GitHub Open Source Friday, 26 May 2023

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From YouTube: RESTful mocking with Mockoon

Description

Do you wish you could quickly design and run mock REST APIs? With Mockoon you can! Tune in on May 26 at 1pm ET as Guillaume demonstrates how Mockoon empowers you to design and run mock REST APIs with ease.

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Foreign foreign.

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Tours Friday, if this is your first time watching the show, it is basically your stream I do every Friday with maintainers or core contributors, and so we can learn more about their projects. So we can learn how we can contribute, and so we can learn about how to get our open source. Journeys started. I see that some people enjoyed the music and someone said um it's almost the weekend as well. Like I lost the the the comment. Oh here it is hi everyone almost the weekend, I know I'm excited about that as well.

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Today, yeah I want and I'm just gonna, say hi to people in the comments before we introduce our awesome guest. Someone said I'm very excited about today. I am as well. Someone said you want to start this I love that um we just had like this: the Spanish version of Open Source Friday, and then we had um the English version now as well. So super glad to have you all tune in please.

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Let me know where you're you're, watching in from I love to see when, like people are like I'm watching from India or Dubai or Switzerland, or whatever it's just supposed to show the the diversity in um Tech as well all right. So enough. Talking about me, I wanted to um chat with our amazing guest today, so I'll have him introduce himself.

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Hello, hello, everybody and uh thank you for having me uh tonight away for me. It's the end of the day, so I'm Guillaume and I'm working full-time on mokun, which is an awesome, open source, object uh that.

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I will demo.

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And um yeah I don't know if directly continue presenting myself or yeah.

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Yeah, okay: I know, you told us, you I mean when we were backstage, you told me you were like self-taught and all that.

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uh So I started the coding in high school uh fine, nearly 40 years old, and it was a very long time ago and I'm very bad at math. So I won't do the calculation, but it's a very long time ago and I wanted to create a like a video game. So I started coding in opengl and I was doing this.

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You know sphere that was turning with some like gravity and but it was very basic, but still was hooked and um and since then I never stopped programming and um but I didn't do any CS degree or uh coding school.

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Oh, you froze anyone, it's really math and at that time, in France, I.

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I think you're freezing for me, I'm, not sure.

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Okay, uh you're freezing for me too sometimes yeah, so I, don't know who is freezing all.

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Right, that's: okay! Keep going yeah.

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I know I mean it looks gay on my side. I, don't know. Okay,.

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That's fine, maybe it's me and I'll fix it while you're speaking, but that's awesome that you taught yourself the code when you were in high school through, like webgl. Did you like use textbooks or you just like you just were like experimenting.

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Oh at that time yeah it was a lot of books, of course, and a bit of online tutorials that were starting. You know, but like uh it was a long time ago. So it's it's not. It wasn't like today with a lot of videos, Etc and um finally, I went to to the Lao school like my mother and I studied love for five years, and um so I was specializing in intellectual property, trademarks, copyright, Etc and um I never stopped coding. At one point, it was taking all my free time, wow.

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uh Like evenings uh weekends, so I decided that too much was too much and diet. I had to choose and I I really liked being a legal advisor but I loved coding, so I decided in 2015 to switch careers and so I just registered as a freelance and I tried, and it worked and one job after another and no uh seven. No eight years later, I'm a full stock web developer, full-time and um I'm.

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Working now on, mokun, um which I created in 2017 like in August and I, worked on the MVP for like two or three months and I just published everything uh on the Reddit Hacker News Etc, and this.

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Been my not my full I mean my full-time Focus since two years, so it was a side project for for three years and since two years now, it's more like my full-time job and I'm.

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To make it profitable.

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Awesome I'm excited for you, I love, to hear someone else said: I really, love learning about everybody's experience here, I. Think in like response to like how you got here, I love, to hear like career changer stories on how like you're, like I, started off in like the legal thing, because that's what I knew that's what my mom was doing, but I also had this passion for coding and you're.

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Like you know what I'm just gonna go ahead and Follow that dream of coding, I'm gonna highlight a couple more people because they said they they wanted to I mean they said where they were watching in from so someone's watching from Morocco. When France and Brazil someone said.

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Oh, do you know him or are you listen, I'm.

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Not sure, okay.

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I'm not sure someone from Italy and then someone else from Malawi and all these other places. So thank you all so much for for for tuning in um I do have a question, though, what you talked about McCune a little bit. What exactly is it.

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So uh mokun is an API mocking tool, um so it's first to work with apis and if you have, if you are not very familiar with what API mocking is, the idea is to simulate an API um when it's not available when you don't have access to the API Etc or maybe it's Stone Etc and the most typical use case. I mean it's a very typical one. You have a front-end team, a back-end team and they all start together and the back end starts and they cannot I mean work faster than everyone else.

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So the API is not ready and usually the front end and the back end progressively. They agree on an API contract, so they decide that there will be a users if it's stressful, for example, a user's route serving this kind of Json Etc requiring this kind of Authentication and the front-end team will start with this information and and then you can have a lot of approaches and in in the past, what I was doing is that I was creating a JavaScript I mean I, called mostly in JavaScript.

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A small JavaScript object and I was just copy pasting. This in like an angular service or somewhere, you know in a fetch corner and then sometimes you commit the code and it was the code that was only useful during development, so maybe I mean yeah and and then it's hard to maintain and um an API mocking solves this issue uh really well, because you can set up an API, Mock and I will show a quick demo of McCune, but in in two clicks you can just copy paste.

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The Json in in the body editor you press play and you have a working API and you can start coding your front-end immediately, and you have also more original use cases and, for example, there is one on the website. You can find an article about that. It's um it's a Impala, so the the startup which is creating an API API is their product, and so it's an API product. They are not building, I, think a website or a mobile app.

