learning, I was learning fast and furious, like how to how to actually play the bass. And, you know, just seeing how fast I could play, how many notes I could play, like how, you know, just like stuff it all in there and start listening to more technical music and stuff like that stuff. That's just like totally, you know, burning a fretboard down or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then, of course, like, you know, as you start sort of getting your head around the music, you know, you're like, oh, I'm going to play this. You start learning restraint and you start learning like when stuff like that is appropriate. And, you know, once you have like a better mastery of your tools and know what they can do, you sort of know, you start then focusing on like, when is it appropriate to, you know, shred a bass solo? What is it appropriate to, you know, reach for this like crazy framework or something like that versus just sort of doing something a little more reserved or simple or something. So I find that fascinating. And I think a lot of sort of creative fields go through that as well, where it's, you know, it's Picasso comes to mind where it's like, you know, early in his career, you know, just extraordinarily talented in all sorts of ways. But like, he could do this, like really hyper realistic stuff or like crazy impressionistic stuff. And then like, you know, once you have like a mastery of that, you're like, okay, well, now I'm just going to sort of devolve into this. Like childlike, you know, sort of like, whether it's cubism or whatever else is like these things that aren't sort of technically, technically outstanding. I mean, they are in their own right, but it's like he's deconstructing things because he's, he has a mastery of the other stuff that came before it, I guess. Yeah. It's amazing how applicable this is. The more I think about it, the more applicable it seems, you know, for example, uh, as you, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, something like that. You start to recognize that all of the things that you could do, uh, and all the things that you learned in like syntax land when you were learning a language is, is very similar to, you know, becoming extremely proficient in terms of speed. Right. But then you start recognizing, okay, the purpose of this code is far, you know, far different than just for me to express myself all throughout it. Right. So then you start using more common methods or, you know, the abstractions that you use are a little bit more appropriate. So which actually leads me right into a really good first question about this craft. And it's kind of based on your recent tweet about Abstract, the Netflix series Abstract. Yeah. And to be fair, I've actually only watched the first episode. I've heard it's really quite good. The first episode I enjoyed a lot. And I've heard some folks talk about this series as if it's kind of like ER is to doctors or like cooking shows are to, you know, quote, real chefs. But I'd love to know, first of all, what are a few of the insights that you took away from the show? Oh, interesting. I'm really curious to what you're saying. So some people, sorry, before I answer, I guess. So some people are reacting to the show as if it's like this sort of. Very one dimensional view of. Yeah. Yeah. So so the the the armed, you know, it's it's like the world is appreciating design for the first time. And I've been appreciating it for 20 years or whatever the number would be. And so all of this is old news to me. It's not interesting because it's, you know, whatever, whatever thing that they they come up with. And yeah, I rejected it pretty quickly because. Like, man, it's just it's it's hard to love something with that perspective, you know? Yeah, I think so. I think it's it's very bizarre. I think different different people get into their worlds, whether it's their their hobby, their profession or whatever they care about, you know, to the point where they're unable to step outside of their own perspective and view something from another angle or view. One thing I like to tell myself whenever I'm. Either writing a blog post or giving a presentation or something is like at one point in time, you didn't know what you know now. And so you need to communicate with that stuff in mind, you know, especially if you're man, you're making a series on creative professionals for Netflix. That's obviously like a broad audience. You're not going to like get some like next level design critiques in there. It's God. Get outside. Take a walk. Whoever. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I really. So the series, I guess the best way to put it is in summary is they follow different people. Each each episode is dedicated to a person who is at the sort of top of their their game in their respective field. So the one is on set design and other ones and illustrator. Someone else is a shoe designer for for Nike and stuff like that. This is really cool to get. You know, I think that's a really good way to kind of take a look at the whole process of how they got to where they got, you know, what they've stumbled over, you know, what what their challenges have been and stuff and and why I love stuff like that. Another great sort of parallel. If people are familiar with the song exploder podcast, I absolutely, absolutely love that podcast. Basically, they take musicians and then they deconstruct the song. They said basically talk. about how a song came to be. What I love about, whether it's Abstract or Song Explorer, is that it just totally wipes away that