---
title: DevRelCon, Red Eyes, and Enums
slug: devrelcon-red-eyes-and-enums
published_at: 2024-09-10 05:12:58 +0000
updated_at: 2024-11-18 21:17:14 +0000
summary: We discuss visiting NYC, DevRelCon, red-eye flights, and why enums are terrible.Some of the bits and bobs mentioned in this episode:- DevRelCon - Chef&#39;s Table (S2E1 Grant Achatz) / Alinea- Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon- CJ enumerating lessons about enums
description: &lt;div&gt;We discuss visiting NYC, DevRelCon, red-eye flights, and why enums are terrible.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Some of the bits and bobs mentioned in this episode:&lt;br&gt;- &lt;a href=\&quot;https://devrelcon.dev\&quot;&gt;DevRelCon &lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;- Chef&#39;s Table (&lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.eater.com/2018/9/28/17208050/chefs-table-grant-achatz-season-2-episode-1\&quot;&gt;S2E1 Grant Achatz&lt;/a&gt;) / &lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.alinearestaurant.com/\&quot;&gt;Alinea&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;- &lt;a href=\&quot;https://austinkleon.com/steal/\&quot;&gt;Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;- &lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.cjav.dev/articles/a-year-of-lessons-key-principles-and-takeaways-for-a-rails-apps-in-2024\&quot;&gt;CJ enumerating lessons about enums&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
duration: 2641
keywords: []
author: CJ Avilla
co_author: Colin Loretz
url: https://www.cjav.dev/podcasts/devrelcon-red-eyes-and-enums
embed_url: https://share.transistor.fm/e/cd4c9745
share_url: https://share.transistor.fm/s/cd4c9745
image_url: 
podcast_show: Build and Learn
type: podcast_episode
---

# DevRelCon, Red Eyes, and Enums

*Published: September 10, 2024*
*Duration: 2641 seconds*
*Podcast: Build and Learn*

## Listen

[Listen on the web](https://share.transistor.fm/e/cd4c9745)
[Share URL](https://share.transistor.fm/s/cd4c9745)

## Show Notes

&lt;div&gt;We discuss visiting NYC, DevRelCon, red-eye flights, and why enums are terrible.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Some of the bits and bobs mentioned in this episode:&lt;br&gt;- &lt;a href=&quot;https://devrelcon.dev&quot;&gt;DevRelCon &lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;- Chef&#39;s Table (&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.eater.com/2018/9/28/17208050/chefs-table-grant-achatz-season-2-episode-1&quot;&gt;S2E1 Grant Achatz&lt;/a&gt;) / &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.alinearestaurant.com/&quot;&gt;Alinea&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;- &lt;a href=&quot;https://austinkleon.com/steal/&quot;&gt;Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;- &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.cjav.dev/articles/a-year-of-lessons-key-principles-and-takeaways-for-a-rails-apps-in-2024&quot;&gt;CJ enumerating lessons about enums&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

## Full Transcript

  
CJ: What&#39;s up, Colin?  Welcome back from DevRelCon.  How was New York City?  

Colin: was pretty humid.  It was, you know, visiting   New York in the summer.  Always fun to go down the subway.  when it&#39;s almost 100 degrees outside.  

CJ: Yeah, is it this is not   your first time to New York.  And were you there for the   whole week or was it just kind  of a few days or what did that  

Colin: Yeah, I actually took a red eye   on Wednesday night and got there an  hour before the conference started.  And then  

CJ: I don&#39;t know.  

