This is a Livecoding Recap – an almost-weekly post about interesting things discovered while livecoding. Usually shorter than 500 words. Often with pictures. Livecoding happens almost every Sunday at 2pm PDT on multiple channels. You should subscribe to ￼My Youtube￼ channel to catch me live.

You'd think upgrading Gatsby sites to Gatsby 2.0 would be easy. The update guide is only 20 steps long.

Change some package versions. Drop some old packages. Install some new. Tweak some code and you're off to the races.

And then you get stuck.

Migrating to @gatsbyjs v2 and getting stuck on this. What am I doing wrong @kylemathews @swyx pic.twitter.com/w48CH0fQrI — Swizec Teller (@Swizec) June 24, 2018

No error message. No nothing. Just stuck.

Beta software, amirite?

BUT! The internet hivemind comes to the rescue. The beauty of open source software. You do things out in the open, you help when you can, and you ask for help when you can't.

@swyx did an amazing thing and hunted down the source of my woes. It's a GraphQL query compiler bug.

@ryanditjia was nice enough to submit a PR with a workaround. Thanks, Ryan and Shawn 🤘

Gatsby v2 has a new StaticQuery system, and it's got a bug.

I'm not sure what StaticQuery is supposed to do, or how, but the migration guide says you should use it to get info about your site. Title, description, stuff like that.

I suspect you're meant to change all those export const query = graphql queries into a StaticQuery . Will have to experiment some more, read a doc or two 😇

The easiest way to refactor your components to use StaticQuery goes like this 👇

export default ( { children } ) => ( < staticquery query = "{graphql`" layoutquery = "" { = "" site = "" sitemetadata = "" title = "" description = "" } = "" ` } = "" render = "{data" == "" > < layout data = { data } > { children } < / layout > } / > ) < / staticquery >

I used it for my Layout component.

StaticQuery takes a query prop, which needs your graphql query. The stuff you used to export const query = . And a render prop, which takes the component you want to render once you have data.

When Gatsby fixes the bug, you'll be able to make that code more readable like this:

export default ( { children } ) => ( < staticquery query = { query } render = "{data" == "" > < layout data = { data } > { children } < / layout > } / > ) < / staticquery >

Beta software, amirite?

Another gotcha with the upgrade is the manual process to upgrade all your packages.

You have to go into package.json , find everything that starts with gatsby- , and change its version to next . Then you have to hunt through the new Gatsby Plugins Library and see if anything you're using has new peer dependencies.

You have to install peer dependencies yourself. I always forget that one.

For example, Gatsby used to come with React packaged in. Now you have to install it yourself because it's a peer dependency.

There's no telling which of the plugins you're using decided to pull similar tricks moving to Gatsby v2. Alas.

I wish there was a code mod for that, but most people aren't running enough Gatsby sites to make the time savings worth it.

Beta software, amirite?

If you're running Gatsby v1, you should upgrade. Everything seems stable enough. My site, Learn While You Poop, is up and running. Ludicrously faster than it was before.

Now I just gotta make the improvements I was planning to make before I got distracted by the upgrade 😅

Did you enjoy this article? 👎 👍

Published on June 26th, 2018 in Livecoding, Side Projects, Technical

Learned something new?

Want to become a high value JavaScript expert? Here's how it works 👇 Leave your email and I'll send you an Interactive Modern JavaScript Cheatsheet 📖right away. After that you'll get thoughtfully written emails every week about React, JavaScript, and your career. Lessons learned over my 20 years in the industry working with companies ranging from tiny startups to Fortune5 behemoths. Start with an interactive cheatsheet 📖 Then get thoughtful letters 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career. "Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only email I open from marketers and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌" ~ Ashish Kumar Your Name Your Email Your Address Subscribe & Become an expert 💌 Join over 10,000 engineers just like you already improving their JS careers with my letters, workshops, courses, and talks. ✌️

Have a burning question that you think I can answer? I don't have all of the answers, but I have some! Hit me up on twitter or book a 30min ama for in-depth help.

Ready to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization

Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, modern backend for the frontend engineer.

Ready to learn how it all fits together and build a modern webapp from scratch? Learn how to launch a webapp and make your first 💰 on the side with ServerlessReact.Dev

Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com

By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️