Building the future through the power of developers

27 Nov 2023 (1 year ago)

Stormy Peters - Intro (17s)

Introduced three developers impacting the world of software development.
Noted software complexity is increasing with 90% of new code relying on pre-existing open-source software.
Speakers are making it easier for developers by solving integration issues and creating financially viable solutions.
Highlighted the story of Django, an open-source software for data collection created by the first speaker to address journalists' needs to handle large data sets without being developers.

Discussed the challenge of making a living as an independent open-source developer.
Developed Datasette, a toolset for data manipulation inspired by WordPress, using Python, with a growing ecosystem of over 128 plugins.
Expressed the desire to sustainably support himself and build a team to continue working on Datasette for the long term.
Initially supported the project at Stanford University as a fellow but then used savings and sporadic consulting to fund the work.
Described his continued passion for the project and the unique joy of seeing new features developed by the community through plugins.

Participated in GitHub's accelerator program, which focuses on the sustainability of open-source projects.
Learned from other projects that sponsorship management, content creation, hosted services, and enterprise licensing are viable revenue streams.
Warned against hosting solutions for solo developers due to high customer responsibility.
Chose the hosting route to make Datasette accessible to journalists, his target audience.
Benefited from Slide Audio's sponsorship, which provided resources to continue development.
Encouraged open-source software users to support projects by hiring maintainers for company talks and advocating the value of open-source maintenance from both the developer and user perspective.

Maintainers are too busy for hands-on consulting but can do hour-long Zoom calls
These talks are time-efficient ways for maintainers to share insights and earn money
Companies can support projects by paying for talks instead of direct donations
Training budgets can be utilized to funnel money to maintainers under consultancy agreements

Stormy introduced Shanea Leven, a developer who created a tool for visualizing code dependencies
Her software helps understand how code components interact, which aids in onboarding and inheriting code from others
Leven saw the need for such a tool in her first job and created it to facilitate ease of learning and maintaining code

Shanea Leven discusses the challenge of maintaining flow state when coding
Flow state is often disrupted by not understanding the codebase or system
Codebase knowledge encompasses the system structure, teamwork processes, and human cognition
Leven emphasizes that understanding a codebase is difficult due to constant changes in the system and inefficient traditional learning methods
AI's role in code generation makes it crucial to better understand codebases

Prioritize onboarding and use documentation that updates itself
Develop an understanding system for loading code into your head effectively
Onboarding helps with getting familiarized with the code and achieving early wins
Self-updating documentation should be linked to code and patterns should be labeled clearly
Review system documentation, learn team coding preferences and processes, and watch for tribal knowledge
Taking time for proper understanding can be challenging due to time constraints and workplace changes