Colin: thankfully I was   able to sleep on the plane.  I have taken that same red eye and not   been able to sleep the entire time, which  then just wrecked me for the whole day.  So I made sure that I   would sleep on the plane.  Barely got any sleep.  Like my whoop detected that I just   didn&#39;t sleep, even though I know I did.  Then I had to figure out, you know,   it&#39;s been a minute since I&#39;ve been  in New York, so I had to like figure   out how do I get from JFK to the  conference using, you know, air   train to the This line to this line.  That was actually really easy.  It was like, this is, was like a,   like a personal development trip.  So like discord wasn&#39;t   paying for something.  So it was like, we&#39;re   training the whole thing.  Like what&#39;s the cheapest way to get there?  Cause I think it was like 150 Uber   ride to get to their conference.  So yeah, I&#39;ve got to the conference.  Had all my stuff with me all day, just   straight from the airport and just had a  lot of coffee and did the first day and   then got to go to the hotel and yeah, it  was there for the weekend after as well.  Just, it didn&#39;t make sense to like fly   across the country and then fly right  back as soon as the conference was over.  

CJ: hmm.  So what are your tricks for trying to   sleep on the plane for, for a red eye?  I don&#39;t know.  

Colin: Yeah, I mean so many people like to   do like ambience and stuff and that stuff  scares me a little bit I just don&#39;t want   to ever have to have something like that.  So I have an inflatable some sea to summit   pillow that I take so I don&#39;t have to  like I think the pillow is important But   I don&#39;t want to like carry a giant pillow  everywhere So this one like collapses down   into nothing and you can just inflate it.  I mask Noise canceling headphones, usually   AirPods, or if you have like over the  ear ones, it&#39;s always tricky though.  Cause like if you&#39;re on the end I didn&#39;t   realize this cause I was completely  out on this flight, but like, and   no one needed to get up, but I was  in the aisle and like, if you need   to get up to go to the bathroom and  you&#39;re on the inside and everyone&#39;s   sleeping, like it&#39;s not a great.  I don&#39;t know.  Airplanes are so weird.  But on the return flight,   it wasn&#39;t even that late.  Like, people were passed out and   you could see people trying to,  like, climb over seats and stuff.  And I was like, this is just,   like, this is how we fly.  This is not what the TWA commercials   of the 50s and 60s and the,  the height of, of, of flight.  

CJ: That&#39;s not the promise.  This is not what they promised us.  Yeah.  I, we have a red eye coming up.  I haven&#39;t done one for several years.  And I, I remember after I did the last   one that I would never do one again.  Like I was like, I, this is awful.  Like I hated every second of the day  

Colin: Yeah,  

CJ: So yeah.  Any, any any tips and tricks are Yeah,  

Colin: is that with the kids or just you?  

CJ: with the  

Colin: that, that&#39;ll probably make   it a little bit more complicated.  But I would say if, I don&#39;t know if   you&#39;re up for it, but like I did do  like half a weed gummy on the plane.  I was just like, I need this.  to make this work.  So I mean, I trust that more like I   know it&#39;ll be a few hours versus an  ambient where I&#39;m like, I don&#39;t want   to be waking up like even more tired or  

CJ: yeah, totally.  Yeah.  That&#39;ll help for sure.  Okay.  I&#39;ve also heard like, yeah, just do   your same like bedroom routine or  whatever, like at the airport, like   wash your face, brush your teeth,  like do the whole same thing that you   would do before you go to bed and then  like just do it and then get on the  

Colin: Yeah.  I mean, like screens   obviously are an issue.  Like, it&#39;s already you&#39;re starting   late, like, Honestly, I don&#39;t  usually stay up till even midnight   and my flight wasn&#39;t till midnight.  Things like magnesium, tart, cherry juice,   all those kinds of things can also help.  So all the sleep stack stuff that   everyone likes to talk about,  this is the time to use it.  

CJ: Yeah.  Have you seen those take talks or   Instagram reels of people, raw dogging  

Colin: Yeah,  

CJ: Yeah.  They just like stare, they do nothing.  It&#39;s like, I saw this one that is   the guy was like you know, six and  a half hour flight, no snacks, no   drinks, no water, no screens, no  music, just no going to the bathroom.  You just stare at the back of the seat   in front of you for six and a half hours.  Part of me is like tempted to try it.  Just like, it&#39;s, it just   seems like such a meditative.  Thing, but  

Colin: for me, I get annoyed by everyone   else on the plane, like I need to like  movies are probably the easiest way   that I get through flights, if I can  work a little bit of write or read   or something that&#39;s always good too,  but the idea of like, like, I hate   being Having to go to the bathroom  on the plane because it&#39;s small and  

CJ: Mm-Hmm.  

