The move to react native

The ENTIRE reason I initially pursued programming later in my career as a product manager was because I was frustrated with the time it took to get from the abstract concepts written in my verbose requirements documents to actual code that was living and breathing. I initially learned Rails because of the approachability of Ruby and the community and also because of some of the tooling that got messy stuff out of my way so I could get the basics done more rapidly. Progress a few years and I’ve launched an iOS app using Swift…then had hired a contract dev to build the android app. This was my first venture as developer or product into the mobile app world and it was enormously frustrating to have feature disparity between platforms. Inevitably, iOS would have the features before Android because I was at the helm and the Android users didn’t appreciate that. So I started looking for options and I had seen a few things about React Native. I immediately started absorbing as much as I could by reading everything, took a Udemy class, and then embarked on rebuilding my Swift/Java app in React Native. I have a week or two of coding left and it will be in both app stores. Efficient, effective, easy to use, intelligent…it’s fair to say I love React Native and would really welcome coding in it full time. I am using Facebook (login and sharing), Parse Server, (entire data system) Redux, OneSignal for notifications, Ad Mob, Google Analytics, and React Native Router Flux.

I pursued programming later in my career as a product manager was because I was frustrated with the time it took to get from the abstract concepts in my requirements to actual living code. I learned Rails because of the approachability of Ruby and the community. I’ve since launched an iOS (Swift) app…then had hired a contract dev to build the android app. This was my first venture as developer or product into the mobile app world and it was enormously frustrating to have feature disparity between platforms. Inevitably, iOS would have the features before Android. I started absorbing as much as I could about React Native by reading everything, took a Udemy class, and then embarked on rebuilding my Swift/Java app in React Native. I have a week or two of coding left and it will be in both app stores. Efficient, effective, easy to use, intelligent…it’s fair to say I love React Native. I am using Facebook, Parse Server, Redux, OneSignal for notifications, Ad Mob, and Google Analytics.

I’m currently senior engineer (contract) for both Vote.org and projectgreenlight.com (both Ruby on Rails web apps).

It really depends on how much I will be just coding, versus managing any team members, or even bringing my product management background to bear. I honestly love coding day and night, so I’m fine with that, but I’m pretty flexible too…it all depends on the specific opportunity.

I want to spend more time in React/React Native ecosystem as well as spend more time building mobile apps.

I have about 1.5 yrs of mobile app dev experience, starting with Swift as mentioned above. I’ve done a little bit of Objective-C and Java in just supporting the existing apps. I have one app in the Apple app store: Concon: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/concon-app/id1073484948?mt=8 (this is the app that is about 90% rebuilt in React Native now and it should be replaced in the app store in a week or two at most).

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Yeah. I did it. I bought the longest domain I could.

Well, most of it anyway - I wanted to buy ahugeevergrowingpulsatingbrainthatrulesfromthecentreoftheultraworld.com, but had to settle for ahugeevergrowingpulsatingbrain.thatrulesfromthecentreoftheultraworld.com.

I learned something in the process: there is an upper limit to the number of characters in a domain name. And not just the domain, but each ‘label’ as they are called, being either subdomain, domain, or top level domain (TLD).

63 characters.

I think I broke half of the domain registrars when trying to buy it.

My working setup

Updated June, 2024

Here’s how I currently do my work, both personal and professional.

  • iPad
  • Mac
    • Terminal with Oh-my-zsh for terminal-ly good looks (and shortcuts)
    • Doom Emacs - I wrote about doom emacs for blogging
    • Roon - Can’t work without music!
    • Visual Studio - replaced TextMate and SublimeText and haven’t looked back; strange for me to say that for a Microsoft product (different than say GitHub, which was an acquisition)
    • 1Password - long-time user
    • Trello - Despite the Atlassian acquisition, this is still my go-to for just a general purpose throw it up and track it. Using the Assista bot for time tracking on tickets I drag into the Doing list - it helps a lot with billable work, but also helps me track where my play time goes.
    • yt-dlp - it’s a secret
    • CyberDuck - connect to anything for remote file access/management
    • Homebrew - I see no reason to leave this hardy package manager - it’s just worked under brutal conditions for years and years.
  • Home network
    • Fiber, it’s the only way to fly
    • Unifi network throughout house; wired (by hand, blood, dust, cobwebs, and pink spackle) and wireless
    • Pi-hole - remove all the craptasic stuff out there, network-wide
    • Tailscale - take my networks with me securely (recent addition so lots to learn)
  • SaaS
    • Cloudflare - it’s the only online service that I don’t have a fear of recommending. Yes, there might be some issues from the centralization of the decentralized web, but right now, that’s not a critical path issue.
    • Hugo - The most performant, flexible, and joyous web development platform. This site and my LLC and Synth company are built with it.

My first PCB

Just a couple of days ago, I shipped my first PCB order to JCLPCB. This is a MOMENT. Something that needs to be marked.

My dad has been doing electronics since forever and it always intrigued and yet mystified me. I never understood how it worked. Especially as it related to audio devices. How did little resistors and capacitors make sound? It was always so fascinating, but also just as daunting to undertake learning it. Until recently.