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So they really need to get the API right. So it's used by developers and so developers are happy to use it and um and what they are doing. They are doing something that they call like. Ux research and they are using mokun for that, so they gather people in a focus group and um they look at how they are using the API and when someone say okay, this is Trend, this property name Etc, so they change it in real time and they refine the API in real time.

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It's very interesting I wouldn't have talked about these guys kind of use cases. So it's good for uh wide range of of use cases.

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This is really interesting and I think you described it really well, for maybe people appearing in web development. No, no! You did because I I was thinking like okay. I was like what, if someone never wrote code before and maybe they're just in the beginning of their Journey, but you made a good example of like there's the front end team. There's the back-end team, the front end team needs to be able like. Yes, they can build the user interface, but they don't have any data to be able to develop it.

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So then they have to wait for the back end team or create their own JavaScript objects like you were doing, and then you can accidentally commit it with you exactly. We wouldn't want to do.

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Yeah, but you know if I can just complete the um I think there is also some kind of misunderstanding or I mean lack of knowledge about API mocking because very frequently It's associated with API design, for example, when you use a tool like a stoplight, it's it's it's very good, but it's focused mainly on API design and it's a bit overwhelming because you have a huge interface and you can Define using the open, API specification.

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You can Define everything from the request headers to the response body Etc and very frequently, when you start coding, nobody has any clue what the API contract will be, especially when you do like Lean, Startup or agility uh I mean in a waterfall process.

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You can maybe write a huge documentation before starting coding, but usually it's not the case, so you will refine the contract very progressively, with the with the backend team or together and um and usually API design is too for my I mean, in my opinion, it's too early and then these API designs tool they offer API mocking because it's the continuity, the normal continuity.

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But then you have the API design that you have to to do first or it seems to be like that, and what I try to achieve with mokun is like API mocking is the first class citizen, it's API mocking first and then we will see the design later. So it's very useful even to just mock a tiny annoying thing.

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For example, I was working in a bank, or here in Luxembourg I mean there are a lot of banks um and we had some kind of proxy that was injecting a header everywhere for all the requests in the development environment and either you were just doing that by yourself with you know, a request interceptor or you.

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You could go to the interface and click like 20 times, and then it will set the header for you, but these 20 clicks using McCune in in like three clicks, you could save that and just inject the header and it's very practical and a lot of people don't know that they can benefit from API mocking in general very quickly, and it saves a lot of time. Even if you don't do API design, for example, with mokun, you can save save time.

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You can prototype very easily, and this is what I like it's like from the beginning to the end and um it's less scary than some of the tools I.

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I never thought.

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Of it from that perspective, I love that someone said API marketing is something that can be very useful and make parts of my job so much easier. It seems so they're already learning from you and uh someone well I. Think I'll save this question, um but for for maybe after the demo, because this might maybe answer it, but they said. Is it just the Invader phase or fully working I? Think it's fully working right.

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Yeah yeah, it's fully working since five years.

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It's not anymore in beta I mean the product is also quite um I, mean yeah I, don't find my words, but I mean it's quite good with a lot of features already, of course, there are a lot of feature, requests and more things that we we can add, um but yeah you know it's it's ready to to be used in some very big companies are using mokun right now, so how it compares to Cyprus and karate I didn't use any of the two mention here so I mean it's always hard to compare. Yeah.

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And I feel like cyber I've, never used karate, but I thought Cyprus was more of a tool for testing. Yes,.

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Impression too so mokuni is good, for example, if you want to put it in your testing stack or environment, so it run, uh it runs a a fake API and then you have Cypress on the uh alongside that. That will uh do the actual testing and then when the API is required, mokun enters the place, but I think they are not like the same equivalent. Yeah.

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Yeah and uh before we jump into the demo, you did kind of talk about like what one of the reasons why you made the project because of like some of the the stumbling blocks you had but I'm curious like what really inspired you to be like I'm, gonna start this, because I feel like there's a lot of pain points in software engineering that sometimes you're like nah I. Don't I'm not necessarily going to solve this. But what made you be like I'm going to solve this one.

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Yeah so it was I mean it was a personal need and a need that we had that at the place. I worked at that time, so it was exactly this. This uh first exam gave front-end team was waiting for the back end. That's it so. We needed an API mocking tool, so I started looking into what what other tools are ring like Postman, Etc and a lot.

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A lot of them are cloud-based and we couldn't use any Cloud tool because uh in the example here it's not everywhere like this, but it's highly regulated and cloud is always a big interrogation Mark. So we couldn't use any Cloud tool so I'm also a developer, so I really needed a side project to waste. My my free time on you know I mean I.

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Can that that's the analysis I'm doing now, because I also suffered a burnout in 2021 like putting a lot of pressure on myself working on this application every evening, every night but I mean I, really wanted a side project, and then it grew a lot and I didn't expect it that, but that's probably the second reason just to please myself. You know having something that I can work with no constraint no meeting about this project and I can do whatever I want and.

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As you said, Luxembourg has like a lot of banks and stuff like that. I understand that they would have like those those restrictions around the cloud and that's hilarious, that you know like you needed a side project because yeah developers we we like to have a little toy or Pastime to do I. Think it's a good time to jump into the demo. If you're, okay, with it I'll switch over.

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Okay, so this is smoking website and I will be back to to this soon. um I don't want to to dive too much or too long into the technicalities. But the idea is that it's quick and it's very easy. So it's mainly a desktop application that is available on Windows, Linux, um Mac OS, and the idea is that it's very easy to create an endpoint and um get to work right away. So, for example, here I have a test. So that's the path of your API endpoint so test. It's a get, get method and I.

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Have a bunch of I mean a Json example, and the idea is that you press play, and then you make a request so here in the browser. Of course, it's a get request and that's it. You have already an API that is working and if you sorry I resume, if you use Curl it's the same result, you can call your API, that's the first step, that's the most easiest thing that you could do and that could already save you time.

