bloggin more

Hello friends, in the spirit of ignoring the rest of it so I’ll scrounge together a report.

I’ve started developing on iOS. It makes me realize how much work it could be. I guess it’s time for me to move to Malibu now that I’m an official Apple™ developer…

The funny thing about iOS apps compared to websites is that the expectations are so much higher and the margins are a hell of a lot slimmer. When people open your app they’re going to expect the level of polish the same of ~100 engineers at Spotify, or Netflix, whatever else.

Hopefully it should go alright. The only thing that works is one foot in front of the other.

Something changed this week. I have often remarked that when you’re staring down a hard problem, one which might take years or even decades to finish, that you have two choices: give up or get to work. The years are going to pass either way. I am used to finding myself at the base of a mountain, picking up my shovel, and getting started. Equipped with this mindset, I have patiently ground down more than one mountain in my time. But this week, for the first time in my life, as I gazed upon that mountain, I felt intimidated.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this blog post is. Perhaps I’m sharing an experience that others might be able to relate to. Perhaps it’s healing in some way. Maybe it’s just indulgent.

I’m going to take the time I need to rest. I enjoy the company of wonderful colleagues at SourceHut, who have been happy to pick up some of the slack. I have established a formal group of maintainers for Hare and given them my blessing to work without seeking my approval. My projects will remain healthy as I take a leave. See you soon.

--- Drew Devault, Burnout

I was feeling the same, wondering why I’m doing this. But I think it’s a valuable enough market, valuable enough, hopefully, or it’s something, I mean what else are you going to do?

I played around with DaVinci Resolve. I made a voice recording introducing myself and a vague plan and wondered whether I’d ever turn this website into a YouTube vlog instead, but I’m too hung up on what my niche would ever be.

But maybe that’s half the point: to not know what you’re going to make next. Maybe the new paradigm shift I’ll outline in the next video is The Death of Content and The Birth of Experience to elevate our parasocial reality.

I could technically book a flight to anywhere in the world this Summer, but I don’t know where to go or why it’d fix anything. Instead I’ve been wondering what next skill to bother to invest in, hence DaVinci Resolve.

Maybe learning how to make music would be interesting, if time permits. Or you can just keep dreaming and letting the years pass, I guess.