ioddly

> - If living in an area without a strong software community, exchanging ideas and "talking shop" goes away. Learning and professional growth is now done entirely remote as well. Try and stay in an area with regular meetups or some sort of interaction with other engineers if you growing as a technical contributor is important to you.

This is my personal biggest issue. As a freelancer I think I particularly suffer from the lack of connections as well. I'm probably going to sign up for a coworking space soon in order to combat it.

Meditations actually was originally a Trello board. I built out a frontend that gave made it easier for me to see statistics and manipulate the individual cards (e.g. just click on one to cycle through labels). Eventually it became evident that it needed its own backend, so it's been through a couple large iterations since then.

I don't see it becoming a SAAS-type product, but I would like to make it easy to download and use at some point in the future. I like working on it, but I can only really get into major things when I have time between client projects.

I built an application for myself called meditations: https://github.com/ioddly/meditations

It's actually...a todo application, but focused on habit formation and creating a positive feedback loop around a few consistent habits or projects.

I wrote it for myself because there was nothing quite like it that I was aware of. I use it on a daily basis; I also learned a lot of frontend development by having to maintain and use a real, interactive application.

> it's also pretty cool to see it being used by other people around the world.

It is cool! I've gotten one or two reports of people using it, despite the fact that I've taken almost no effort to make it easy to use, and it feels good.

I haven't published it on any stores because it's a self-hosted application -- you can keep all your data (encrypted if you want). I actually thought there would be no market for anything like it but over the years I've learned of a few that are making a decent revenue.

Bottom line, it's fun and rewarding to work on.

Somewhat OT, but is the origin story of React written down completely somewhere? I often see bits and pieces like how it was originally prototyped in ML, would like to know more.

> Successfully raised rates with all client projects (avg: 19% / engagement)

Interesting, does that mean you raised rates during the project or as you switched to a new one?

Well done, that's a very impressive first year.

I'd say it depends more on what you're doing -- if you're not doing a whole lot of writes, you could get really far. See the "websites" section of the sqlite When to Use article: https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html

SEEKING WORK - Houston, TX / Remote / Travel OK

I am a full-stack web developer writing front-ends with React, Redux & TypeScript and back-ends with Python, Django or Flask, and postgresql.

I'm comfortable doing anything from simple maintenance & feature addition to creating an MVP for your project.

Some technologies I have experience working with:

    Backend => Python, golang, node.js

    Frontend => React, Redux, preact, riot, SASS, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript

    Storage => postgresql, sqlite, redis

    Cloud & devops => AWS, Docker, dokku

I cut my coding teeth writing compilers in C++ and Scheme, so I'm happy working with pretty much anything.

Recent client testimonials: "Solid & dependable", "top notch coder and a compiler ninja"

You can check me out further at:

My website: https://upvalue.io

My GitHub: https://github.com/ioddly

If you're interested in working with me, you can contact me at phil@upvalue.io - my phone # is available on my website.

Sorry about that! I broke the deployment a few weeks ago and forgot to fix it. It should work now: https://meditations.upvalue.io/

Well shucks, this comment made my day :)

Feel free to use the GH issues or email me (in profile) if you run into any issues.

https://github.com/ioddly/meditations - Daily organizer based on habit formation.

It actually needs a little bit of TLC which I'm hoping to give it once I finish up my current gig.

I'm still the only user, as far as I know, but I use it daily so it's fun to work on.

> Basically - I think the point of a blog (at the beginning) is not really to be lead gen for consulting gigs. Instead, it's a place to plant your flag on the internet and say "This is what I'm an expert in".

I actually just finished my first gig where a client mentioned reading something on my blog in our first call.

I don't write much or get really any recurring traffic, so I think it's more like having a blog is one way for people to check me out a little further and get a sense that I know what I'm talking about.

It's something I personally plan to invest a lot more time in this year, although I have another reason for doing that (I'd like to start a newsletter and eventually make some courses/ebooks or something along those lines).

I also think that it's a skill in and of itself; if you look at most developer blogs (mine included), it's just kind of a smattering of notes. I'm guessing that writing more longform, specialized stuff more appealing to both potential readers and clients.

SEEKING WORK - Houston, TX / Remote / Travel OK

I am a full-stack web developer writing front-ends with React, Redux & TypeScript and back-ends with Python, Django or Flask, and postgresql.

I'm comfortable doing anything from simple maintenance & feature addition to creating an MVP for your project.