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The idea is that okay, I, have a users endpoint or get user by ID, Etc and uh I want to get some information about this user. So I can start coding my mobile, my mobile, app sorry and then that's it. You just change the Json. You change the path. You eventually change, the method you add custom, headers and, um and then yeah. You do the call again and yeah demo effect. Of course, I didn't send the path, and then you get another result.

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I think that's for me that that's the promise of McCune you don't have to put API design first for like two weeks of refining, an open API, your specification file, Etc two clicks and you can get started and then, of course you can do a lot more things. You can intercept. You can soon. So this is not released yet, but you will be soon able to record everything that that is entering mokun and then it will create for you all the endpoints.

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You can also serve multiple responses for each endpoint um and then you can serve them depending on rules, for example. Sorry, not cookie header, you can say if the authorization header is not present, then we put a 403 for example, and then normally, except if it's the demo effect yeah there's no way. I, don't get all the information, but you see that it's already not the the same result. We get a 403 because I didn't add any authorization header, so you can start building some scenarios like that.

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You can also randomize everything, so you can, for example, simulate errors that are occurring not very frequently. You can add the latency if, for example, you want to simulate a very slow Network Etc, there is also a proxy mode where you can forward everything, so you can only mock partially.

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You can forward to the real development backend that is running locally, for example, and you can mock only two or three routes that are not ready and there is also a feature that is quite recent: it's the crude Roots, so the idea of cloud Roots is a bit like Json server, the npm library. If you know it, so it's doing exactly the same thing.

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um You can here link this route to a data bucket and so I won't enter too much details here. But the idea is that here you can provide, for example, an array and every time you will do a get, you will get a list. If you get, you will be able to get buy ID so with a route like that, but you that, oh sorry I erased um with a root like that, but that you don't have to create. So you can select only one invoice you can post, you can put you can delete.

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Everything is automated, and this is basically a small database Json database. You can say that so it's very practical for quick, prototyping too, and what I'm sure.

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Oh no assistant.

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I mean it's: the mandatory AI thing that everybody is working on right now, I guess um so soon it will be part of a new Pro Plan and it lets you generate um realistic, uh Json data from a topic or something a bit more complex if you want, but, for example, here, if you want an API endpoint to manage horses, I mean it's possible and it will generate a fake Json with name breed age. Color is mail or not.

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Etc, and- um and you can I will generate right now, because we would love to wait for the answer from open AI. But the idea is that, after that, you can just serve the content and you get random randomized content.

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Awesome and Do You Love: do you leverage faker.js in this at all, or is it just only open AI.

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No, it's fake or JS exactly so there is a templating system based on handlebars are also why Ender bars it's very old, but it's also very I mean it's well known, so it's easy normally to use and it's using Faker and I see also a bug. So it's good because it's still under development, so I will be able to fix that later, um but yeah it's using Faker. Also, so you can have uh like fake first name, fake cities, etc, etc.

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You can also serve files, you can I mean there are a lot of small hidden features and it's a set of tools, because there is the desktop and there is also a CLI- and this is also I mean. The power of mukun is that you can design that on the desktop, and then you can run it in your CI environment, for example in GitHub actions, Etc, and it's as easy as sharing the Json file. That is describing all this setup.

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So you have to locate it on your hide, a hard drive or put it on a git uh in a git tracked folder on a git repository.

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You put here the path or the URL and you press enter and it will run the mock for you and then you can start making calls and you will see here the logs, and so we can deploy it in serverless environments, Etc and uh let's just go back to the website, so desktop application CLI um and there is also a serverless package, so you can use it in, for example, Firebase function, AWS, lambdas, Etc and a lot of tutorials and documentation. That is always up to date.

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Even the screenshots and yeah, and that's it I think it's a an over broad overview, but um yeah.

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No, this is awesome. I love that um I love the the UI of the project because it just looks very familiar. It doesn't look like it's hard to navigate it kind of resembles Postman a little bit um and we did have a couple of questions um before I get into many of them. First people were asking: how do I access this go to maccoon.com I have the link on the screen below just so you can so you all can see.

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I can't post links into our chat because we've disabled links there so go ahead and check that out and then I think a little bit. Some people couldn't see it because it was a little bit small, but I did see that you have a tutorial section. So I do want to do you mind clicking that link and letting people know that they can check out the video tutorials um on your site if they did want to try it out.

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Yeah I started also yeah create. There are only two of them for now. Sorry, sorry, for that there are so many things to do, but yeah I'm trying to to do all the tutorials in in video versions too and um yeah. If you want to start with mokun I mean it's just one is the getting started tutorial. The first one with the with the spaceship I mean.

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So you have written tutorials as well as the yeah.

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Yeah, they are all written first and then uh yeah.

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You're, putting it into video awesome so definitely check that out. Y'all um I think someone asked this, but literally as soon as they asked that you were answering because you said they said, does knock one have the ability to generate fake, realistic data, and you started talking about the integration or open Ai and on faker.js and handlebars. So yes is the answer to that.

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Yes, yes, exactly yeah I mean it's it's using a lot of I mean you have access to all the faker uh Faker JS um helpers and there are a bunch of helpers also that we created. uh So it's in the documentation helpers and you will see that there are a lot of them. Like add subtract multiply.

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There are also request helpers, so you can, for example, react. So maybe I need to zoom a bit more because it was zoomberg not enough. Maybe so you can react, for example, to the entering body, the entering headers Etc. So you can. You could check a header with the if and of handlebar, if header, etc, etc and serve different contents, but you have multiple choices. You can, for example, use ifs here and react to the request, but you can also do that with the rules. It's a bit more powerful. It's also a different approach.

