DEV Community: Henry

Can Programming be Emotional?

Henry — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 01:19:09 +0000

Why do we experience the dread of using certain tools over others (debugger vs. console.log)? Have you thought about how you feel when programming?

35:31 Omar: Once I kind of started introspecting about like, what am I thinking and feeling when I'm programming and why am I not doing things? I noticed that there were all these weird emotional forces that are really determinative of what I'm doing at any given time.

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35:45 Omar: And I originally noticed the debugger thing, I tweeted about this, because I was TAing a class in college with freshmen and sophomores who were learning how to program in C and they hated using the debugger. Like they would do almost anything to avoid, to avoid having to pull up the debugger. And again, it's always tempting to tell them. we did usually tell them, like, why don't you open the debugger? But I think at the same time, there's something to learn from that. Like, why don't people want to use the debugger?

Do emotions matter when we are programming, or is that something we leave at home? Or is it something we should hone in on?

Omar joins me to talk about his time working on Dynamicland, or rather, more the way of thinking about programming that Dynamicland tries to embody.

(maybe you've heard of Bret Victor from famous talks like Inventing on Principle (55min) or Learnable Programming)

It's not just able making coding easier, but making computation a more dynamic medium in the sense of using the real world: space, community, our bodies.

In this 40min podcast we talk through a bunch of Omar's tweets: the tyranny of using a list for every UI, how design can at many terms remove a user's control, materiality of physical books, how tech is seen as discrete features vs. a coherent whole, epistemology and knowing things like people, end user programming, and the importance of understanding our emotions when coding.

Full transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/emotional!
initial tweet

Among Us is the Future of Open Source Community

Henry — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 22:33:12 +0000

Had a chance to talk out loud with Fred Schott (Snowpack) about our experiences in being in physical and digital communities before and after covid! How each community has it's own norms, rules, and feeling to it that GitHub doesn't necessarily bring out. Curious on your thoughts!

We talk about maintainership and learning to say no, on localism in a digital setting, parallels to livestream church, experiencing serendipity in Zoom or elsewhere, and how games can play a big role in making open source less transactional.

More episodes at: https://hopeinsource.com

MA 16: Philip Guo (#3) on Life After Digital Death

Henry — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 16:00:00 +0000

Last podcast with Philip, who just left most social media after getting tenure.

What's life after removing yourself from social media? Philip Guo joins Henry (the last in the "trilogy") to chat about LAT, life after Twitter. We discuss being irrelevant, forcing yourself to think about different things, treating a newsletter like email, restraining your growth, moving to the digital suburbs, engaging with the past, directing your attention and production, being particular and local, making it normal again to not have to create. (recorded in July) Transcript: https://hopeinsource.com/digital-death.

First chat (MA 7): https://hopeinsource.com/growing-old

Second chat (MA 15): https://hopeinsource.com/unlisting

Philip : https://pg.ucsd.edu

Henry : https://twitter.com/left_pad

Headings:

Intro to the Trilogy
A Movie Review By a Random Person
Forcing Your Own Hand
Email Is a Newsletter without an Archive
Restrained Growth
Convenience Over Everything
Quitting and Twitter Brouhaha
From City to Suburbs
Stepping Back By Not Producing
Conflating Consumption and Production
Engaging with The Distant Past
Getting the Last Word
Showing Charity to Those Things
Spewing Out Stuff, Undirected
After Influence, Staying Niche?
Generality (Mega Church) and Particularity (House Church)
The Small Scale is the Only Scale
It's Not Weird To Not Make Anything

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MA 15: Philip Guo (#2) on Unlisting Yourself

Henry — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 23:26:15 +0000

Two podcasts with Philip who teaches at UCSD and left most public social media!

Why would you choose to leave the public internet on your own terms? Philip Guo joins Henry (for the 2nd time) to chat about his recent choice to make a minimal public web presence after being on the web for many years. We discuss the logistics of removing social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube), moving to longer forms of media (podcasts, essays, books), making introductory content, recognizing different stages of your career, being out of touch, freeing your mind for the next thing, not being ashamed of previous work, taking time to reflect, and friction. (recorded in May) Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/unlisting.

