Building Openess Openess

We explore the future of software, particularly as it relates to open-source. We interview and learn from developers, community builders, product managers, software engineers, tech evangelists and other leaders in the space to discuss big ideas, technology and the future of open-source.

My guest today is Swyx aka Shawn Wang, a developer, product manager and angel investor whose work centers around building great developer experiences. He’s a writer and speaker best known for Learning In Public and recently published The Coding Career Handbook offering advice for engineers going from Junior to Senior. Some topics we’ll be diving into today with Swyx include: what it means to be a GitHub star, the present state and future of open-source, Learning In Public, building dev community, governance, personal branding as a dev, Singapore food culture and much more!

Show Notes:

1:40 - Swyx shares about his background, previous career in finance, Gamestop & shorting it, transitioning to tech at age 30, community building.

3:25 - What it means to be a GitHub star, what’s so appealing about open-source & why participate?

4:25 - "Open-source sets tech apart from every other industry because we share so much.”

6:43 - Figma CTO Evan Wallace’s design tool, esbuild.

7:25 - The future of open-source, corporatization of open-source.

9:04 - The biggest pain points in open-source.

11:30 - GitHub sponsors, Patreon and Hacker1.

13:01 - Learning in public, React and the beginner's mind.

16:30 - Deep work vs. learning in public, Andy Matuschak’s working with the garage door up.

20:10 - On creators being enslaved by their own structures and systems in producing creative content.

22:49 - Living your life in high-definition, idea velocity.

24:15 - Building a personal brand as a developer.

26:00 - The Developer’s Journey & community building.

32:55 - Diversity, equity & inclusion in open-source.

34:56 - Where open-source devs could use a helping hand.

38:50 - Governance

39:10 -  “Ultimately software is an expression of values and if you fundamentally disagree with the values of the people running the project, then you will eventually disagree with the code as well because it will just encode the values over time. Having welcoming and inclusive values is important.”

40:30 - Swyx’s favorite open-source project: Svelte.

41:50 - Hawker markets in Singapore, “Food is the great equalizer in Singaporean society because rich & poor people eat the same things.”

43:00 - How to get started in open-source as a developer.

45:25 - Space in the community for non-technical contributors.

| Find more about our guest Swyx at: swyx.io / @swyx |

| Find more about our host Julia at: juliache.com / @lotusleafstyle |

| Find us at: building.openess.dev / @openessdev |


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