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You can write a switch case here if you want and even the headers they support the templating system. So here, for example, you could have a header that is randomizing, something you know: okay or a uuid. Maybe first name is not good. Iu uid, for example, or grid, so this is also possible yeah that.

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Is so cool that you can do logic or you can you can like pass in a a you would in there and it'll? Do that someone asks? Is it compatible with graphql apis, or is this only for rest? Apis.

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um That's a very good question and that's also um I mean for me: it's the power of Open Source, and it's also like some of the flows. So graphql is on the roadmap, it's in the backlog and it's the most requested feature since the beginning. So it's upvoted a lot and I called for feedback on this card in newsletters a bit everywhere um to ask people what they exactly expect, because I I've never never use graphql.

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So I did a proof of concept that is working. It's I have it locally on my computer, it's working quite well without the mutations. If you know graphql, it's just fetching, but it's it's I think it's really really nice, but it's only what is coming outside of my head. You know. So if anybody is interested in contributing and when I say contributing, it's not necessarily start coding. This feature, but at least giving some feedback, because mokun is also a very rest.

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Api is oriented and doing something that is graphql is very different in terms of UI. Are the rules still making sense? There are a lot of questions, and so, if someone want to brainstorm a little bit or chat a little bit about this, I will be glad, because it will be a great feature to add honestly how.

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Can they is there a link that they can go to if they want to provide feedback, or should they just go to the GitHub, and maybe it's an issue? They.

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Can find that on the website? So if you want, for example, or on the repository, it's even easier, but no I have the website open. But here you can, for example, um oh yeah, it's the the next version so get support. So we have GitHub discussions.

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We have a Discord, Channel and um and yeah. You can even reach me on Twitter and we can chat. I mean anywhere I, don't really care, but it's Discord or GitHub description, mainly I.

A

Love that because um I often talk about like what are other ways, people can contribute to open source besides code, if they're like nervous or they don't really understand the code base and being able to provide you with feedback. That's a really valuable thing because, like you said you never use graphql before so.

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To make sure that it'll serve the community yeah.

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No true, there are many ways to to to sponsor uh sponsor but contribute to to open source project and just like discussing it's, it's already the first one uh voting issues. If you really think that it, it adds some value, uh just a vote, it's already the first step or and then add your two cents on the issue and say yeah: okay, I'm I'm, using mocon, it's nice and for graphql. Maybe this doesn't make sense.

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Just so, I get some feedback and insights Etc, and that would be already I mean there are a lot of contributions for other topics, but for graphql. It's very strange I, don't know.

A

Yeah, no, that makes sense and thank you Andrea as well for linking the the the GitHub sorry I. Don't know my brain got um stopped for a second but linking the the GitHub repository. If people want to check it out github.com, um we have a few more questions. People are really interested in this. In fact, I think I saw a tweets. Oh no I mean a comment that someone said the joy of serendipity. The notification for this popped up as I was creating multiple mock apis for integration purposes. Right now very interested in this session.

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um Another person was asking: let's see there, they said how do I know which Port my server is started on.

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Yeah, this is um very easy when it's not reduced. Okay, it's written here, okay, so by default, it's like I lost three thousand. So here it's three thousand five, because I have a lot of things running locally. uh You can go in the settings and change the port here. You can also change the network device. It's listening on. You can add a prefix that is applied to all the endpoints. You can add a custom certificate, Etc.

A

Awesome perfect I thought that was pretty clear. um uh Someone basically was saying they're going to give makuna a try because they had to implement unit tests for a rest API in flask today and the environment variables were a problem. um Someone said this is really great for quick prototypes.

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um Let's see what else we had I guess someone said any implications for a spring boot I'm.

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Not sure if I understand the question well, but it's not only for node yeah um I mean it's: it's simulating an API, it's using express.js behind the scene, so it's based on node.js, but it's a desktop application and the CLI is an npm package, um but it's something that should run outside of your main application. If I can say that, so it's not mocking um it's not test smoking, you know or mocking classes uh functions. Etc I mean mocking, is also used for that. So we need to avoid mixing mixing up.

B

So it's not a library that will be compatible with uh Java or spring boot to um I. I know that some tools, like I, don't remember if it's wire mock or our Java libraries, but here it's a desktop application and the CLI and npm application awesome.

A

Thank you for that clarification. uh My apologies, I didn't I, didn't know too much about spring boot. So I was like. Maybe this will be uh familiar to you. um Someone said and yeah good clarification too, because I do think some people are thinking testing mocking rather than just like API Market someone said: is it possible to store the macron configuration in a repository and let others use the same mock setup.

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In the documentation there is a page for that: um yeah, let's go back to the to the application very quickly. The idea is that all the setup, all your mokun setup is a Json file.

B

I mean for each API, so here I have only one API that has been created, so it's one Json file and- um and you can share that so right click uh show in folder and then you I mean you leave it there if you want, but you can also, you will have to close it and reopen it, but you can also move it in a git tracked folder and then you push pull and that's it.

A

Awesome awesome a.

B

Lot of a lot of people are doing that right now, I know it's it's working quite well. Yay.

A

That's really good. uh This question is more for me, I, guess and I guess a lot of people like we can't see, but that's okay. Yes, the open source sessions are recorded for viewing later. We do have this on YouTube. If you go to github's YouTube channel, we have it on Twitch and we have it on LinkedIn. If you want to re-watch once you get to your your desktop or computer, because I know some of you are on mobile, um someone asked: can it run?

A

uh Maybe I'll do I'll, do three more questions and then move to a few that I had for you. Someone said: can it run multiple mock, API, configs, simultaneously yeah.

B

Yeah sure so you can create a new one. Well, maybe it was too fast sorry. So there is this button new environment and uh you just save it somewhere, I, just save it in the same folder, and then you have another one and it's running on a different port and you can yeah. The CLI is running so I cannot run this one, but you can run them uh in parallel, for example, and and that's it and you have two mock apis running and you can, for example, duplicate roots from an environment to another.