Previous Episode : https://maintainersanonymous.com/growing-old

Philip : https://pg.ucsd.edu

Henry : https://twitter.com/left_pad

Headings:

"He took everything down!"
A Long Time Coming
Erasure: a minimal public web presence
Unlisting Yourself
When I was young, I was in a rock band
Naturally Transitioning Out
Tenure as a forcing function
High School Debut
Out of Touch
Ownership Over Our (Digital) Selves
Posting about Quitting
No One's Going to Cry
Making Introductory Content
More Beginners in a Growing Field
The Business of Patrons
Doing the Work vs. Funding It
Staying or Stepping Away
Seinfeld and Ending at the Top
Freeing Your Mind for the Next Thing
"It's all I've Known"
Graceful Degradation
A Time to Reflect
Acting on Our Beliefs
Quitting Should be Boring
Intentionality
We Are As Athletes
Adding Friction

MA 14: Shawn Wang on Open Knowledge

Henry — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 13:01:29 +0000

What does it mean to be code adjacent? Shawn Wang joins Henry to chat about not just open code but open thinking with his experience in community managing, the idea of tumbling, moderating /r/reactjs, starting the Svelete Society meetup, documenting and learning in public, being historians of our field, fresh notes vs. awesome lists, the meta language, and adoption curves. Transcript: https://maintainersanonymous.com/open-knowledge.

Shawn : https://twitter.com/swyx

Henry : https://twitter.com/left_pad

Headings:

Intro: Tumbling as an Alternative to Community Manager
Specific, Limited-term Maintainer Roles
Separation of Maintainer Concerns
Babel W18, like YC W18
Becoming a Moderator for /r/reactjs
Learning with "I Promise to Answer Every Question"
History and Memento Mori: A Time Before Git
Where's the Story of How Projects Get Started?
A Culture of "Document Yourself More"
Learning Gears: Explorer, Connector, Miner
Finding A Vision People Can Rally Around
Being Code Adjacent
Maybe We Need a JavaScript Community Manager
Cheat Sheets and Awesome Lists
Personalized Docs, Documentation Levels
Open Source Knowledge, Proof of Work
Twitter as a Permanent Hallway Track
Find the Intersection of Two Communities
Documenting Underlying Assumptions
"Fresh notes"
Starting a Meetup: Svelte Society
Keeping it Alive
Taking Part in Category Creation
The Meta Language
Parenting and Figuring Things Out
Not Everything Needs to be in Public
CSS 4: Does It Even Matter if No One Knows?
Adoption Curves: Focusing too much on the head
Removing the Learning Curve with Better Defaults
Philosophy of Technology
Spatial Software, The Mind

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HiS #16: Managing Over-Participation

Henry — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 02:41:21 +0000

Is more (information, people, code) always better?

If anyone is interested in open source and even more broadly the future of how we communicate and maintain online communities, I would recommend getting this book: "Working in Public". Nadia is one of the most insightful people we've had the privilege to have in our community (and beyond) the last few years. Had a chance to just chat about the book and related ideas. Check out the transcript!

Snippet:

To me, the book is sort of the combination of the last five years or so that I've spent looking at open source projects and communities. Some of which we explored even together on this podcast. But trying to make sense of an observation, I kind of been having over the course of that exploration. Just looking at the idea that we talk about open source being this thing where everyone is in.. anyone can participate, in an open source project.

Nadia Eghbal joins Henry to chat about her new book, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, a deep-dive into the of open source community and how it may paint a picture of online communities in general. They talk about her 2x2 model of communities, the public web (Twitter) to private groups (group chat), the turn to individual creators, and the importance of moderation and boundaries.

Nadia: https://twitter.com/nayafia
Henry: https://twitter.com/left_pad

Headings:

Five Years Looking At Open Source Communities
Our Common Wisdom Encourages Participation But..
Pushing Back on the Definition of Participation
2x2 of Contributor/User Growth
Victims of Success
It's a Good Problem, Let's Adapt to Changing CircLiberalism and "Don't Read the Comments"
Questioning Hypotheses and Norms
Salvation By Maintanance
Welcoming Communities, Seeker Friendly Churches
The Importance of Moderation: Saying No
Inversion of Authority
Whose Responsibility? Platforms?
GitHub Isn't a Creator Based Economy, Yet
Open Source and Content Creation
Maintenance is Inherently Not Top of Mind?
Modes of Production: Niche and Growth
Beyond Zoom: Designing For Conversation
Cozyroom
Tools Vs. Apps: The Tyranny of Grids
Simulating Walking Through a Park
Digital Fidgeting Through Removing Video
Focusing Through Distraction?
Shaping to Future of The Social Web
Creating the Suburbs of the Internet
The Beautiful Dance of Norms

14: Towards Shalom

Henry — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 18:00:00 +0000

What does flourishing look like?