notion that design is magic, or there are people that have it and other people that don't. I'm not saying that the people that are being featured in here or on these shows aren't talented, far from it. But what it does is it just sort of exposes the fact that the creative process is not some magical thing. It's a lot of trial and error. It's a lot of hard work. It's a lot of rejection. It's a lot of happy accidents. You spill something somewhere, and then that becomes the motif for the whole thing. It's crazy. On Song Explorer podcasts, you would absolutely love it. It's like you hear these great musicians talking about things, and they're like, oh, yeah, we're recording this track, and this bozo knocked over the mic stand, but because we had this cool effect sort of running through the mic or whatever, it sounded really cool and ended up being sort of like the thing that makes the track. And I love hearing that stuff. Yeah. Especially, again, sort of coming back to the song, coming back to what I was saying earlier about how you have to recognize that not everyone in the field is coming from the same experience or has the same level of experience or has the same background as yourself. So I think that for a lot of young people entering the field, it's really intimidating to hear people who have been doing this stuff for years and years and years. And it's like, man, how am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to do this? How am I supposed to get to that level or whatever? But whenever you actually deconstruct how something, show how the sausage gets made and stuff, it should be like a big sigh of relief for so many people just because it's like, oh, wow, I struggle with that same stuff. Right, right. And it does. It just, I don't know. I love stuff like that, especially whenever, if you're big enough to get featured on a show, a Netflix show or something. Right. You've clearly done something right in your career. But again, the stories they tell, just sort of hard work and perseverance and, of course, luck and privilege and all of that stuff, but capitalizing on that stuff and doing good work and then that catches the eye of the next project, client or whatever, and then that snowballs into that. And it's just, I love it. I absolutely, absolutely love it. And I want more people that work in our kinds of fields to recognize that it is a journey and it's not. Full of failures. Full of failures. And you have to approach it with a sense of humility. Like people that walk around and sort of espouse opinions like, oh, these idiots don't know what they're talking about. And I do. It's like, holy smokes. Like, you know, we're in an extremely fast-moving field that's only existed for a couple decades or whatever. It's like to have an arrogant attitude for something that's just totally wide open and creative and all of that is just, I think, really damaging. So I hope more people watch shows like that and listen to podcasts like that and hear, you know, hear that it's all right to fail. It's all right to work hard on something. It's all right to get lucky and, you know, sort of just if an opportunity falls in your lap, like recognize it and take it where you can. And I don't know. And believe in yourself and your ideas and don't feel like you have to follow a script and stuff. So I don't know. There's a lot to take away from that show and stuff. But I do think so many people, and, you know, I get a lot of emails from aspiring, you know, web designers and stuff or people that are in school or in their first job and stuff. And a lot of people, they are looking for concrete answers for sort of like how to, you know, get to the sort of peak of the field and stuff. And the answer is really, you know, you just got to do it and don't be afraid to. We're going to get right back to you. We're going to get right back to the interview with Brad Frost in just a moment. But I want to take a quick break to tell you about another project that I've been working on that I think you all are going to absolutely love. It's called Soft Skills Weekly. Just go to softskillsweekly.com to sign up. It is a weekly email that I'm curating. It's a list of links that I find to be valuable that are, you know, some kind of discussion on soft skills. And pretty much anybody who loves this show, will also love Soft Skills Weekly. It's really a simple idea. I take the things that I'm coming across in a given week, the articles, discussions, podcast episodes, books, that kind of stuff. Anything that I find to be valuable, I'm saving that. And then I'm curating five to 10 links on a weekly basis. And I'm sending those out to people who are subscribed to this. It's kind of an insider's list into the various content online that I believe to be valuable. And I'm going to be sharing that with you guys. So if you're interested in that, I'm going to be sharing that with you guys. And I'm going to be sharing that with you guys. And I'm going to be sharing that with you guys. And I'm going to be sharing that with you guys. For those of us who are concerned about soft skills. And if you're listening to this show, then you're probably concerned about soft skills for yourself. Go sign up. Use a good email address. One that you check on a regular basis. You can go and sign up at softskillsweekly.com. Of course, we will never spam. We'll never sell your email address or anything like that. Softskillsweekly.com. Now let's get back to the interview with Brad Frost. Action is really kind of the underlying, the underlying thing. The binder of all of the people who are successful. You