Svelte’s Creator Rich Harris on Rethinking Web Dev, Building Svelte & the Power of Tech Conferences

"We don't work on Svelte for the sake of adoption. We work on it because we have an idea in our heads about what the right way to build apps is. And Svelte is our expression of that". Join our conversation with Rich Harris — creator of Svelte and core engineer at Vercel. As he puts it himself: “Recovering journalist, open source provocateur. Started Rollup and Svelte. On a mission to make web development fun.” The host is Scott Tolinski, co-host of the Syntax.fm podcast. We talk about his journey from journalism to JavaScript, the origins and philosophy behind Svelte, the shift from Snowpack to Vite, and what’s coming next for Svelte. Plus, he shares how conferences like JSNation shaped his career and why they still matter. Timecodes: 0:00 – Intro 0:30 – JSNation US Impressions 1:36 – Who is Rich Harris? 2:03 – How has your journalism background helped you in your current work? 2:49 – What inspired the idea of Svelte? 5:06 – How did Ractive.js influence Svelte? 7:06 – Did Ractive.js have to die to make way for Svelte? 9:08 – What made Svelte 3 so groundbreaking? 11:19 – Did you think it would become mainstream? 13:12 – How has the idea of simplicity guided your decisions while building Svelte? 15:07 – How has Svelte’s growth changed your role? 17:14 – Where did the idea of a meta-framework come from? 20:45 – Moving from Snowpack to Vite 23:00 – What’s new in Svelte? 25:25 – Why are conferences like JSNation worth attending? 26:33 – What conference moment really changed your career direction? 29:05 – How can conferences boost your energy for coding? Learn more about Rich: https://github.com/rich-harris Learn more about Scott: https://tolin.ski 🎥 The interview was recorded at JSNation US, the main JS conference in the US, in November 2024. Watch the talk recordings: https://gitnation.com/events/jsnation-us-2024?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=richharris 🗽 Join us for JSNation US 2025: https://jsnation.us?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=richharris 🎫 Check out all the upcoming GitNation events: https://gitnation.com/events?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=richharris #GitNation #GitNationInterviews #JSNationUS #TechPodcast #JSNation