Nicole Williams joins Henry to chat about faith in a less reductive way (than many of us may of grown up with): on rationality, the Church as a body, education, liturgy, family, being productive, and simply doing things for it's own sake. Was rather hard to say what we were getting at until the very end, all tying back to a picture of shalom! Transcript at https://hopeinsource.com/shalom.

Headings:

Faith in Public
Apologetics and Rationality
Church as a Body
The Machine Stops and Pandemic
Remote Work and Education
C.S. Lewis on Living and Dying
Secular/Spiritual Distinction (1 Corinthians 10:31)
On Disrupting Church: Reductionism
"Family": Unity and Humility
Non-neutrality of Technology
Liturgy and Senses
Productivity and Fun
Education, Learning is Autotelic
Professionalization
Shalom

Nicole: https://twitter.com/nwilliams030
Henry: https://twitter.com/left_pad

14: Jordan Scales on Nostalgia and Not Taking Yourself Too Seriously

Henry — Tue, 26 May 2020 19:30:00 +0000

Why attempt to faithfully recreate the past? Jordan Scales joins Henry to chat about 98.css, design systems, being pixel perfect, accessibility, the Microsoft Windows User Experience reference manual, using VMs, MSPaint and Figma, whimsy and having fun with coding, creating satire at no one's expense, and even how Babel's Guy Fieri meme could of been Jeff Goldblum in another universe.

Transcript at: https://maintainersanonymous.com/nostalgia
Jordan: https://twitter.com/jdan
Henry: https://twitter.com/left\_pad

13: Maggie Appleton on Embodiment Through Metaphors

Henry — Wed, 13 May 2020 16:00:00 +0000

Posting the episodes from the Maintainers Anonymous podcast!

Is programming all digital/cerebral or do we still have embodied roots? How does this affect how we write, teach, and learn code? Maggie Appleton joins Henry to discuss everything metaphors (basically everything). We chat about mental models and abstraction, Polanyi, Cartesian dualism, auto ethnography, knowledge, cats!

Transcript at: https://maintainersanonymous.com/metaphor
Maggie: https://twitter.com/Mappletons
Henry: https://twitter.com/left\_pad

12: Maggie Appleton on Open Source as a Gift Economy

Henry — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 18:00:00 +0000

Posting the episodes from the Maintainers Anonymous podcast!

Is the open source community a gift economy? What even is a gift? Maggie Appleton joins Henry to discuss open source as a gift economy (versus a market economy), why we participate in open source and exchange gifts, rituals and habits, patronage and crowdfunding, quantified self and disembodiment, our role in tech

Transcript at: https://maintainersanonymous.com/gift

Maggie: https://twitter.com/Mappletons

Henry: https://twitter.com/left\_pad

Seeking Serendipity

Henry — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

For this post, I adapted my thoughts from last month’s “stream of consciousness” newsletter that I write for my supporters!

I wanted to share something that feels impossible to quantify at times: why we love (or learn to love) someone, something, or in this case, a place.

You Are What You Love

Over the last year, a number of people have asked me why I decided to stay in New York instead of living in another city, moving back home, or even becoming a “digital nomad”. It’s an appropriate question, especially right after I quit my job over a year ago and unsure about what was going to happen next.

It got me reflecting about why anyone dreams of moving to the city, let alone settle there.

In so many recognizable ways, it makes no sense. Living here causes me to think differently about how I live: how I spend my time and money. Maybe it’s working multiple jobs, taking public transport instead of getting a car, cooking instead of eating out, rooming with people instead of getting my own studio, living farther from the city, and simply having less stuff. Is it worth putting up with all the effort, sacrifice, and inconvenience?

