I found this fantastic tool called Hubs from Mozilla. It’s incredible how we can run an interactive 3D environment on a browser without needing to install any plugins. At the same time, it’s a bit depressing how little I know about these technologies.

Regardless of my insecurity, the tool is equipped with spatialized audio (meaning the closer you are to another, the louder you will hear), virtual pens, and objects, and even emoji reactions! Try it out next time you hang out with your friends or team!

Latenight hanging out with my wife 😍

Software Engineering 🌐

Observables, Reactive Programming, and Regret – Ben Lesh

Ben Lesh looks back at his work on RxJS and shares his regrets, the biggest of which is the community’s lack of distinction between Observable and RxJS. A few key takeaways are (disclaimer: I am a noob with Observables and RxJS):

Observables are not RxJS.
Reactive programming isn’t necessarily observables.
RxJS is a library of functions built around observables, not the other way around.

Introducing GitHub Super Linter: one linter to rule them all – Github

I like how different projects with different languages can use this Github Action. We spend way too much time configuring our tools and infrastructure. That being said, I wonder how I’d be able to use a beta version of typescript or apply lint rules private to the company.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Keynotes – Corey Quinn

An excellent reminder from Corey Quinn that we all get excited about new services, libraries, frameworks, and then just get back to the old ways

People ❤

⭐ Speed as a Habit – Dave Girouard

Even at Netflix, I too often see meetings end without a firm commitment to the next steps. A simple nudge like “when can this be done?” and “can this be done sooner?” will transform an ambiguous agreement into a concrete action plan.

Ask the EM: Can You Really Measure Individual Developer Productivity? – Gergely Orosz

Many tools track productivity statistics on your projects now; Gitlab has its own, and Github has many integrated tools as well. However, the statistics are not the end of a story, and it’s managers’ job to add the context and act on it.

Business 💸

The three Fs of cloud pricing – David R Griffin

An interesting analysis of how relationships with cloud providers change at different stages. I mostly agree with this view, but there are a few more things at play: First, we may be minuscule relative to the entire AWS revenue, but we may be the most significant account to your AWS sales rep. Second, when we had a high (~90%) margin (think SaaS), our AWS bill just didn’t matter.

How will the startups created in 2020 be different from startups built before? – Protocol

The big themes across the responses are: adopting distributed work, building a diverse and inclusive work culture, and running a lean company.