Colin: that.  But, you know, so then I, like on a long   flight like this, like I&#39;ll try to be  like, okay, we&#39;re going to get, we&#39;re   going to use the restroom in the middle.  So I only have to use it once, not try   to drink too much, but drinking water,  enough water, especially when you&#39;re   flying is important too, for all just  feeling normal, not having jet lag.  Movies are good.  Yeah.  There&#39;s like the tick tocks of people just   watching the map across the whole thing.  And I don&#39;t know, like you got to   take care of yourself on these things.  I don&#39;t think it&#39;s worth trying   to like win a medal for some  meditative monk state, but yeah.  

CJ: And then so you got to the conference   and was it kind of several tracks or  single track and then like rough idea   of like how many people were there  and kind of like, where was it at and  

Colin: Yeah, it was an   industry city in New York city.  So kind of like food hall,   bunch of businesses and  food, food vendors and stuff.  And so there was like a event space for   the main track was there were two tracks.  I don&#39;t know if they were actually   split by a topic, but you could  go between the two rooms depending   on what topic you&#39;re into.  And then there was an unconference   that was running both days as well.  We, we can talk about it here cause   this is, This is a safe place, but it  was interesting to see like how much,   there&#39;s been a lot of articles about  the death of DevRel and we&#39;ve talked   about it on the show before we maybe  even mentioned it in the last episode.  And it was just really weird to see   that, that energy from some folks  who aren&#39;t even in DevRel anymore.  And I&#39;m not sure what the goal is.  It&#39;s like, is this for your own   personal, like, like pulling the  ladder up behind you, literally kind   of stuff, but it&#39;s people who aren&#39;t  even necessarily in DevRel anymore.  And there&#39;s just a whole lot   of justifying re&#39;s existence or  justifying the function of Derel.  And we&#39;ve mentioned it before, but   like a lot of the stuff that we do at  Discord just doesn&#39;t look like normal,   well, quote unquote normal derel.  And when we worked at   Orbit, we saw this too.  Every company does it differently.  So you to, to say Derell is dead is.  Dumb because it&#39;s not one thing,   but every company is different.  I think Kelsey Hightower said   DevRel is whatever the person  paying you says it is, right?  At Stripe, it&#39;s going to be   different than Shopify is different  than a developer first company   versus a developer plus company.  Is it more community focused?  Is it content focused?  It&#39;s all different things.  Like what you did is very   different than what I did.  We probably had lots of overlaps,   but like, you know, You were  very much a face of the docs.  Literally when people would start, you   know, the videos, it was, it was CJ.  So it was an interesting   vibe to the conference.  Like there were definitely people   who mentioned some of those articles  and the, the, the perception of it.  Obviously a lot of people   also trying to get jobs.  So I think that also perpetuates it a   little bit like, Oh, if everything was  in, you know, the high times of DevRel,   then everyone would just have a job.  And it&#39;s like, well, it turns   out there is unemployment in  every industry and DevRel is not.  does not escape that too.  So hopefully some of those people are   able to meet people and get jobs or  connections through, through this though.  

CJ: Yeah.  I think as long as companies are   working with developers as customers.  There will be some form of DevRel and   dev marketing and content creation and  community building and all of that is like   important if your customer is a developer.  And so yeah, I can&#39;t imagine a world   where DevRel really permanently goes away  and in all different aspects, I think   it&#39;ll definitely shift and change over  the years, but yeah, I think At every   single one of these companies, there is  definitely some sort of need, whether   that is a full time thing or not is  debatable, but there&#39;s certainly like that   activity is important and valuable and  

Colin: Yeah.  Well,  

CJ: kind of a bummer to hear that   folks are saying that it&#39;s dead though,  because it was like, it&#39;s by far one   of my most favorite roles for sure.  