It turns out that for me, it’s been worth it all. And I can confidently say that because of how well I’ve meshed with one particular ethos of the city: that we care about work too much (for better or for worse).

But is that any reason to stay, when I’ve left my job and could go anywhere to work?

Chance Encounters

I think the city compels a real, visceral reaction from anyone that comes.

“Why not?” is too nonchalant an answer to be convincing. Without some conviction I’d be forced to face reality and leave.

On paper it doesn’t look so great either. I’ve told myself a number of rationalizations for the typical negatives of NYC: unpredictable weather (“I like having real seasons”), the busyness and hustle (“the city is alive, and I feel it as well”), the huge crowds (developing a sixth sense to stay away from Times Square), the noise (justification for buying expensive headphones), the smells (okay there’s no silver lining here), the high cost of food/rent/activities (developing money management skills). In that light, no wonder people here can be so jaded.

I wouldn’t always describe NYC as a hustle-filled, busy-bodied, anxiety-inducing place (it certainly can be for me), but instead it’s often an invitation for variety. The fact that people are too busy with their own lives means it can simultaneously feel lonely while a sense of solidarity persists, especially in times of strife (a recent example: when volunteers helped direct street traffic during the recent power outage). Everyone seems to have this unspoken, shared understanding of the struggles of life here. There’s a certain conviviality in the atmosphere regardless of the borough I’m in; it’s also embodied in the people inhabiting it.

So I’m led to the conclusion that my reasoning (which I would consider a feeling) must come from a nebulous quality about living in an urban city. Something that can somehow override all those evident negatives.

I’d describe it as a deep sense of awe and wonder. Because of the occurrence of so many “chance encounters” during my travels this past year, I couldn’t help but notice that what I was looking for was something I’d forgotten about until moving here: serendipity.

Defining Serendipity

It’s something that is both unexpected and fortunate. It’s what I didn’t even know I was looking for but goes beyond my imagination. We can’t force it; it happens to us and makes us feel alive.

..serendipity, which is the chance encounter that leads to a longer, richer interaction with a topic or idea. It’s the way that a metalhead bumps into opera in a record store, or how a young kid becomes interested in history because of the book reviews that follow the box scores. It’s the way that a course taken on a whim in college leads, unexpectedly, to a new lifelong pursuit. -Engagement is the Enemy of Serendipity

Active Waiting

Now that I’ve named it, I want more serendipity! Is it something that I can grasp or “take” more of? Or does attempting to strive and use effort to make it happen go against the whole point? I think not!

“..but a lot of times there is repetition. I claim that luck will not cover everything. And I will cite Pasteur who said, ‘Luck favors the prepared mind.’ And I think that says it the way I believe it. There is indeed an element of luck, and no, there isn’t. The prepared mind sooner or later finds something important and does it. So yes, it is luck. The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.” -“You and Your Research”

Most of us recognize the importance of preparation in many aspects of life. But does working towards that which isn’t guaranteed even desirable? I would say yes! We must face all sorts of unknowns in this life. A commitment to something isn’t only helpful, but required to make sense of any of it. We risk failure, loss, reputation with the hope for a surprise.

I’m learning that the kind of intentional exposure in continually putting myself out there opens up possibilities for greater personal connection with people and the world.

Finding Community, Finding Home

I’m a part of some great communities here: my church, my (previous) co-workers at Adobe, and tech communities like BrooklynJS. And there’s always opportunities to discover new ones - most recently for me were groups like the ping pong crew at Bryant Park and the greater creator/startup scene in the city thanks to Patreon and Stripe.

It’s simply amazing how it things can tie together, how relationships can be formed so organically.

An example with my interest in ping pong:

A recent friendship story: this is Murat! Came visit his kids in NYC and was in the area when @rauchg and I were just playing 🏓 outside. We ended up connecting afterward and played regularly (yes even those hot days) the last month until he went home last week pic.twitter.com/g4YRcM9pXW

— Henry Zhu (@left_pad) July 9, 2018

And this past summer, we were able to catch up and play again when he had an opportunity to visit!

And a few months ago I stumbled upon this award-winning documentary about the ping pong tables at Bryant Park: The Tables (15 min).

