Beyond the Cloud: The Local-First Software Revolution • Brooklyn Zelenka & Julian Wood

GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech

This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted.
https://gotopia.tech

Read the full transcription of this interview here

Brooklyn Zelenka - Author of Numerous Libraries Including Witchcraft & Founded the Vancouver Functional Programming Meetup
Julian Wood - Serverless Developer Advocate at AWS

RESOURCES
Brooklyn
https://bsky.app/profile/expede.wtf
https://octodon.social/@[email protected]
https://github.com/expede
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brooklynzelenka
https://notes.brooklynzelenka.com

Julian
https://bsky.app/profile/julianwood.com
https://twitter.com/julian_wood
http://www.wooditwork.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianrwood

Links
https://automerge.org
https://discord.com/invite/zKGe4DCfgR
https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app
https://github.com/ipvm-wg
https://www.localfirst.fm
https://localfirstweb.dev

DESCRIPTION
Distributed systems researcher Brooklyn Zelenka unpacks the paradigm shift of local-first computing, where applications primarily run on users' devices and synchronize seamlessly without central servers.
In a conversation with Julian Wood, she explains how this approach reduces latency, enables offline functionality, improves privacy through encryption, and democratizes app development—all while using sophisticated data structures. Perfect for collaborative tools and "cozy web" applications serving smaller communities, local-first software represents a fundamental rethinking of how we've built software for the past 30 years.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Ford, Parsons, Kua & Sadalage • Building Evolutionary Architectures 2nd Edition
Ford, Richards, Sadalage & Dehghani • Software

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บท

1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. Introduction to local-first computing (00:01:25)

3. Rethinking traditional software architecture (00:03:44)

4. Local-first implementation & data synchronization (00:13:16)

5. [Ad] Inspiring Tech Leaders - The Technology Podcast (00:16:39)

6. (Cont.) Local-first implementation & data synchronization (00:17:14)

7. Security & use cases for local-first apps (00:22:01)

8. Getting started & future directions (00:24:22)

9. Outro (00:31:00)