This overlap is frequently a threat to many people here. For whatever reason, unlike every other profession on earth, writing about the thing you're an expert/interested in while making money from it (or even the potential to make money) is frowned upon. Disregard it.

A few months back I decided to write an embedded db for my firm's internal JS framework. Learned a lot about how/why databases work the way they do. I use stuff like reading memory cached markdown files for static sites, but there are certain things that a database gives you (chief of which for me was query ergonomics—I loved MongoDB's query language but grew too frustrated with the actual runtime) that you'll miss once you move past a trivial data set.

I think a better way to ask this question is "does this application and its constraints necessitate a database? And if so, which database is the correct tool for this context?"

For me, I just wish MongoDB had scaling options closer to how Elatic/Cassandra and other horizontally scalable databases work, in that the data is sharded in a circle with redundancy metrics... as opposed to Mongo, which afaik is still limited to either sharding or replication (or layers of them). FWIW, I wish that RethinkDB had seen more attention and success and for that matter might be more included to use CockroachDB over Mongo, where I can get some of the scaling features while still being able to have some level of structured data.

"Step into my office?"

"Why?"

"Because you're fucking fired!"

I think for a lot of people, the truth is they wanted an excuse to stop writing code and LLMs gave it to them. That's why the shift has been so violent and abrupt. The majority found what they were looking for. No appeal to logic or reason as to why total submission to the machine is a bad thing will register.

Low-agency people who've never produced any work of consequence have no frame of reference for what it takes, and therefore, don't give a shit about what it takes to do it (and keep it going amidst their entitlement, indifference, and dismissals).

OSS is just a toxic world burdened by a perpetual war between passive aggression and ego, neither of which will ever "put down their swords."

If you experience the world as encounters with a series of demons, you might infer it.

This just explained the "who's on first" my wife and I went through trying to find the right wood block game. They're all nearly identical, even copying/cloning exact UIs, labels, etc.

I downloaded a cake sort game to my phone for my daughter, thinking it's the same vendor as for the one on her mom's iPad.

Nope. Unrelated company - just looks the same.

Shovelware, but a snow shovel, not a regular one.

There are companies that sell premade games you can buy and distribute.

That's disappointing. I genuinely thought they were just copying each other.

Never do anything on faith or as a handshake deal. Always ensure you get paid (hint: escrow is kryptonite for weasels). Trust everyone, just not the devil inside them.

Also, mandatory: https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1

Back in my freelancer days, I learned this lesson the hard way, and I became strict about payments (half in advance, the other half required to turn over the final work). But when someone I'd known for years had an emergency, and needed their software patched over a weekend, I made an exception and delivered the work in good faith. And then they tried to get out of paying for it. I had to harangue them for months to get the check.

The lesson I learned is that it doesn't matter how long they've been your friend, when it comes time to pay, they may still try to stiff you. The value of your service diminishes infinitely after it has been performed.

Just reinforces the golden rule of not doing business with friends or family.

> “Starting work without a contract is like putting on a condom after taking a home pregnancy test"

Choice quote from the linked talk (aptly titled "F*ck you, pay me").

Yes! I regularly share a link to Mike's talk - I was about to post it myself before scanning the comments.

Just had to fix an AWS account lock out this morning. Why? Despite having a $0 balance and payment info on file, until I set a budget (a new feature per their UI), all of my Cloudfront-hosted files were just unavailable on my business' site (I Cloudfront all static assets so all images, fonts, etc were just broken all of a sudden).

These are the limits of scale. Too big, too complex, and not enough skilled people to maintain and/or support it. And our hubris as humans prevents us from accepting it. Why? Why can't we accept smaller but more functional things/systems?

We don't have to live like this.

This is a great app. Helped me ID some ink caps growing on a bale of hay in my backyard recently.