It was so inspiring to hear the stories of the kinds of people who play there. In some sense, the conditions aren’t ideal at all: it’s outside (the wind, hot/cold temperature), the tables/net are metal, and there are random people everywhere. But yet there’s a thriving community there. People from all walks of life show up: those who work in the buildings around the park taking a lunch break, others that are homeless, visitors/tourists on vacation, or even locals (like me) who have lived here for years without realizing the tables were there. It was so cool to see and convinced me to check out the community a few times since then; I recognized a few of the same people in the documentary and even had the opportunity to play & chat with them.

What that community helped me see was this idea that I could be a part of a long-standing group that doesn’t even have formal membership and yet is sustained. The fact that I could go to the same place and expect people to be there without contacting anyone ahead of time or planning anything out is so special. It’s like a hangout place (a cafe, someone’s place) with the same group of friends week after week, but with a shared understanding that someone will be there.

A place where I don’t simply know of others, but I am inexplicably known by them.

Anticipation

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” - C.S. Lewis

I’ve noticed more and more, every month there’s a handful of times where I see old friends, people at meetups, coworkers on the subway or during a casual stroll outside. Like Devon, I’ve started to use my calendar to record the past. And when I meet a friend unexpectedly on the street, I mark it with an 👀 emoji to remember the occasion!

I think back to the day before my trip to Romania in April. I was taking the subway home from a friend’s place and randomly bumped into a middle school buddy visiting family at the 72nd St downtown Q station.

On another trip to Boston, I checked out a sister church of ours for a prayer meeting, and recognized the same friend I had met there two days later while wandering around for lunch!

And these opportunities don’t just come for people I’m already familiar with! I became one of those people willing (though not always initiating) to talk with strangers on flights. Even on a recent Amtrak ride back to NYC from Boston, Yusuf started a conversation with me by asking about my headphones and eventually we really connected in talking about faith and tech. As he says, “It’s not a coincidence that we met!”.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that the probability of bumping into someone is fairly high, it’s a dense city after all. But there’s also so many people, so many things to do at any time of day, without knowing anyone’s schedule.

I wonder how often I’ve passed by someone I know but was too preoccupied to notice?

The Magic of the Web

Experiencing serendipity in the physical world makes me wonder how it’s fostered in our digital lives.

Recently I asked for some help with Stripe support. I was surprised to get some amazing help but also the response: “It’s pretty cool to meet someone who helps maintain Babel! — I’m actually learning to be a web developer now, and I’m in awe of what you guys do.”

Sometimes it’s as simple as the chance to meet (email) anyone in the world.

As a recent example:

After Nadia wrote about her thoughts in reading “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, I was really intrigued at the last chapter. I stumbled upon the guest of our last podcast episode on cities, Timothy, by essentially searching for someone who had written from a faith background on the subject using Google.

His paper, “The City as Liturgy” resonated with me so much I finally had the courage to send a cold email. To my surprise, he was so enthusiastic to talk! In my understanding, getting a random email from someone (entirely outside your field or group) that is super invested in what one cares about means a lot.

Had the great pleasure of meeting up with Timothy! We interviewed him on the podcast after I was searching online for an interpretation of Jane Jacobs in light of faith and reached out. Cold emails and the warm joy of meeting in-person 🙂

🎧 past episode: https://t.co/Jd01Hrj9DX pic.twitter.com/zIzVpvmwwT

— Henry Zhu (@left_pad) May 16, 2019

Soon after I had a chance to visit him in Boston! All that to say that being able to access so many people around the world does have some amazing benefits.

Fear of the City

Despite all that, we constantly hear (even from myself) the audible sighs that remind me about the perils of living in the city: the loneliness, the performance anxiety, the impending doom. It’s almost as if we turn and use the city as an excuse for our issues and long for an escape away to greener pastures. The city itself loses respect and becomes our scapegoat.

Instead of time healing all wounds, the grind hardens our hearts. We feel defeated by the environment. Being jaded is now the default.

The openness to connect fades away. Our outward focus to relationship and to others folds in on itself. We become skeptical of the world and those around us. But should we continue to live in doubt?

