The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - I just want to code (News)

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Zach Bellay tells us about the devil and the angel on his shoulders, Pete Koomen thinks today's AI apps are like horseless carriages, Hyperwood is an open source system for crafting furniture from simple wooden slats, Scott Antipa agrees with YAGNI but adds YAGRI & Antony Henao debunks three common myths that get engineers stuck.

What's up nerds? I'm Jared and this is Change Log News for the week of Monday, April 28th, 2025. It has come to my attention, thanks to Camilo, that the Change Log newsletter has been redesigned in Gmail. I have changed nothing. Google has announced nothing. But the exact same email I sent a couple weeks ago looks radically different now. Just another day in the world of distributed systems where a complete stranger pees into

the wind and you get the privilege of washing urine off your clothes. Oh well, let's get into this week's news. into the wind and you get the privilege of washing urine off your clothes. Oh well, let's get into this week's news. I just want to code. Zach Belay's lifelong enjoyment of both A. Computers and B. Hustle culture has cultivated in him the classic angel and devil on the shoulder. Zach says quote, I constantly find the devil on my shoulder trying to convince me to start a new side hustle. Starting a new monetizable side project

is like a latent addiction. Giving in feels like relapsing. The angel says, don't worry about some side hustle, just do well in your day job and code for fun as a hobby. But the devil keeps telling me that you can be your own boss and earn what you're worth." Zach has decided, at least back when this was written in 2023, that he must manage that

devil, not vanquish it, because the bills will never stop coming. But he's also learned this, I can no longer force myself to work on things that I don't like forever, since I will burn out. As I mature, I am better honing perception for when and when not to give in to the devil's call to build something for profit. AI Horseless Carriages Peter Koeman noticed something the other day. He enjoys using AI to build software more than he enjoys using most AI applications. I agree with him.

Pete says quote, When I use AI to build software, I feel like I can create almost anything I can imagine very quickly. AI feels like a power tool. It's a lot of fun. Many AI apps don't feel like that. Their AI features feel tacked on and useless, even counterproductive. End quote. Pete is beginning to suspect that these apps are the horseless carriages of the AI era.

They're bad because they mimic old ways of building software that unnecessarily constrain the AI models they're built with. To illustrate this point, Pete picks apart Gmail's AI Assistant app and explains how much better it could be if they rethought it from the ground up. His biggest gripe is his inability as the core user to edit the system prompt, which would make all of these apps more personal and useful. Open Source Furniture Well, this sounds incredibly cool.

Quote, Hyperwood is an open source system for crafting furniture from simple wooden slats. Hyperwood empowers anyone, DIY enthusiasts, designers, interior architects, and small manufacturers to build beautiful, robust furniture using minimal tools and locally sourced materials." The concept is intended for everyone, but the state of the project right now makes it more suitable for hackers like us. All you need to get started is a terminal, a chop saw, and some wood slats. There are two published designs so far, a bench and a trough.

It's now time for sponsored news. Next-Gen Heroku is built on open source standards. The next generation of Heroku is called Fur, and is being built on open source standards and cloud-native tech like the Open Container Initiative, Cloud Native Buildpacks, OpenTelemetry and Kubernetes. This next technology stack represents the next decade and beyond for Heroku while building on their core principle, maximize developer productivity by minimizing distractions. Here's what Terrence Lee has to say about Fur.

Quote, Fur is still the Hiroku you know and love. It's rooted in the world renowned developer experience while built on a bedrock of security and stability. We achieve this by offering seamless functionality out of the box with the flexibility to customize as needed. In today's complex development landscape, minimizing cognitive load is crucial. This allows you to focus on what truly matters, delivering value to your customers.

Yagri. You are gonna read it. Here's a fun twist on Yagni, one of my favorite acronyms. You might not need it, but you probably are gonna read it. Quote, it means that you shouldn't just store the minimum data required to satisfy the current product spec. You should also store data that you'll likely use and read, such as timestamps and contextual metadata. This problem tends to happen when a UI design shows that you only need to display a few specific bits of data to the user so you only store those exact fields in the database. You've

satisfied the design and ship it, then later you realize you're missing valuable info to help debug an issue, do internal analytics, etc. To guard against this eventuality, the author suggests adding these fields to almost any table. Created at, updated at, deleted at for soft deletes, created by, etc. and permissions used during CRUD. See also my post from a few years back. You might as well timestamp it. Three myths that keep engineers stuck. Anthony Haneo believes software engineers don't get stuck in their career because they lack skills, but because they follow outdated assumptions

about how their careers are supposed to work. To help you get unstuck, Anthony is here to debunk three common myths. One, someone will guide you. Two, promotions are the only sign of growth. And three, career progression is linear. Anthony wants you to pause for a moment and answer this question. If I could break free from these myths, how would I want my career to look? I like that question, especially the second half. Myths aside, it's always worth asking yourself what you want your career to look like. But more importantly, append and why to the end. What do I want my career to look like and why?

Then you might get to the heart of what matters. That's the news for now, but go and subscribe to the changelog newsletter for the full scoop of links worth clicking on. Such as Self-host your own open source AI research agent A web-based free alternative to ScreenStudio This week's developer dictionary definition unit test Get in on that newsletter at changelog.com slash news.

Oh, and I did want you to know that you can now buy all of our ChangeLog Beats albums as digital downloads direct from our merch shop. And for a limited time, use code BOGOBEATS to get a free album with each purchase. Check that out at changelog.com slash beats. Have yourself a great week, like, subscribe and leave us a 5 star review if you dig the show and I'll talk to you again real soon.