"One of the best investments I've ever made is investing in a GitHub Copilot subscription."

Alan Morel is a full-stack engineer building in public and sharing his learnings along the way. He has built a community of almost 1k followers by tweeting about his journey and discussing developer topics.

He is currently working on Mailriser, a newsletter service:

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What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?

One of the best investments I've ever made is investing in a GitHub Copilot subscription. Copilot is a tool that helps you write code by suggesting snippets based on your context, essentially auto-complete but for code. It has genuinely saved me so much time, it almost feels like a requirement for anybody who is writing code.

More recently, with the release of ChatGPT, the use of AI in my workflow has only increased. Thankfully, even the free version is very powerful, so if you don't want a copilot subscription, I still recommend checking out ChatGPT for some serious productivity gains.

What is your tech stack and why?

My tech stack is Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. I chose Next.js because it's a framework that offers a great developer experience and has built-in support for server-side rendering, which is important for SEO. I chose TypeScript because it helps with code quality and maintainability. I chose Tailwind CSS because it is easy to build responsive layouts and easy to customize.

Collectively, these technologies work together allowing me to iterate quickly and build a high-quality product with type-safety and an enjoyable developer experience. I think when choosing a tech stack, it's important to choose technologies that work well together and that you enjoy using because you'll be using them for a long time.

How do you stay up-to-date with technological developments, and how do you incorporate this knowledge into your projects? Or how do you keep learning and improving your craft?

I stay up-to-date with my tech stack and tech in general through a combination of Twitter, newsletters, and YouTube. Since I only browse the tech side of Twitter, I will often see new updates and features simply by scrolling through my feed.

I also subscribe to a few newsletters, each of which provides a different set of updates that keep me informed. Finally, the YouTube algorithm is great at recommending videos that are relevant to my interests, so I often find myself watching videos on new technologies and features.

With this knowledge, I am able to continue improving my skills and not fall too far behind, especially considering how fast the tech industry moves. Building a side project in the technologies you are interested in is a great way to learn and practice new skills.

Interesting

In this section, I (Mat) share a few comments and links I found especially interesting about today's guest.

• I love how Alan has embraced AI. Not by trying to ship an AI product out of FOMO. But by using AI behind the scenes to become a better developer and in turn ship a better product (and doing it faster).

• Alan Morel is deliberate and thoughtful with his code. On his Twitter you'll find lots of good discussions for developers. From thoughts about testing to deploying to production.