B

You can also, but it's very practical I mean it's not part of this question, but you can, for example, just right click and copy the Json that is stored in the file or copy the root Json. So you can just, for example, copy copy paste and send that on Discord or slack to a co-worker, and then your co-worker can do something like root.

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um Add root from clipboard. Sorry I know it's a little bit small now or file a new environment from clipboard, so it's very easily shared like that or if you are teaching, for example, it's very practical. You create a mock API and you copy the Json and you you give that to the students on the chat.

A

Awesome yeah, sorry that I had you repeat yourself, probably also some people may be watching a little bit after like they might have joined in afterwards. um A few people are asking like: does it support yaml format for the configuration repo and then someone else also asks? Can it import um Swagger, yaml.

B

uh Yes, so there is this import export feature that is like the bridge between mokun and open API and uh it's supporting Swagger. So the version 2 and open API, which is version three up two 3.1 something um well lately. I had I had some issue with the parsing of the very um recent thing.

B

So it needs a bit of love in in the future in the coming months, but yeah you can import and it will recreate all the endpoints and then you can also export your API Mock and then it will create an open, AP API specification with some limitations right now, because there is no like live synchronization between the two and there is no merge that is possible.

B

Yet so there are issues, do not hesitate to upload them, and it's also not our one one equivalent with all the features, because some features has no equivalent in in open API, for example, the rules cannot be reproduced in open API and some will be open. Api things are not handled by mokun and mokun is, is an API mocking tool, so it's handling the response.

B

So, for example, you cannot describe a request because we don't really care about the request we can. There are rules that can react to the request Etc, but there is no place here to say. I expect my request uh to have this kind of headers Etc, because it will be just documentation and it's not something that we are doing right now in mokun. It can come in the future.

B

Who knows but not right now, so don't use that as a way to share that with your co-workers, because some information may be lost, especially the one that is not compatible with the other specification that.

A

Makes us clarifying yeah? No, no, this that clarification was really great and the the last question I'll ask until I mean people may have more questions. That's fine! But out of this, this um Bunch that I've started is how does you, how does uh McCune handle pagination.

B

um But this um the question is how you enter the pagination. No I mean if you use very simple endpoints like a get endpoint here.

B

um The pagination uh has to be done by you, which means that here you need some sort of rule that is reacting to the query. Param, for example, if page is one, if page equals two Etc and then you serve a different response or you use a switch case.

B

For example, if you have a get a basic get post put root because they are all stateless, also one, they are completely independent and if you have credit routes and honestly I, don't remember if I coded that or not if it's ending the pagination, oh yeah yeah, it's handling the pagination.

B

We are safe, so it's like Json server. If you are used to that when you create a credit route. So if you remember it's new root, cred root and then the credit route has to be linked to a data bucket and the data bucket can be as simple as an empty array.

B

You could, of course, put some seeding data or some fake data that that will be uh created at the beginning and and then all the endpoints are created automatically so slash invoices, slash invoices, slash ID with uh put post delete, get patch Etc and if you add the query params, you have sort and Order page limit, so you can simulate pagination with this um yeah and just one remark here: it's also supporting the templating system that you can see here.

B

No here sorry, so it means that, for example, with a small template you can generate like 5 000, fake users.

B

You know with a repeat, for example, you could do something like a repeat five thousand Etc and then you, when you saw the server it will generate this data once and for all. So you get randomized data every time and then it stayed full. So between all the requests it keeps the state and it keeps your database I mean, as is.

A

This is awesome, thank you and I. Think I think that was a good answer. Right, like it has support for pagination I guess, but it's up to you on how you you're designing your API.

A

um What so I'm gonna quickly switch into like less about the demo and about the product and more about like your open source Journey since we're at the 40 minute Mark um and one of the questions I usually ask people is like what are the challenges that you encounter as a maintainer, because oftentimes we're like be a Founder, be a maintainer um without like Preparing People or telling them about the struggles that you may face so I'm curious from your perspective. Well, um what.

B

Yeah, it's an interesting question. um I won't make a parallel with my journey. You know as a legal advisor and then switching to switching carriers. uh It took a lot of time a lot of dedication. A lot of a lot of learning and I know that I know nearly nothing when I see all the new and shiny tools on Twitter and everywhere I mean it's, it's so overwhelming, and you are constantly learning and I mean it's not easy. It's like doing a boot camp.

B

You are there three four five six months and then what after I mean? You still need to learn a lot and I I thought in the past in a boot camp here in Luxembourg and it's it's a big, Challenge and I think open source is a bit like that. It's very easy. To start, it's not very easy to stop.

B

um I mean! That's that! That's that's my my impression. You know, I started that as a side, project and and the feedback was was very good. uh Yeah, mostly very good, like 99 I, didn't expect that I I I would expect people to roast my my project and say yeah, but why and why are you doing that and um and I was so um pumped up?

B

You know to see that that I worked on it for years and and then I I I I yeah I suffered a burnout in in 2021, because it's a bit overwhelming you know all the issues that are opened every day. The support questions and you want to I mean at least I won't. Do it right. I want to give Stellar support. I want to help people I, want that they're happy to use mokuna I, don't want them to be stuck and say, okay, what what what's the deal with this tool?

B

I cannot use it and uh I know I I learned to deal with this and and release the pressure, because I mean there is no emergency and nobody needs that nobody had that in the past. So nobody needs it right now, I mean it could disappear and we will all be fine, so I I I'm dealing with that now.

B

But um what is overwhelming is that, um especially for mokun I mean maybe not at the beginning, but I have huge Ambitions I wanted to to stay an open source project, because this is what I believe in, um but facing this amount of work and I got helps help from contributors, but it's not always easy to code. You know on a project that is not your own and a lot of them started and and couldn't finish because of personal reasons too much work and swear.

