Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Tij (tij@boymoder.biz)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:44:55 JST Tij

   in reply to

   • Evan Hahn
   @EvanHahn holy shit, ever though about getting a journal? Nobody but you is gonna fucking read this
   • Embed this notice
     Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:44:56 JST Evan Hahn

     in reply to

     I wonder if I’ll still believe these things next year, or in ten…but that’s what I believe as of July 2024.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:44:57 JST Evan Hahn

     in reply to

     It matters who I build for. Humanity is in trouble. An incomplete list of problems: climate change; war; authoritarianism; genocide; poverty; inequality; surveillance. I shouldn’t waste my time building software for people who are hurting people. I shouldn’t waste my time building software to make the boss rich, even if I’m the boss. There are a lot of jobs where I can use my skills to help people…I should work there if I can!

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:44:58 JST Evan Hahn

     in reply to

     Making useless stuff can be a great way to learn new things. Not everything needs to be productive, but sometimes it can be anyway! For example, I spent a bunch of time writing a custom PNG encoder for a side project. I never thought it’d be useful. But then a few months later, I needed to write some code to detect animated PNG data for work, and it was trivial to write because I knew exactly how to do it.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:44:59 JST Evan Hahn

     in reply to

     Typing new code tends to be the easiest part of the job. Bigger challenges: reading code, prioritization, communication, team dynamics, etc.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:45:00 JST Evan Hahn

     in reply to

     The most important problems are non-technical. “Real world” issues tend to be the most important. Am I building something that helps people, or hurts them? Is my team healthy?

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:45:01 JST Evan Hahn

     in reply to

     Everything is more complicated than you expect. I need to be careful not to trivialize someone’s work, because it’s probably a lot harder than I think. Building a prototype is a lot easier than building something production-grade.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Hahn (evanhahn@bigshoulders.city)'s status on Wednesday, 03-Jul-2024 06:45:02 JST Evan Hahn

     Simple opinions tend to be wrong. For example, some people say things like, “PHP sucks!”…but PHP powers most of the internet, and modern PHP has a bunch of great features. People who are dogmatic about process, like TDD, tend to be right in some situations but wrong in others. I usually like working with programmers who use nuance and understand tradeoffs, and I try to be that programmer myself.