mdparker89

Fabrik | Full-stack | Full-time | Remote | $100-150k

Fabrik is a publishing platform that leverages our proprietary CMS and Ad Ops expertise to manage publishers' engineering and revenue operations. Full Stack Engineers at Fabrik are responsible for the core product platform: from front-end UI and testing, to APIs and database operations. Full Stack Engineers work in close partnership with designers, product managers, and customers to build out new product offerings and tooling across the platform.

Responsibilities

Develop the core Fabrik CMS for writers, and sites for publishers. Be willing to jump into any part of the stack: API, Front end CMS, Sites templates, CDN, etc. Scale the platform by tuning Postgres queries, developing caching solutions, and building tooling for monitoring. We work with JavaScript (Node, Express, React) and Postgres. It is not necessary to know Node and React already, but expertise in web architecture is necessary.

Requirements

At least 5 years of software engineering experience. Can contribute across the full stack. Independent and autonomous. We are a small team split across several timezones. We don’t micromanage and expect that everybody holds their own. Clear and consistent communication. The team needs to understand where you are with your work and be informed on how to carry on from where you’ve left off.

Apply: Reach out directly to me: mparker at kargopublishing dot com

If you read through some of Alan Kay's other Quora posts there is some more context behind this. It goes a bit deeper than just the tools we build. We don't think like programmers about the act of programming.

Fred Brooks' essay "No Silver Bullet" has a list of past breakthroughs. These are examples of applying programming to programming to ease cognitive load 10x. The essay predicts that we won't see any more of those types of improvements. But we haven't even scratched the surface when it comes to the CAD and SIM tooling for programming. There are many silver bullets left to build.

The best thing in the last year was that I made a mode for my job. All of my work repos are under the same folder so the mode gets activated for any file under that folder.

It's small right now but has functionality like creating a new migration and switching to the new file. I also have yas-snippets for SQL tied to the mode. Using which-key helps me not have to remember all of the commands.

One benefit of the ethereal nature of digital is that editing is really easy which is part of what makes digital so appealing. The downside is that it makes it hard to silence your inner editor. Often the editor takes over before you even get to create.

Assuming that the probability of being hit by lightning is higher than the probability of dying from COVID under 30, it does not follow that one should take the similar levels of precaution for both. Lightning does not present systemic risk. Me getting struck by lightning doesn't change your odds of being struck.

There are some books out there that cover the very little that we do know (I've read a bunch of them) but the big takeaway is that we don't know a lot. The reason is that you can't create great studies with babies.

The good news is that you don't need to "fix" or "maintain" a baby. They need their basic needs met, they need to feel safe and they need love. Do that for a year and then you get a toddler.

The specialty actually provides context for the other subjects. You don't learn to write for the sake of writing, you write about chess. You get to practice the foreign language at tournaments with people from other countries, etc.

I highly recommend reading the book. It's probably not what you expect. He makes a compelling case that we should consider the opposite of your question: does letting kids wander aimlessly stifle them?

He also advocates for educational pluralism. You should be free to explore your question with your children.

Code is data. `(f foo bar)` is both a list of symbols and a function call.

You might be interested in reading Maria Montessori (of Montessori school fame). Her stance is very much towards molding the environment rather than the child. She basically says that you can't mold the child, but you can become an obstacle to their development.

I see this problem with a lot of big policy. It's sold as a rewrite when in practice it has to be implemented as an incremental refactor. The two have different implications and trade offs. A partial rewrite is often the worst place to end up.

One of the main takeaways in this talk addresses this directly. He's not advocating for everyone being smart, in fact being smart counts for very little. So how do we move forward as a species? The big ideas. However, it's hard to get adults to change and start using the big ideas so teaching kids is our best move.

I would really recommend seeing a therapist that practices cognitive behavioral therapy. I was where you are. Reading about CBT didn't help. I had to go and talk to a professional. It hasn't cured me but I can consistently fly at a much lower level of anxiety and the anticipatory anxiety is down to the day of.

The problem is these lessons are, for the most part, already out there. Unfortunately, some things you just have to go through to really learn. All of the mistakes I made were ones I read about. It just took me a while to recognize that my mistakes were the same as the ones I read about.

That said, if somebody did start that blog I would definitely read it.

I've been looking into how to improve my writing as well. One of the things that I've learned is that good writing is the result of good sentences. Sentences, not words, are the basic building block. If you focus on writing better sentences you will become a better writer.

I know this doesn't help with how to write better sentences but just having this direction has helped me focus. Hopefully it helps you!