joelhooks

We give away most of our[0] content free but charge for membership to access PRO content. We also don't DRM or even try that hard to prevent theft. There are some "bad actors", but we keep growing MRR at a rate that is working for us.

Helpful, honest, and generous as a business model can be very effective!

[0] https://egghead.io

We've just started adding lessons on this topic on egghead.io [0]

[0] https://egghead.io/lessons/node-js-break-up-language-strings...

Here are some screencasts on this topic if that sort of thing interests you: https://egghead.io/courses/how-to-contribute-to-an-open-sour...

I've been building UIs for 20 years, and the tools we have now are the best I've ever had the pleasure to work with. It's more fun now than ever. More please.

It's kind of a shame that this article devolves into political discussion, as that is the least interesting aspect of the thing.

Public speaking is hard af, and being even decent at it pays dividends.

I've given about 30 copies of Kathy Sierra's Badass: Making Users Awesome. It's wonderful.

edit: whoops meant to reply to OP

Could this basically be said for anything? Why go to school? Why read a book? Why even get out of bed?

Everybody learns in different ways.

You're obviously super smart and don't need courses like this. Congrats! Must be nice.

I've published two books through publishers and the actual writing experience was very similar to the book that I self-published.

For the self-published book I followed he basic path set forth in Nathan Barry's Authority[0]. Financially speaking it was definitely more lucrative to self-publish, but I've got access to a large audience to sell to.

There is another approach that I've seen that I find interesting and that is of the "open source" variety where the book is given freely and later published by a major publishing house. You Don't Know JS is a recent example.

My personal experience with OReilly was a good one. They send you a framed cover and it was a decent experience. We got no advance and the pay was peanuts, but it served to get me recognized at the time in a specific space.

Sure, money isn't the only motivator when setting out to write a book, but it's definitely a motivator!

[0] http://nathanbarry.com/authority/

The war was well under way prior to the Declaration being drafted and signed. 1775.

I carry 2-3 lighters in my backpack at any given time and fly regularly. Have never had to remove them or had them confiscated in the last 4 years.

It's really nice to go through the "premium screening" line. Generally it means that you probably fly too much, but it is still nice.

We have a Yeti that we got for family road trips. It keeps stuff well refrigerated for long periods of time. I dunno how much wasted lunch meat we will need to save to make up for the ridiculous price ;)

95% of all my github activity is in private repositories.

I've spent a lot of time with Angular 2 (alpha)[0] and React (redux flavored).

All in all it is fairly similar, and feels pretty good. You have to remember more syntax, because of the configuration, but it isn't as conceptually difficult as Angular 1.x

The templating syntax is "weird", and it definitely adds to the list of things you have to know specific to Angular 2.

React and JSX is nice because logic is just JS, and not special template syntax (directives).

I'd be happy to build an app with Angular 2 or React for different reasons. What's hard is looking at Angular 1 now.

[0] I've given multiple Angular 2 workshops, built large scale Angular 1 apps, and build React components daily for my business (a popular web developer video tutorial site).

I wonder if Golang might be an option for you? It's seen huge surge in use, and is more "modern" so might be more likely to be used by company that understands benefits of remote.

Code is definitely not Atom. You should give it a try. It's free.

The Angular team is full of amazing low-ego developers that are a pleasure to interact and work with.

Derek Sivers's article[0] on SRS for learning a programming language is a good read.

[0] https://sivers.org/srs

We use stripe for egghead.io and process lots of payments. Chargebacks happen, but it isn't terribly significant for us. Our subscription fee is higher, so perhaps that helps.

We had the pleasure of spending a week with Josh at his annual workshop in Aspen learning Hype/Processing. It's a lot of fun.

I did this "the long way" over the last 8 years taking it as a marathon more than a sprint. In my mid-30s I learned to program, studied business and economics, and switched careers from being a 3d animator to a software consultant. Continued studies on technology, business and marketing - inspired by Paul Graham and subsequently HN - via a series of amazing "virtual mentors" over the last several years (Amy Hoy, Brennan Dunn, Nathan Barry, Patrick Mackenzie).

This combined experience and study has lead to owning a successfully bootstrapped business. We don't have investors, we have a wonderful audience, and we just hired employee #1.

Stack those bricks! Every one counts.

You've made fantastic steps towards making money from your project. It's use in production shows that it has business value.

http://nathanbarry.com/authority/

I think Nathan's book describes an excellent outline for success in this regard. Basically you can look into "tiers". You give away "free" resources. Blog posts and the liberally licensed open source software itself. You can also paid resources. A book, perhaps screencasts that accompany the book for a premium price. Workshops and onsite training provide another tier. At the very top is consulting at ultra-premium rates.

This is oversimplified, but this is the idea. The "free" stuff is critical, and builds the basis and "proof" for the paid offerings.

A team 10x4 has all sorts of problems beyond pair programming.

I've also used these quite a bit. They are sufficient for about 50% of clients. The other want to use their boilerplate.

No doubt. I've experienced the spectrum.

I'm going to call bullshit on this, as I currently rest well above a single order of magnitude beyond minimum wage. Life is awesome. I own a business. We have health coverage. We eat high quality nutrient rich food. We take our 4 kids to a lake house for a month every year. I work when I feel like it. We travel globally. I've got more options than I ever thought possible.

Sure, sitting around getting loaded smoking cigarettes is Fun. This is better. A lot better.

It wasn't terrible. I was stuck in that job with no escape for 5 years. That kind of sucked, but on the scale of global suffering, mine has been minimal.

When our first son was born 17 years ago I was making $10/h. My wife got WIC, and used medicaid. We told the government that she lived with her mom and that I was a deadbeat. We needed the help, and my low-wage job would have been prohibitive. $10/h actually wasn't too bad in '98 for a single dude. I had an apartment, ate, had utilities paid, with enough left over for beer, weed and cigarettes.

It was rough, but definitely not hopeless. Not all of the decisions we made were good (lol, by a long ways), but enough of them were.

I never expected to be poor forever, which makes a huge difference. There were spans of depression where I felt like giving in and just accepting my lot in life, but punched through and kept grinding. Thankful for that.

This is interesting in that I look at all the crap my kids have and was thinking the exact opposite. I had a handful of things. A few games. A few outfits. These kids have piles of stuff (alongside their laptops, smartphones, and consoles). We are always throwing out/donating stuff too.

Maybe they are just spoiled...

This is good advice. You can read and learn while Still performing the tasks that are required of you. You can do this without feeling guilty. Go to work in the morning excited to learn while earning a living.

I've had to do this on multiple occasions. It was either that or wake up every day hating the prospect of going to work and suffering the endless boredom.