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Discussion on: I'm the former tech lead for the NPM CLI, and I've been doing FOSS for 10+ years, Ask Me Anything!

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johannesjo profile image
Johannes Millan • Edited

In retrospect what was your favorite open source project you worked on and why?

I would also be interested in how a normal work day looks like for you. :)

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Kat Marchán

Probably sheeple, a full multiple-dispatching prototype object-oriented extension to Common Lisp. This was my first ever open source project and I worked on it for a while when I barely knew how to code at all, and I learned an immense amount from it! It's the reason JS was so easy for me to pick up years down the line.

It was also the first project I was really able to get some really good FOSS collaboration going on (with a friend called Adlai), and the positive feedback look from that was super energizing and made hacking on that project all sorts of fun!

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Johannes Millan

There should be more "POOP" frameworks!

Why do you think the collaboration worked so well on this project?

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zkat profile image
Kat Marchán

I think Adlai and I had a particularly fervent enthusiasm for what we were working on, and every time ideas came up, it felt like we amplified them for each other.

I think a really key part of that collaboration was my openness (as the original dev/owner of the project) to let others' ideas in, even if I was uncomfortable with them at first. Working on Sheeple really taught me to trust others' competence when working on FOSS and that the end product is a function of a lot of great ideas and talents that end up being greater than the sum of their parts.

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Johannes Millan

Thanks for the response. I think being more open about new ideas is an idea I should draw from for my personal projects.