Some technologies I have experience working with:

    Backend => Python, golang, node.js

    Frontend => React, Redux, preact, riot, SASS, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript

    Storage => postgresql, sqlite, redis

    Cloud & devops => AWS, Docker, dokku

I cut my coding teeth writing compilers in C++ and Scheme, so I'm happy working with pretty much anything.

Some recent work, for example:

    Built a Trello power-up with Python/flask and vanilla JS
    Built a payment component with React+TypeScript+BlueprintJS for a desktop application

You can check me out further at:

My website: https://upvalue.io

My GitHub: https://github.com/ioddly

If you're interested in working with me, you can contact me at phil@upvalue.io - my phone # is available on my website.

Haven't had a Thinkpad in over a decade and I'm still mourning the loss of the trackpoint.

Where does one get started building a simple database?

I have a gmail and fastmail address (the fastmail address is plastered all over the internet in plaintext as well), I can't say I've noticed much of a difference between the two.

I once scraped a large forum off Yuku, the HTML was easily the most bizarre I've ever seen (i.e. multiple different HTML formats for posts on the same page for no apparent reason).

I did something similar for 2-3 years, then eventually wrote a piece of software that handles specifically this use case: https://github.com/ioddly/meditations

(It actually doesn't repeat automatically, but you can copy monthly tasks down to the day). I also have it doing a little bit extra, tracking completion rates.

Fabrice Bellard: https://bellard.org

No social media. Just shows up every year or two with something that would be a decade-long project for most people.

Mostly column A, a little column B as well (sometimes I travel).

I'm a freelancer and when I am between client projects I try to just code without the internet for a few hours first thing in the day.

As someone who codes offline a lot, I really appreciate when I can just clone a repo to have a full copy of the documentation.

From the manual: http://www.lua.org/work/doc/#changes

> new generational mode for garbage collection

(!)

> userdata can have multiple user values

> debug information about function arguments and returns

> new implementation for math.random

Some tips:

- Don't pick now to use a weird language. Use whatever you are most confident with.

- Get it working, then do conscientious things (add tests, add documentation).

- Clarify as much as possible up front what they want from you.

Good luck!

Oh hey, you already made my post for me!

I do prefer React for when a frontend framework is appropriate, but I also think that's not always the case.

I think there's a lot to be said for familiarity. Rails instead of Django? Sure, if you and the folks you're working with know it better.

From the Django tutorial:

> Generating admin sites for your staff or clients to add, change, and delete content is tedious work that doesn’t require much creativity. For that reason, Django entirely automates creation of admin interfaces for models.

> Django was written in a newsroom environment, with a very clear separation between “content publishers” and the “public” site. Site managers use the system to add news stories, events, sports scores, etc., and that content is displayed on the public site. Django solves the problem of creating a unified interface for site administrators to edit content.

> The admin isn’t intended to be used by site visitors. It’s for site managers.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.0/intro/tutorial02/

SEEKING WORK - Houston, TX / Remote / Travel OK

I am a full-stack web developer writing front-ends with React, Redux & TypeScript and back-ends with Python, Django or Flask, and postgresql.

I'm comfortable doing anything from simple maintenance & feature addition to creating an MVP for your project.

Some technologies I have experience working with:

    Backend => Python, golang, node.js

    Frontend => React, Redux, preact, riot, SASS, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript

    Storage => postgresql, sqlite, redis

    Cloud & devops => AWS, Docker, dokku

I cut my coding teeth writing compilers in C++ and Scheme, so I'm happy working with pretty much anything.

You can check me out further at:

My website: https://upvalue.io

My GitHub: https://github.com/ioddly

If you're interested in working with me, you can contact me at phil@upvalue.io - my phone # is available on my website.

There are lots with good advice (worth searching site:news.ycombinator.com tptacek/patio11 billing/consulting/etc), but the main thing is to stop billing hourly, here's one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1880096

Probably the best advice I've gotten on here is from reading 'patio11 and 'tptacek posts on how to bill for consulting work. I don't have a particular comment as they've written it many times over, but it's really changed the game for me.

I don't think the snooze worked: Pretty sure I triggered it yesterday, but I got a match just now.

Podcast Addict. I paid like $1.99 to remove the ads from it, I feel super guilty that I can't somehow give more.

I think what I've been missing, and trying to do a better job at, is understanding the awesome power of existing and mature solutions. Things like postgres's LISTEN/NOTIFY and so on.