“I can’t be an idiot, but I would rather be duped from time to time — and pay that price — than become a person who lives in mistrust. When I get duped, I just chalk it up to the rent I’m paying for not living on Planet Suspicious.” - Abigail Disney

At the same time, we try so hard to manipulate the world for ourselves, to innovate and replace rather than maintain and preserve.

“More is better” permeates the world. Everything is measured in utility, a specific from of purpose. It seeps into our sense of self, where to have more is to be whole. Everything becomes another form of measurement and optimization. We tend to think of silence, boredom, and quiet to be negative things in our distracted, technological age.

“Engagement is about avoiding silences, eliminating boredom, filling every moment with some exchange of my attention for someone else’s profit—with the promise that it will be better than one of those moments of silence and boredom.” -Engagement is the Enemy of Serendipity

We tend to find ourselves keeping busy, which I’ve discovered to be a form of sloth. Laziness isn’t only a habit of not doing anything but an indifference to life, a spiritual condition of not caring.

But we feel this way because we don’t actually want to think, to contemplate the issues facing ourselves. We need the space to allow ourselves to step back, where serendipity is fostered. As designers harness the power of space in user interfaces and art, we could take note to do the same in other areas. Notably with our time.

Sanctifying Time

Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you. -Augustine

Can we learn to see our time as not flat (not all the same), but meaningful, even sacred? That being productive isn’t about getting from A to B faster and “doing more” but experiencing more of what life gives us, of being fully alive?

“People always believe they save time by taking a taxi. Let’s say you take a taxi and it takes 10 minutes when walking would take 20. Mathematically, you save 10 minutes. But in those 10 minutes in a taxi, you didn’t experience anything.” -“Why Walking is the Key to Being More Productive”

We’re a people that tries so hard to be productive, to make it to the next job, school, step in life. It’s in the city that never sleeps that we must practice intentional rest.

The Sabbath. The way we stop a cycle of overwork, burnout, anxiety may in the end be a stand against its goals entirely. To not do. A place where there is no striving or proving for a place. A place where we belong, our home.

I’m reminded of a book I read earlier, “Liturgy of the Ordinary” by Tish Harrison Warren, which asks: How do we “embrace the sacred in the ordinary and the ordinary in the sacred?” The author shows how the minutiae of daily life can be a source of joy as well as depth. Even the first chapter, Warren presents the simple act of waking up in the morning as a daily reminder of learning to be beloved by God.

When she wakes up tired and vulnerable, without any identity she has given herself (a child, friend, mom, employee, citizen, etc), God delights in her despite not having done anything. She gets up remembering her identity in Christ is given rather than earned.

Surrender

Despite it being freely given, does serendipity “ask” anything of us? We need to leave “room” for it to show up: with our time, with where we are, with our thoughts. It’s planning to be unplanned, to expect the unexpected.

There’s no formula here, no obvious cause and effect. It goes beyond the notion of making use of our time productively. What’s needed is downtime, free play, day-dreaming, the capacity to imagine again.

It asks more than we might realize at first. It calls for an act of surrender rather than an act of volition. We lay down our specific plans, strongest desires, and indomitable will in a hope unseen. We know in seeking serendipity that nothing is guaranteed, and yet we still commit to it. Why?

Because we experience a gift beyond what we expect, one that we understand we can’t attribute to our own doing. We realize that we aren’t the captain of our souls and are humbled yet free. Serendipity, especially through the city, has shown me that life is all by grace, undeserved and yet somehow ours. I didn’t even know it was what I was looking for, until it found me.

The Babel Podcast

Henry — Sat, 20 Jul 2019 23:45:30 +0000

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So I published the first episode of the newly created Babel podcast a few weeks ago! I also wrote a blog post and a separate website.

But I'd like to hear from this community! I'm curious on what ya'll think of the episode but also if you have suggestions on what you'd like us to talk about: more about the team itself, general stuff about open source maintenance, fundraising/money, JavaScript the language, etc.

I think I want to be unique to Babel but also not turn this into yet another JavaScript podcast that just interviews authors of JavaScript libraries (since there's plenty of that already). Some ideas I had would be to interview TC39 members, explain some concepts/decisions in Babel, even interview alternative tools! I think we can do a lot with this platform.

Please subscribe at:

And if you'd like to sponsor this work: https://github.com/babel/babel?sponsor=1.