Episode 17: Dean Attali

By The Shiny Dev Series Team

December 5, 2020

In episode 17 of the Shiny Developer Series, we welcome one of the earliest contributors to the Shiny ecosystem and the founder of AttaliTech, Dean Attali! In this illuminating conversation, you will hear all about how Dean arrived to the world of Shiny, updates to his excellent open-source packages like {shinyalert} and the brand-new {shinyscreenshot}, the origins of Attali Tech, and his new journey to becoming a full-time open-source R and Shiny developer!

Resources mentioned in the episode

Help sponsor Dean’s move to full-time open-source development via GitHub Sponsors: github.com/sponsors/daattali
Dean’s website: deanattali.com
Attali Tech: attalitech.com/
Dean’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/channel/UCR3No6pYhA1S7FZ0PbLKlgQ
`{shinyscreenshot} - Capture screenshots of entire paggs or parts of pages in Shiny apps: daattali.com/shiny/shinyscreenshot-demo
{shinyalert} - Easily create pretty popup messages (modals) in Shiny: daattali.com/shiny/shinyalert-demo
{shinyjs} - Easily improve the user experience of your Shiny apps in seconds: deanattali.com/shinyjs
{timevis} - An R package for creating timeline visualizations: daattali.com/shiny/timevis-demo
{htmlwidghts}: www.htmlwidgets.org
{reactR} - React for R: react-r.github.io/reactR
Clean Code - A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship: www.oreilly.com/library/view/clean-code-a/9780136083238

Episode Timestamps

0:00 Episode introduction (with a special guest)

1:42 Dean’s Introduction

3:52 Getting started with R and Shiny

7:57 shinyjs and custom JavaScript in Shiny apps. Tooling to create developer tools for Shiny apps. htmlwidgets, reactR

11:17 shinyscreenshot, released 2020-11-05, allows you to capture screenshots of entire pages or parts of pages in Shiny apps, and have the image downloaded as a PNG automatically.

18:42 Shiny Alert update

21:07 Attali Tech and becoming a Shiny Consultant.

22:37 teaser “go full shiny, full time”

23:42 Who Uses Shiny?

24:37 Where Attali Tech is headed. 2019 was dominated by a large set of clients, and Dead didn’t have enough time to contribute more to open source Data Science and Shiny in particular. Moving forward, Dean’s goal is to spend more time on his open source projects. He is seeking sponsorship to help pay for his open-source work.

28:21 How are people using and find value with Shiny?

35:32 Advice for building more robust Shiny applications.

39:02 Tips for debugging, with demo.

47:42 Tips for dealing with grid layouts.

51:17 shinyjs::runcodeUI, learn more at shinyjs

56:52 Advice to Shiny developers taking their shiny skills to the next level

60:53 Episode wrapup (with the same special guest)