know, we try to determine their patterns. And we try to determine their, you know, what is consistent between person A and person B. And they're successful, right? Or amongst the thousand most successful developers. What are they doing that's consistent? And you're going to find that there is only one thing that is 100% consistent between all 100 of them. And it's, just action. That's the only thing that's 100% consistent. Yep. That's a great way to put it. You're going to hear people talk about routines. You're going to hear people, and there's nothing wrong with studying this stuff, right? Like maybe there are some things that you can find out that can point you in a direction. But you're going to hear people talk about, you know, what is your creative routine? Or when do you wake up? Or what do you have for breakfast? Like there's all these things that we can, you know, hyper focus on and try to optimize our life. And really the biggest factor is whether or not you're actually just putting your feet on the ground and walking, you know, actually doing something with it. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And I'll sort of talk about that, especially with a lot of people, you know, they sort of wonder, you know, oh, how did you come to, you know, speak at conference? Like I want to speak at conferences as well. Like what, you know, what do I do? And, you know, typically my advice to them is I say, well, you know, start writing, you know? Like what are you passionate about? What turns you on? Or what are you struggling with at work? Or did you have like an aha moment? Or did you solve a problem or whatever? You know, share that in writing. Like share that on your personal site or whatever. People are always like, oh, you know, like, you know, I talk about this stuff, but, you know, this person's already said it and has said it better and stuff like that. And it's like, no, you don't understand. Like you have a perspective. Uh, that is unlike anyone else on this planet. And by you sharing your perspective, you're going to come at it from undoubtedly a different angle than that person who you think said it better. Um, and we do, we all, we all sort of collectively like read and listen and, and sort of hear people talk about, yeah, what's working for them, what's not working for them. And it might just be that person's perspective that that is the thing that goes, ah, for someone else. Ah, now I get it. Um, there is, there's a lot of fear, a lot of fear out there for, for, for people going like, yeah, I w I want to do this stuff, but you know, you know, reasons a through Z for not doing it. And yeah, just get on the ground and walk. I love, I love how you said that. Yeah. I think, uh, you know, I want to hyper-focus in on this, uh, on this idea because, uh, of all the developers. You know, out there that are, that are successful in speaking, you have a long, a long history in speaking, I guess, over, over seven years, I believe. If I, if I read the, the, your website correctly, uh, you can check fact, check me, Brad, Brad frost.com. But anyway, um, uh, this, this, uh, something that I've, that I want to focus on is this concept of focus. Uh, you've been relatively, um, relatively focused. Atomic design brings youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing youension, bringing you You know, finding that thing that's going to resonate as well as that, certainly there's a lot of luck involved with that. But I'd love to know kind of how you stumbled on this concept or if you really intentionally sought it out to begin with. Yeah, that's interesting. There's a few different directions I could go with this, I guess. Let me interrupt you for two seconds. Sure. I'm sorry. No problem. I see a picture online. I think it is of you and your dog. And I'm pretty sure I'm hearing a dog snore. Yeah. You absolutely are. And it's 100% fine. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't doing something on my end. No, that is not a sort of a low frequency sort of weird glitch there. No, that is a snoring bulldog. No, that is a snoring bulldog. I just wanted to make sure. That's excellent. We're good. All right. So continue on this higher end conversation. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess I'll set the stage. So atomic design in general for the uninitiated, I guess, is sort of a methodology or sort of a mental model for how to think of user interfaces. It's sort of. Yeah. It's sort of deconstructing user interfaces into a few different stages, basically. Like in nature, atoms combine to form molecules, which combine further to form organisms, right? More complex objects, which combine further and so on and so forth. So we could apply that same sort of model to our UIs, right? Where we take a button in a form field. Those are sort of our atoms, right? And input and the buttons label. And then that is sort of combined together into a relatively simple component that I dubbed a molecule, right? So this relatively simple component that you can now chuck in anywhere you need to include sort of like a form field, right? So a label can define an input. And then clicking a button will submit that form field for like a search form. So that's like a search form molecule. And then that search form. And then that search form molecule exists in a more complex component, right? Something like a header is a place where you'll see a search form. So that header is an organism, right? This more complex component. So it's all components, but it's like sort of relatively complex levels of components. And so that was