Part 1: The Hyvä Revolution - Willem Wigman
Smash the Bug: Episode 37
Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter, Inc.
Special Guest: Willem Wigman, Certified Magento Developer by trade, Founder/Owner at Hyvä Themes
Show Notes
We thought this episode was going to be about MOSCA and the Mage OS Distribution, but we spent so much time talking about something else (something very important) that we decided to do two episodes with this special guest. Willem Wigman has been around the Magento ecosystem for about 10 years. After freelancing, pushing hard with Magento 1, and then burning out on the transition to Magento 2, Willem found himself back to working on Luma and hating it. He developed such a disdain for Luma that he ended up deciding to fix it by reinventing the wheel, and that is where we got Hyvä, a Magento front-end that makes sense. Why does it make sense? Let’s dive in and see!
1:12
Who is Willem Wigman, where did he come from and why does Hyvä exist?
3:26
Why shouldn’t every website be on PWA and how to decide if that is the right option or not. He believes every website doesn’t need to act like an app, and that loading speed, situational logic and actual purchase psychology all have to all be taken into account.
9:14
Why exactly is Hyvä so much better than Luma?
12:12
Why it’s actually GOOD that Hyvä is not free, but is paid tool, and how we can look forward to this great tool expanding and improving quickly. Willem explains his vision for a “Hyvä ecosystem”.
16:24
A quick introduction to MOSCA and the Mage OS Distribution, what Willem thinks about Monolith vs Microservices/de-composed front-end. He explains why a lot of people started to give up on Adobe’s plan for Magento and why he thinks this new energy in the community is helpful.
21:06
Willem suggests that if Hyvä isn’t a good idea for a merchant, it’s pretty likely that Magento wasn’t a good option in the first place. Joseph and Willem just plainly say it: “Magento 1 to Magento 2 is a downgrade (regarding loading speeds)” and they discuss the realities of when Magento isn’t the right fit at all.
26:56
When is Hyvä probably NOT the right solution? What will you have to re-write with Hyvä, as opposed to when you use PWA solutions, etc.
30:55
What have been the biggest challenges agencies face in the first 6 months using Hyvä and what should they anticipate when they incorporate this new tool? Willem compares it to learning a new dialect within the same language, and insists that most skeptics end up changing their mind, accepting any minor downsides for the sake of all of the great upsides.
34:14
How Hyvä is built with debt and legacy code in mind, and defends against decay and future maintenance. Due to its stable format, Hyvä has seen very few unhappy customers, and many of their customers have said that 1000 euros is a “steal” for what they are getting.
40:19
Willem’s mysterious book recommendation for us! “Good friends buy each other this book” -Willem
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