Colin: yeah, I&#39;ll share some of   the articles in the links and  I&#39;ll share one with you too.  That one comes from Casey who   started at Twilio danger, Casey.  And they&#39;re in kind of   more product role now.  And I think that they&#39;re an example   of like, they were, Twilio was kind  of the quintessential DevRel, right?  Like the time to first hello world, the,   which is great for sending a text message.  It&#39;s an amazing demo to curl and   send a text or ring a phone call.  And now with AI, like we   can do so much with that.  And there&#39;s a lot at some point,   I think DevRel did become how  many conferences can you go to?  And there&#39;s some very valid points.  It&#39;s like.  It is weird to go to a conference   when every speaker is a DevRel.  It feels like ad after ad.  And again, not every DevRel   does talks the same way either.  Like, there are some people   who make a talk and pitch it to  every conference on the planet.  And then there are people, I think   like you and I both approach it  a little bit differently, and we   craft a talk for the conference.  And sure, it doesn&#39;t quote unquote   scale, but like, It makes for a  good talk that isn&#39;t a sales pitch.  Even if we&#39;re dev advocates,   we&#39;re not necessarily pitching.  Like when I did mine, it   was not pitching orbit.  It was, we had this problem at orbit.  This is how we fixed it.  This is how you might approach build   versus buy or whatever in your company.  And it wasn&#39;t then go use orbit.  So obviously if you&#39;re.  Running a tools company and you&#39;re   at a dev conference, you are being  paid to chill your tech tools.  So I think that is, there&#39;s a fine line   of being the, the over, overly salesperson  versus truly advocating for something.  

CJ: Were there any like trends or   things that seemed interesting in terms  of like what modern or like, you know   What is devrel gonna look like in 2025  in terms of I don&#39;t know I guess I&#39;m   thinking stuff like short form video  content and or like stuff that&#39;s sort   of you know Beyond like docs and SDKs.  

Colin: There was, there was a, the talks   that were most interesting to me were  around like partners and kind of going,   there&#39;s like this concept of head torso  and tail developers in your company.  So the head being like those strategics,   torsos being, you know, kind of  like, we have a contract with you   and you&#39;re a partner of some kind.  And then you had a long tail of   just every DIY dev that finds  you and is figuring it out.  Maybe they&#39;re learning, maybe they might   bring it into the next company with them.  Maybe they&#39;re doing   something indie or something.  So those two were interesting.  One was from Roku.  And the other one&#39;s from   bear Douglas from pine cone.  They spent time at Twitter and   Slack doing dev dev rel stuff.  So those two were probably like   the most quote, like mature.  form of Deborah.  And I think where a lot of people   want to be like, they are not  justifying their existence.  I guarantee it.  Right?  Like they know exactly what the   power is that they, that they&#39;re in.  I didn&#39;t go to any of the, there will   be, all their talks will be released.  So even if you couldn&#39;t make it, they   will be on Debra Khan&#39;s YouTube channel.  But there was one on video from Kevin, I&#39;m   blanking on his last name, Kevin Lewis.  Just around like how to create   that video production, like.  Process and stack for yourself.  The one that was most valuable   to me was actually docs and SDKs  and it was an unconference talk.  So I didn&#39;t really get a sense   to answer your question, like  of like the future of DevRel.  And I think I kind of went with my   own assignment of how are we going to  think about maturing DevRel at discord?  That was kind of my homework of   what does it look like as we, if we  can build out the full team for it.  And it didn&#39;t really check any of   those boxes, but like the unconference  around what people are using, who&#39;s   also responsible for the docs and  all that kind of stuff was, was fun.  I, I think I am a docs   person at heart, so,  

CJ: It&#39;s, it has been really   interesting to see that responsibility  falls in different companies.  Where like at Stripe, the docs were   technically supposed to be written  by the product team, but we had   like a giant team of docs writers  that would also sometimes write.  The docs.  And then we had an editor who would like,   make sure all the tone was the same.  And then I know tons of other companies   where docs might be written by  DevRel, or they might be written by,   you know, support, or they might be  written by marketing or something.  And so, yeah, where that falls   is, is pretty interesting.  Especially like.  I don&#39;t know the different flavors that   we talked about before that kind of like  the four different types of documentation.  