B

So it's not easy for for someone from the old outside to to take on my code that maybe not that clean, and um so it's still mainly uh one person thing you know and I have big Ambitions. That's. Why also I will release this SAS software as a service offering soon it's not to transform mokuni's in something that that you need to pay for because it will stay open source, but to really is also a little bit of pressure.

B

I choose to quit my job two years ago, two years and a half now so quitting your job doesn't bring any money. I mean probably it's obvious, but uh so it's a it's a complicated choice to to make so I was supported by my family, of course, but um it's still a bit overwhelming. So I wanted to become a an awesome, open source project with with a huge amount of users, but some of them who can pay, for example, for uh optional services Enterprise paying for support.

B

You know priority support Etc, so I can continue working on that full time, because the other yeah, because the other solution is you know just to uh how can I say that uh lower the amount of hours I'm spending on on this project? And it's not something I want to do because I really believe in in in what I'm I'm building here. But it's a bit overwhelming. So it's it's very good. You can exchange with a lot of people, you you meet people and, um and it's it's really cool yeah just be careful.

B

It can be overwhelming and it's good to be prepared, because you will put pressure on yourself if you start an open source project, it's sure it's just finding the right balance and and maybe I mean some people can can work on an application in their free time for decades.

B

um It was not my case, so you have to find what is working for you, that's very important and to find the right balance, because it's still very demanding, yeah and and I mean, and you want to do things right, so you want to do all the code. All the features fix all the bugs answer. All the support requests, Etc and you know, do the marketing stuff, like the logos and and the writing tutorials, because if you don't write, tutorials I mean people are not coming, you know so yeah. It's.

A

B

It's a it's a journey.

A

Yeah and no first off I do want to highlight um something from learner0418. They said they like I, guess from listening to you. They said I, hope your efforts bring you both Lots or bring both of you lots of success, and thank you, I. Thanks for your your transparency as well. I think those are all fair points of like. First, you were nervous or you weren't sure how people would react you were like.

A

Maybe they will roast me because that's I think that's a lot of people's nervousness about building and learning in public they're like what are people going to think about this, and then it felt rewarding for you to have people have such awesome feedback and then you're like I want to continue supporting them. But it's hard to be the the you're. Essentially the software engineer, the engineering manager, the support the customer support, yeah everything, and then you don't even really have like a consistent team of Engineers, because the contributors are all doing this for free.

A

So you can't be like you have to get this work done because they're doing this out of their free time.

A

So there's alter your stuff and then you're right, like about like the balance, because everybody has different things going on in their life like you might have kids or you might have like other other stuff that you have to attend to that. You can't always just be doing your your work. So thank you for for that transparency as well- uh and someone said so- maybe maybe you've already done this I'm curious.

A

So one of the questions I do ask actually are like any advice for how you try to gain more contributors and sponsors and users for your for your open source projects.

B

Yeah, um you know so so I'm part with mokun of the GitHub accelerator, and this is the main topic we are discussing like every every week and it's very complicated and it really depends for each project. It's it's very I mean it depends on the project. It depends on on your audience, the kind of users you attract.

B

um Surprisingly I learned uh in five years during five years that mokun attracts a lot of, or can I say that maybe traditional companies, so you can see their logo on the websites like Ford, Walmart and and they are not very used, for example, to sponsoring open source projects or they don't necessarily have this kind of program in open source founding program, and um they also don't do joint marketing. So when you ask for some joint, you know blog articles, they say no, no PR will never accept Etc um and I.

B

Think some of the projects attract a lot of solo developers. You know that are very active on on social networks, so and I think this. This has um an influence on everything, the type of contributions you get the frequency of the contributions.

B

um The time people can spend on the project the amount of sponsors you get and um yeah so I think it's very different for each project. I think I mean what works I. Guess it's creating something that is good.

B

It seems obvious, it's like you have build it and they will come, which is wrong. It's not working still. If you build something that is good and then you do some marketing and for me, marketing is mainly writing article for SEO, because I'm very bad with social networks. I feel like a fraud.

B

I have nothing to say, I, just don't know what to say, and um so it's it brings new people and I think they stay, because the product is good and what I noticed also is is that most of the sponsors or donations I got are from people who got support uh to to whom I answered support, requests in time. Solving their issue, Etc so I think giving Stellar support is also a way to get more sponsors.

B

Then I think it's very important to ask it's not solving all the problems, but it's important to write everywhere that you need a sponsoring. You need to sponsor to to to just pay your time on on the project and um yeah, so I think you need to talk about it and not hesitate. Also, when someone is helping you, especially if it's from a company to say, okay I spent some time with you and uh uh I mean try to push your company to maybe help us a little bit.

B

No, no, not necessary a donation, but you know like an internal Workshop, uh a tweet if they have an engineering engineering team that is tweeting. You know any kind of support. That's already awesome.

A

Yeah no, this these are lots of good points and actually very different from what I usually hear, because I was never thinking from the Enterprise section, like usually the advice I always give. People is like, like someone here was asking: have you ever like Dom streamed yourself coding on Twitch and stuff, like that? I'm usually like just go, learn in public, but I didn't even think about the fact that there's like these Enterprise companies.

A

That may not really want to do like collaborations with you and then a lot of them are probably not sitting down watching twitch all day, um I always think from more of like an open source sense like oh, a lot of people open source, they're, watching twitch, they're, they're, tweeting and stuff like that. But these are lots of good points of like if you want Enterprise support where the and that's where more of the money is they're not really used to sponsoring.

A

So things like actually responding to their issues in time and stuff like that, actually can increase the the amount of sponsorship and contributions you get and then just being transparent and being like. Hey I. Have a sponsors thing: it'll really help if you could support me so that I can continue to support you on the flip side, yeah.

