DEV Community: Dillon Fagan

Building a website with Cobalt.rs

Dillon Fagan — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 12:54:34 +0000

I had considered making a blog/journal site for a while, but never found the time to work it into my already busy schedule.

But after doing some light research into the latest and greatest static site generators, I came across a unique specimen called Cobalt. Cobalt is essentially a re-implementation of Jekyll in Rust, but with its own unique quirks.

Though Cobalt doesn't have the same maturity as Jekyll, I still find using it to be very enjoyable. It's also one of those situations where, as someone who appreciates what the Rust community is building, it can be worth sacrificing some convenience for the sake of supporting a cause.

When I had a problem with the where function in Liquid not working, I put up an issue on Cobalt's GitHub page and the maintainers added it in less than a day. This made me a very happy camper.

The setup

Installing Cobalt couldn't be more straight-forward. Assuming you have Rust installed, simply run the following:

curl -LSfs https://japaric.github.io/trust/install.sh | sh -s -- --git cobalt-org/cobalt.rs --crate cobalt

And that's it. Cobalt's installed.

To create a new site:

cobalt init <my-site-name>

cobalt init without a site name will initialize a new site in the current directory. With the name, it creates a directory for your site. It just works.

For designing and configuring your site, I recommend referring to their docs, which are fairly well written.

The takeaway

Is Cobalt mature enough to build a blog site?

Absolutely. It's super easy to build a blog with Cobalt.

Is Cobalt right for a business's website?

It's tough to say. Depending on what you want to implement on the site, it might be enough. It also might not be. Like Jekyll, Cobalt is blog-aware, which means that configurability is more limited than something like Hugo or Gatsby. I recommend at least pairing Cobalt with Netlify CMS, which gives the site a simple and convenient interface for non-coders.

Why would I choose Cobalt over Jekyll?

You like to see your site built blazingly fast.
You like Rust and the community that goes along with it.
You like to support the underdog.
You prefer simplicity over features-galore.

Starting a worker co-op of software developers

Dillon Fagan — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 13:03:30 +0000

Whoa, stop right there. Don't know what a worker co-op is? Read this first.

After many months of twiddling thumbs and considering the prospect in theory, some coworkers and I have decided to launch our own worker co-operative business. Two things prompted this decision:

The corona virus pandemic and the need to close physical places of business revealed just how ill-prepared small businesses are for the digital age.
As supporters of the growing co-op movement, we felt it was our duty to get involved and prove to other Rhode Islanders that worker co-ops can be just as successful (or more successful) than conventional businesses.

We've decided that our first pursuit will be in the web dev arena; the goal being to help small businesses in Rhode Island to elevate themselves to the same level of much larger companies online.

Our ethos is that small, locally owned businesses are preferable to big, corporate machines. Buying local creates a cyclical economy, which fosters the growth of community wealth, as opposed to the siphoning off of wealth that occurs when buying non-local. But the only way these local businesses have a chance at competing with the Amazons of the world, is if they can offer similar or better digital experiences for their communities.

Local farms and food co-ops should have more convenient websites for ordering fresh produce than Whole Foods. Local hardware stores should have websites just as good or better than Home Depot's. Local cafés and restaurants ought to have better ordering systems than Starbucks and Chipotle. And so on.

With an equal footing online, local enterprise has a fighting chance against the tentacles of Amazon, Walmart, and the like.

And so, Starboard Developer Co-operative is setting sail. We're out to prove that co-ops are the future model of doing business and that buying local doesn't need to be less convenient.

Worker Cooperatives in Tech

Dillon Fagan — Thu, 14 May 2020 22:44:39 +0000

First off, what's a worker cooperative? Worker co-ops are businesses owned and run by the people who work in them. Each member of the co-op owns one share and has one vote and gets a share of the profits by the end of each year.

Simply put, worker cooperatives are defined by shared ownership and workplace democracy.

Now how do they relate to tech? Interestingly, worker co-ops have been around since at least the nineteenth century. But recently, they've been making a comeback. And as it turns out, this business model is perfect for the tech industry, and here's why.

The 8-hour workday

When the US passed the 8-hour day into law in 1938, this was a radical change for the many employees across the country working 10 hours, 12 hours, 14, or more. Fast forward about eighty years and we find ourselves in a situation that is ripe for change, especially for tech workers.

For many developers, the 8-hour day just isn't practical anymore. We find ourselves mentally fatigued long before the digital clock strikes 5:00. That's why a lot of our offices have video games or other activities to do throughout the day: we have too much time on our hands!

If we worked cooperatively with one another, we could democratically decide how long our workday should be. And if we all had the ability to do this today, I'm certain most of us would not choose an 8-hour day. We might decide 6 hours is sufficient or even 5 hours. (What do you think? Leave a comment below.)

Mobbing IRL

Mob programming, or mobbing, is a development approach where a team of people works on the same task at the same time, each taking turns with the keyboard and mouse.

Mobbing can be a very effective tool for making high-quality, reliable code in groups. It's this mode of working cooperatively and by consensus which yields that high-quality software. A worker co-op, then, is a lot like a mob, except the mob runs an entire business.

If Apple were a worker co-op...

In 2014, Forbes published an article that explored a hypothetical scenario in which Apple is a worker-owned cooperative. They found that if it were one, every Apple employee would earn at least $400k a year. In today's world, the profits go to the shareholders instead of the people who generated those profits: the employees.

Still a skeptic?

Mondragon is the largest and most successful worker co-op in the world and employs around 75,000 people. Their work spans several industries, including manufacturing, retail, banking, and... software.