sort of the, we'll say, the differentiating thing between what atomic design is versus these concepts. That's right. That have been around for ages and ages. So that's back to sort of how this came to be. It isn't that I have invented anything new. Far from it. I mean, modular, object-oriented programming predates the web by a long shot. You know what I mean? But it's just now in recent years has been sort of finding its way into sort of the front end of the pool, I guess, with things like Bootstrap and Foundation and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'd been sort of working on sort of patterns. I was fortunate enough to get into responsive design sort of right at the ground level. I was working at an agency at the time as a mobile web developer in the sort of M.DOT days, like pre, you know, the iPhone had just come out. I had gotten this job, and I was like a dedicated mobile web developer. And so, you know, I was fortunate enough. It was like sort of. I was fortunate enough to have a big branding sort of agency or digital agency. But we'd work with like big brands like Nike and stuff. And so, like, I had the opportunity to work on like this new thing for this new device that Apple was putting out called the iPad, like before it was, you know, released. So, you know, we. That's awesome. Yeah. So, it was like total, you know, when I talk about luck, it was like being at the right, right, you know, place at the right time and stuff. And having to learn. And like how to make, you know, web experiences that worked on these, you know, these phones and this new thing called the Motorola Droid and stuff and the iPad. And so, that's sort of, you know, I was fortunate to get into that and realizing that, oh, well, it's not actually that everything's hard. Like some of this stuff's actually sort of it's easy to see how it's going to scale from large to small and whatever. But this, these breadcrumbs or whatever, this pattern is. It's particularly difficult to convert on small screens and large screens and everything in between. Or this data table or something or this navigation pattern. Like how do we do that? And so, I made a resource called This is Responsive, which is a sort of collection of responsive design patterns. Sort of like vanilla, very sort of vanilla sort of patterns for like here's one way you can do a responsive data. Yeah, exactly. So, that was cool. And that ended up working really well. So, that's sort of how I got into sort of thinking about patterns just in general. Whereas like, okay, like we can sort of break these things down a little bit and sort of fiddle with them on their own. And at the time, around that time, you know, Bootstrap had come out and, you know, some organizations have started launching large scale. Yeah. Responsive redesigns. And Starbucks was sort of the first one that released alongside their new shiny website, the pattern library that made that up. So, it's like here's some of the patterns that we are using to create the new Starbucks.com. And that was awesome. I mean, that was like a big, you know, really pivotal moment. Of course, more and more people started coming out with this stuff. And I absolutely loved it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. really any sort of UI toolkit where it's like, here's the ingredients. And then it's like, ingredients, question mark in the middle, final pages. And it was like, duh, you just put them together. And then it's like, well, yeah, but how exactly? And so that's where sort of atomic design adds sort of like a couple steps in between that allows you to sort of traverse between, here's this button in the abstract and then we're able to put that button into the context of this search form. And then we're able to put the search form in the context of the header and then put the header in the context of the homepage and stuff like that. So by providing those extra steps, it allows you to sort of paint the full picture and allows you to not just sort of go like, okay, cool, we got pages and we got components that make up those pages, which has been the case in any sort of backend language or whatever. You have like an includes folder or whatever in your CMS or whatever. But it's like this sort of takes it and stretches it out a little bit. And that helps teams work more effectively, as I found. Yeah, and it's really interesting because this concept is kind of being naturally discovered again through things like React, for example, right? If you're doing it the React way, at least, or the suggestive way, then you're breaking things down into the smallest component, ultimately following a lot of the principles of atomic design, whether you call it that or not. And it's been pretty powerful in constructing these, from the programmatic perspective or from the developer's perspective, it becomes a lot easier to manage state and that kind of stuff. Yeah. So, you know, we don't praise React or any other particular thing on the show, but the concept of breaking things down into smaller parts and composing them, this is something that, you know, as you said, it's not new, but it certainly is important, right? And we're rediscovering new ways to apply this concept of composability. Yeah, yeah. I think that's really well said. And again, like, it's funny, you know, sort of being on like, oh, well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. At the front end of the equation and sort of, you know, I tend to see myself between sort of a bridge between the sort of design and development worlds. I'm not like a, you know, a programmer