B

Yeah this is this is I mean this is the kind of things that that are working, for example, for the story, the biggest donation in the past was from a U.S company using mokun, like they have 50 mokoons, if I can call them like that deployed in their CI to mock uh clients apis, and they did a big donation at that time, because I also had them a lot with support and um and also we started coding, the the CLI uh a bit.

B

We prioritize a bit of CLI for them, I mean it was very good for the project anyway, but I mean they needed it. So we did some kind of agreement like that. So this can work too. An Enterprise support is something that a lot of companies are doing.

B

Just to answer the question uh about live coding, I, don't know, I feel like a fraud. First and second I have a very um strange way of coding. I mean I. I cannot code more like more than I, don't know five minutes trades and then I have to think for one hour about what I will do next or so I'm, not sure. It's really interesting, but I thought about doing some office hours like on Friday or something like that, maybe uh in the coming weeks, that could be great, so I.

A

Think that's a great idea and I think I understand you. I I'm still trying to train myself on how to live code on Twitch, but I'm, very bad at it, because I can't really think when everybody is watching I. Don't know why, as soon as the twitch comes off, I'm, like oh I, know what to type, but when I in the in the moment, I forget little stuff like I'll, be like how do you do you stay again?

A

I'm like I like forget, like the smallest little things um so I I relate with you on that. um Let me see. Oh, how can oh, we, we kind of talked about how people can contribute to your project already where whether they can do like issues is there anything else you wanted to to elaborate on on um people contributing to your project, for you.

B

uh No I guess, aside from the fact that any contribution is welcome, just some feedback on that feature. What what you think there are some people uh here from the beginning and for example, sometimes where there is a new feature, they say no. This doesn't make sense for me in mokun and I also want to refuse sometimes features because I don't want mokun to become. You know cluttered with buttons everywhere. So I think there are some features that are, let's say, silent or harmless like a new templating helper for handlebars, you don't see it.

B

So if you use it, it's good. If you don't, nobody knows that it's here, but if it's a new button, a new menu, a new tab, a new huge thing in the app. uh Usually it's okay, let's see if it makes sense and just saying that yeah it makes sense or I I mean for us. It will be very good or no don't do that, because it's not the main purpose of this tool. Etc, it's already very helpful and then, of course, you can try to I mean to get your hands on some features.

B

Now it's five years old, so a lot of the features here are quite big. I must say so it's it's not easy. I don't have a good first issue. You know tag but feel free to ping me on Discord, for example, and ask me if there is something that is easy enough to begin with, because the code is also quite big. There is a big mono repository, so there are a lot of things.

B

A lot of moving parts, so I will be glad to take uh to give you a tour and.

A

Yeah, so it's more of a advanced repository. Sometimes we have different sizes of projects that come in. Sometimes it's in a beginner stage, but yours is a little bit more advanced, but um if they want to try um they can they can. uh Let's move into some of actually I. Think I can maybe ask one more question and I think. Are you okay with answering the question around the GitHub accelerator program?

A

Yes, sure cool yeah, so um I know when, when the GitHub accessory program first came out, I think I did a twitch stream explaining what it was. A lot of people were excited to join um and I. Think some people didn't get into like when I was doing open source Fridays for some time. Some people were like why didn't I get in who's, getting chosen whatever so I'm curious like in your application process, and you getting in what do you think really made your application stand out?

A

What do you think made um the folks choose you, maybe and like any advice for people that would apply for um an upcoming year.

B

I don't know no I I have to be honest, because I also try to apply to um like y combinator Etc.

A

B

Think the deadline is today, so it's 26 yeah, so I, probably not inside the next court of why combinator but uh no um GitHub accelerator, it's a fantastic opportunity and it was a complete surprise. I mean I was going to bed, because here it's I mean there is a huge time zone.

B

Difference and I got an email and I thought it was a scam like you are accepted in GitHub accelerator and say what what is this, because it was in March or April or March, maybe and I applied in November or October or November and I didn't even remember.

B

um I mean of course, I tried to fill the form. The best I could and explain where I'm going with this project and what I believe in like I believe in open source and I believe also in system sustainability in open source, because it's a lot of uh you know this drawing I. Think it's a XKCD with, like all the bricks standing on a very tiny thing and our whole industry is like that. You know everything on the shoulders and maintainers. Maybe my app is not that critical, but it's like that.

B

So I think explaining where you are going with the project and that you have a plan for the project, because I think it's also what git of accelerator expected from from us to have a plan from for the project. You know it's not only open source for the for the sake of it. It's it's open source, but it has to be sustainable, because otherwise you see what happened to um core JS or projects like that uh nightmares I mean especially for the contributors, so yeah I think explaining the best you can. It's also also.

B

It was simpler than like a white combinator application. I think the form was way simpler, but still it's kind of the same questions you know who is on the team I mean the team is important. Where are you going on with this? Where are you right now? Where do you want to be in several months? What are your Ambitions for this project and and how you want to reach this point um and I?

B

Did a video I'm not really proud of that video, but I mean yeah I, don't know it worked I'm so glad it worked, but um and also there are I mean 20 projects, 30 people and we are all very different and I. Think GitHub accelerator tried to take a lot of projects in various stages. Earlier stages like in the middle like mine and I, mean some projects that are already far behind uh no in front of everybody else. I don't know and um yeah I think the diversity was probably very important for this cohort.

A

Yeah, no I didn't notice, there's diversity of projects and diversity of like candidates as well like different races, different abilities, different genders, which is awesome and I. Think I. Think you you I mean I, didn't see your application, but I think you probably did an awesome job, because I saw your your submission for open source fund and I.

