The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - Markwhen, Tauri 1.0, SLCs & imposters (News)

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

We're experimenting with something new: a super-brief Monday edition of "The Changelog" to help start your week off right and keep you up with the fast-moving software world. If you like this, would listen to it, and want us to keep it going... let us know in the comments or by tweeting @changelog. If you'd rather we didn't... also let us know!

Hello friends, I'm Jared and this is Changelog News for the week of Monday, June 27th, 2022. What the what? So we are experimenting with something new, a super brief Monday edition of the Changelog to start your week off right by keeping you up with what's going on in the software world. We'll cover a handful of the top stories and links from Sunday's Changelog Weekly Newsletter. If you liked this, would listen to it, and want us to keep it going, let us know in the comments, or by tweeting at Changelog. If you'd rather we didn't, also let us know in the comments, or by tweeting at Changelog.

Like I said, we are experimenting here and feedback is paramount. Okay, let's go. First up, mark when is like mark down for timelines. But instead of marking stuff down, you mark stuff when. Yeah, there's a long history of timeline tools for the web. And I've tested what feels like pretty much all of them. Most of them have you inserting data into an XML file, some JSON object, or worse yet, right into the HTML itself. Markdown style plaintext to the rescue? That is the bet that MarkWin is making, and after taking a look at the two demos, I think it looks pretty solid. Oh, and the resulting timeline looks great too, so that's promising. After 9 months of betas and 4 months of release candidates, Tari released its big 1.0 milestone on June 19th.

What's Tari? They call it an app construction toolkit that lets you build software for all major desktop operating systems using web technologies. I call it the first major contender to Electron in the cross-platform web tech app builder space. I was trying to make mine shorter than theirs. Oh well. People are excited about this because the project's focus is on security, privacy, and the environment, which proxies to performance. How are they going after these three pillars? Rust, that's how.

Will Tari deliver? And how do you even say Tari? Tori? Tari? Tauri? We shall see. Will Tari deliver? And how do you even say Tari? Tori? Tari? Tauri? We shall see and we shall ask because we're having one of the project's founders on the changelog real soon now.

Everyone knows of MVPs, not most valuable player but minimum viable products. But have you heard of SLCs? They are products that are simple, lovable, and complete. Jason Cohen first coined the term on his blog back in 2017, and Herman Martinez plus-wonded the concept on his post about why products should be slick, not just viable. If you're interested in the topic, definitely read both posts, which are linked in the show notes.

Herman concludes his with some steps to think about when you're building your next project. One, keep the feature set small and manageable manageable as opposed to large and hastily built. Two, make the product delightful to interact with. Three, stay focused on the core idea of the project. And four, have fun with it. I have to admit there's something slick about building things that are simple, lovable, and complete.

Last up, a public service announcement. No one knows what they're doing. Seriously, we're just making it up as we go along, didn't you know? Andy Bryce writes, quote, When I was a child, I assumed that all the adults running the world knew what they were doing. Now that I am an adult, I am under no such illusions. Just look at the current British government. They clearly don't have a clue. Setting that nicely landed political jab aside, Andy has a solid point here. He goes

on to say, quote, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Most of us who are running businesses had no real idea what they were doing when they started and still struggle with decisions now. End quote. I tell people this all the time when they ask me for business advice. I'll still give them my advice, but it comes with this disclaimer. I really have no idea what I'm doing. That's the news for now. Do you dig it? Do you hate it? Let us know in the comments or tweet at changelog. Seriously, do it. Do it. You'll hear from us again on Friday when Adam and I talk to James Long about his journey building Actual, a personal finance system as a business, for four years before deciding to make it 100% free and open

source forever. Talk to you then.