and stuff. And I've certainly not, you know, anyone who's going to be like wowed by something, you know, a concept like this is not necessarily a developer just because it's like, well, yeah, this is how I've been, you know, making things for years and years. But even if you haven't been sort of explicitly sort of, you know, calling it something or, you know, applying, you know, you know, some sort of deeper level aside from I have in my WordPress theme or whatever an includes folder or something like that. But it is becoming more and more important because I think why this is such a hot topic now and why things like on the development side things like React where it's components all the way down and just why everyone and all the design tools are talking about components and nested symbols and sketch and stuff like that is because we have this plethora of devices and environments and screen sizes and capabilities and basically our UIs need to go more places than ever and we don't have we're not tripling our budgets and our timelines and stuff like that. It's not like hang on now I need to reinvent this thing for this size sort of screen or whatever. So it's like we need to find efficiency and so that's where I think a lot of this stuff is really coming in handy and of course we're under the gun to launch more features more content, more stuff faster than ever before and so you do once you solve a problem once you like to not have to solve it again and again and again. So I'm happy with how things have progressed over the last few years and I'm extraordinarily encouraged certainly on the front end of the business side but I think it's a really good thing on the front end side of things and on the design side of things that a lot of people have embraced these concepts and stuff and of course on sort of the more to the metal sort of programmatic stuff like it seems to seems to work out pretty well continue to evolve and stuff. Yeah so it's good. I think it's really great to see that stuff and again I wish I was a better developer and I do need to roll up my sleeves and sort of like get more in the weeds with things like React and Angular and all that stuff but like having you know sort of dealt with it as like a consultant yeah absolutely these things make sense so it's promising for sure. For sure yeah I think you know a lot of this is really about language like I dug up a tweet that you sent you said I consider a design system to be the collective guts including components, guidelines, downloads, etc. and the style guide is what houses it all and it's interesting because we get into these you know it's important to have these definitions that we share between us and other people and because the definition is kind of like a heuristic that you can point back to you have this component the only reason the component is important is not because you know you didn't have the code to go and pull out it's because you've contained it in something and you've given that thing a name right? Yeah yeah and I think sort of coming back to your previous question and this is sort of the thing that I was talking about and this is sort of the thing that I was talking about and this is sort of the thing that I was talking about the other direction I was going to go in is like, there is something to a buzzword. There is something to a name sort of, it sounds gross a little bit. Like things like branding and buzzwords and stuff typically have like negative connotations, I think a little bit. There is something to be able to encapsulate in a whole concept in two words. And again, like this stuff is nothing new and I'm certainly not trying to take credit for like object-oriented programming or, you know, object-oriented designs or modular design and stuff. Again, these are old concepts or whatever, but for whatever unholy reason, like, you know, I was just, I was, you know, at the right time, at the right, yeah, the right time, right place and like gave something a name. And this has happened with responsive design. This has happened with Ajax. This has happened with any number of technologies and stuff, but to be able to have that shorthand to that, that nomenclature, to be able to say like the responsive design, and even though responsive design by definition is three CSS concepts, it grew and became synonymous with all that goes into making a great sort of multi-device web experience. And to be able to say responsive design, instead of having to say a pair of, you know, a pair of, you know, a pair of, you know, a pair of, you know, a pair of words that explains like why designing for different screen sizes is important. Like that's huge. That, that does, it helps us do work together. And, and again, so, so there is something to, to buzzwords, I guess, that, that can help sort of facilitate, you know, better, better work between teams, but it is, it does come down to figuring out like what the right words are for you and your team. Absolutely. Because I don't want to take a long time to figure out what the right words are for you. Like this is, yeah, this is, this is what it's about. This is about, you know, design systems in general. It's like, this is like, you know, define the language, define the principles, define the tools and, and sort of, you know, syntax and whatever that works for your team. And that's going to allow you to do good work together. And, you know, it's, it's not going to be the same at a different place and that's okay. Yeah, yeah. It is interesting because, you know, when we have a shared language, so we can do a word study here