A

Think you do a good job at like showing your passion and showing that, like you're dedicated to the community and I, really liked that what you said about having a plan because I think it's like okay, you're you're, maybe not like an open source project. That's like deep, like Django, or something like that. That has like so many millions of users, but you do have like a user base and you have a vision of where you want to go next.

A

B

Yeah I think I mean that's my opinion, but I think it's also important when you work on the project to I mean not since the beginning I said, but I already had Ambitions for this project, especially when I saw like the the monthly active users climbing during the years, so I always try to do I mean Perfection doesn't exist. I, don't I'm, not saying that what I do is perfect far from it, but you know a clean website clean, tutorials, uh an up-to-date documentation, all the screenshots are all nearly always up to date.

B

Every time I I push a new version like the wording in is normally clean everywhere. Even if English is not my first language and I try to to get everything right. You know um and I think this depends also on the kind of projects you want. If you want to keep it open source and that's it and if you are ready to to work on it without necessarily create a SAS around this like I'm, currently doing, maybe you don't need a website. That is a crazy website. You know. Probably the repository is enough.

B

There are a lot of, but I think it's good that to keep the consistency. You know.

A

I completely agree, um there's a couple of um comments and then I think we're nearing the end. So I'll act like the non-technical questions that should should be um pretty fast. Someone said it was great uh it's great to learn that you like support new contributors by giving them a tour. We have Brandon who's. um Your cohort mate saying.

A

Oh all, right last couple of questions: what is the first programming language that you learned I? Think you.

B

See press plus, C plus plus awesome yes in high school, C, plus plus with opengl awesome.

A

B

A

Oh, if money was an issue and I think this the I already know the answer. Maybe, but let's just see, um if money was an issue, how would you ideally spend your time job-wise or not? Job-Wise.

B

It wasn't an issue, yeah I, think I would just like work on things. I I, like you know, like I, mean if it's still mokun, but if it's something else like a new project and then I will just stop and and do some woodworking or cook something and the freedom of it's a bit like remote work without the work you know remote, you do whatever you want. Whenever you want and then I mean I love coding, so I would I, wouldn't probably stop.

A

Yeah, that's fair and I I get I, get that um oh I think I changed this question the other day when I was talking to Simon. So if you don't want to answer it, it's okay, but I! Think um last week when he was talking to us, he talked about like every day. He tries to learn something new and right what he he learned that day and I think I had um changed.

A

It I forgot to change it back for you, but if you're, okay with answering, is there anything cool that you learned today or even if it's not that cool.

B

No uh today, no today I learned that there are a lot of bugs in in my sauce thing. So that's not cool. This is what I learned today. If the scope is today, this is what I learned. So it was quite a bad day because I I started testing in production-like environment and then it was a mess and I was like. Oh my God. Not again, you know it's. The 80 20 to 20 at the end are a nightmare yeah.

B

So no, what I learned recently hmm uh yeah I mean writing prompts for uh for a chart GPT, for example, for the next feature uh using Nest JS, not next, but Nest JS, so something new, that's cool, not too many new things, because I mean you need time for that, and and I mean my goal, the why I'm doing this is still to earn money at one point. So I cannot just procrastinate learning everything but I tried, always to add some.

B

You know some salt, so I can learn something new and and go out of my comfort zone.

A

That's cool I, love that and um I I understand the 80 20. That is why I'm, not a good software engineer and I'm better at developer advocacy I always like when I was a software engineer. I just would start doing the project I'll get to the 80. I wouldn't want to do the 20 so like it's just much easier as a developer. Advocate I like create like a prototype. I'm like this, is cool but ignore all the bugs.

B

Yeah I I get it yeah, yeah. True, true, I I. Have this the opposite way every time I need to do something like marketing related like write a tutorial I mean for me. It's marketing so.

A

B

I mean I write most of the copy and then I have you know to rewrite the sentences and proofread and and on- and this is the last part. Sometimes the draft is for days in sitting on my computer and I. Just don't want to do it.

A

Completely understand: okay, how do you pronounce the word Gia? Do you say GIF or GIF yeah.

B

I know GIF that that's the official way the.

A

B

Of of the GIF say.

A

That he said it was called GIF. Some people like it's.

B

Gif, no no impossible.

A

Okay- and you said you don't have a favorite Beyonce song, but what is your favorite song.

B

Yeah, no sorry I I'm, not listening to Beyonce uh no uh I've I. Mainly um you will find me crazy, but I'm mainly listening to Iron Maiden. Since.

A

I'm a kid okay, so.

B

All of their songs are my favorite one and I listen to a lot of uh 90s hip-hop.

A

B

And things like that I mean I, don't have a song in mind right now, but I I, love, hip-hop, so I mean and I love, Iron Maiden, it's completely I mean unrelated, but uh yeah.

A

I love it. No, that was great I, always ask that just to learn more about the maintainer all right. So we've reached the end of this twitch stream. I really appreciated like hanging out with you. um um Sorry I I appreciate you hanging out with you and also the people in the comments as well. Sorry I was like reading them. At the same time, I saw someone.

A

Oh and then also Guillaume, thank you for your time. um People are saying thank you as well to you. Thank you for your time and your knowledge um sharing this with us. I know you're um in a completely different time zone and it's evening time for you so appreciate it, and thanks for doing yourself, um this last call to people if you do want to contribute or check out the site, go to github.com or go to maccoon.com for for the documentation and um YouTube tutorials. uh Is there any last thing you want to say Guillaume.

B

Yeah, but thank you for having me and thank you, I mean for this opportunity and uh for the people who would join us. Thank you for uh for joining and asking all these questions, and if you have questions um I mean just come on. Discord GitHub discussion um I mean I'm going to Vacation the next week, but I may answer, because I have some meetings, so I will be really happy to to exchange and discuss with you awesome.

A

All right, y'all bye, have a great thank you.

B

Have a nice day, foreign.