Simon Cam

Django has often been at the heart of the projects I've worked on. I absolutely love the framework and the community behind it, and think it's still as relevant today as it was when it was launched in 2005. Nothing else I've come across gives that incredible productivity combined with solid software development thinking. People call it boring technology (as in that's a good thing!) but I still find it very exciting. I love striving to achieve idiomatic Django patterns and approaches, leveraging the power of the framework to do what it's excellent at but also knowing where to tweak and customise things to unlock its full potential.

I began my development career using Flash, whose scripting language, ActionScript was not a million miles away from JS. When Flash began to fade away, and as browsers themselves became more powerful, I naturally gravitated towards using JS to create rich interactive frontends. The innovation in the JS community is fantastic, although sometimes the pace of change can be a little overwhelming. Over time, I've learned to approach new frameworks and approaches with a cautious optimism, sometimes trying out new things on smaller projects to see what they offer and how they might fit into the toolbox. I currently enjoy using bigger frameworks like React, Next.js and Remix, alongside lighter weight solutions like Stimulus and HTMX.

When I first came across React, it was definitely a bit of a WOW moment. It was so interesting to see how its declarative model was so different from a lot of the existing imperative approaches. I could see straight away that it was going to be a game changer for UI development. When I'm working with other devs, I often encourage them to really think about what React is doing under-the-hood, in terms of state reconciliation and DOM manipulation, as I find that helps understand why certain things are done the way they are. In recent years, I've enjoyed using application frameworks built on top of React, such as Next.js and Remix, allowing me to leverage server side rendering to bring performance and SEO benefits.