for a second or like a linguistic study. So much of what we do in our jobs really is just simply communication. That's what code is. It's me communicating to other developers, you know, some kind of specification for what they're seeing. And so at least on the front end, that's what it is. So if I rewind my life back to when I was five or six years old, if I heard the word unicorn, it meant something to me then, right? That it doesn't mean to me today, or at least it means something entirely different to me today because we have this shared like pointer, right? We took this concept and we layered on new information. We layered on more on top of that. It's a cultural thing. We have to understand how much weight our culture puts. On language. And it's going to carry into subcultures. Like, for example, front end web developers. We have a subculture. We have a shared language. And, you know, our culture, for example, in, you know, a thousand BC, the city of Rome, I believe, I'm going to get my history wrong, didn't exist, right? So after that, now we point to Rome as the cradle of civilization. So when somebody says, you know, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And somebody says, Rome, all of these thoughts are conjured up and all this information is carried with this one syllable word that hasn't always been there. It's not like inherent in that word. We layer on top of it. So that's why I think these buzzwords are so important. They provide us with so much meaning and connotation. And we shouldn't just discount them because we hear them often, right? Yeah, I think that's totally true. And again, like. The negative connotations around certain words and stuff, just Ajax and stuff, you know, again, as a great example of like something that was like sort of scoffed at. And whenever you sort of read articles on like Forbes.com or whatever that like mention, you know, sort of certain trends that that stuff is always my favorite, you know, like as a I do a lot of consulting. So I'll go in and talk to a bunch of companies and give talks and workshops and whatever. And it's so funny to, you know, walk into a place and and say certain words. Mobile first is another one that said that I love because you read you read some like sort of Forbes article about what mobile first means or Wall Street Journal talking about mobile first. And then you sort of, you know, hear a developer talk about mobile first. It's like, what a what a funny, what a funny, what a funny just sort of experience. Hearing. We almost get territorial over it, right? Yeah. Well, and that's and that's where it's a lot of fun. Like for me, like, you know, going into to talk at all these companies like I would be like mobile first and let's sort of like here's what that means. And here's sort of the different ways it's construed by different sort of parts of the organization or whatever. And I always have people come up afterwards and they're like, oh, thank you so much. Like I've been I've been arguing with my boss over this for weeks and weeks. And it's because, you know. Somebody, you know, the designer is reading a list apart and, you know, the the CEO or a CMO or whatever is reading, you know, for Forbes and the developer is great. It is reading Y Combinator. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So so I don't know. Again, yeah, words, words and symbols and stuff are are really interesting. And you're totally right. Cultural, cultural things. So and. And I'd say that, you know, a big part of my job now is sort of helping organizations with that, like helping sort of define that culture. It's like you have a choice. You know, you have you have a say in what you want atomic design or mobile first or responsive design to to mean to you all. So long as you all have the same definition of it and you're able to sort of act if someone says atomic design. And even if it's something totally at odds with what I've done. I've put out and I've I've been at those places and stuff. So long as it works for you, like there's not an issue. You know what I mean? It's like. Yeah. So long as you're able to collectively establish, you know, sort of shared value, shared language and stuff, you're in and are able to do good work as a result. You know, you could call things like crazy names and. Yeah, sure. So why not? Yeah. So I don't know. Nesting dolls or something. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So. Yeah. It is fascinating, though, to see it all play out. And like there is a sort of another one that sort of pre atomic design sort of without. I'll spare you the story. But the concept of being future friendly was sort of like another buzzword that I was partially partially involved with. But again, it was like. Progressive enhancement. Yeah, exactly. It's like to be able to say a couple of words and encapsulate like a whole. Lot of other words, I think, is really powerful and important. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. We're going to follow up on this discussion on the power of words and the importance of language. And I'm going to have a kind of a homework assignment for you in the next episode. If you don't want to miss out on that episode, then today's homework assignment would be to subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use. The second thing I want you to do today is go and sign up for Soft Skills Weekly. Head over to SoftSkillsWeekly.com and put in a good email address, one that you will actually check and you'll get that weekly email. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, enjoy your tea.