Colin: Yeah,  

CJ: cool.  

Colin: that was DevRel con.  

CJ: Nice.  Nice.  Sounds like a fun trip.  

Colin: What were you working on   while I was running around New York?  

CJ: Oh gosh.  Last week.  Oh, actually, you know what?  Logan and I took a trip to Chicago.  So you were, I think when you   were in New York, we were in  Chicago for the first time.  It was awesome.  It was a father son trip.  The first one this year.  I&#39;m doing another one later   this year with Grayson.  We&#39;re going to go to DC.  But Chicago was awesome.  It was my first time going and we   like, Just played and had tons of fun.  We went and did like this boat tour   for architecture and we went to a bunch  of museums and his favorite thing that   I think, like, it made me a little  bit nauseous, but it was one of those   like flight simulators where you get  in the actual cockpit and as you&#39;re   like rolling the joystick, it actually  like rolls over the entire cockpit.  So you can feel like you&#39;re upside   down or like, you know, you&#39;re  diving straight forward or whatever.  It was, it was pretty epic.  Super fun.  But yeah, definitely a   little bit nauseating.  So, but yeah, Chicago was   Chicago was pretty, pretty sweet.  I think I would definitely go back   probably just Nicole and I do some more  adult stuff, go to shows and eat out at   more restaurants and things like that.  

Colin: Yeah  it&#39;s, it&#39;s it&#39;s not a cheap   dinner and I haven&#39;t been yet.  It is on my bucket list, but if you if   you guys really enjoy food and you and  Nicole go back, gotta go to Alinea.  

CJ: Okay.  

Colin: we&#39;ll put a link to it,   but one of my favorite chefs.  Really crazy story.  If you I&#39;ll put a link to the, I think   it&#39;s a chef&#39;s table story with him.  There&#39;s something that happens   to him in there that it&#39;s  just like such a crazy story.  I won&#39;t spoil it here,   but very cool restaurant.  I mean, it&#39;s definitely one of those   like Michelin star, like very expensive  restaurants, but if there&#39;s ever a   special occasion, it&#39;s on my list as well.  

CJ: The food was good.  I love deep dish pizza.  We had that, but I think it   was not as good as New York.  So like, I remember like every single   of food and well, I mean, I, I,  yeah, like the pizza, the pizza, I   think actually the pizza in Chicago.  I don&#39;t know.  We had like a slice on the   street, like in New York.  So different, you know, not easy   to compare, but the, like just  in general, overall, every bite   in New York was just insane.  And Chicago was like hit or miss a   little bit, but yeah, that&#39;s funny.  We did go, yeah, we went to this like   museum of science and industry, and they  had like a double Oh seven exhibit going   on, which was pretty sweet to see, like,  he&#39;s like Aston Martins and like, you   know, props and stuff from the movies.  So that  

Colin: that&#39;s a, that&#39;s a   good one to have a museum on.  No shortage of things to show.  

CJ: yeah, yeah, totally.  It was a blast.  So  

Colin: And you&#39;re back in   back in enum land and work?  

CJ: Enum land, I am, I   have a new rule of thumb.  No Enums.  Death to enums.  Enums are just like creating   so many, so many problems, so  

Colin: Foot guns.  

CJ: have decided that, yeah, it&#39;s   just, this migration is just awful.  So yeah, we haven&#39;t, we have I have   this big blog post about like ways  that you should do enums, right.  And I&#39;m, I&#39;m going to go make an   edit to that and just say, just  don&#39;t, don&#39;t ever use enums.  It&#39;s just such a messy, such a   messy, uh, migration to fix switching  from an enum to a proper model.  And now that we have the model, it&#39;s   so much more flexible and there&#39;s so  many more things we can do with it.  And yeah, just like breaking it   out and actually being able to  encode way more than just a string   into the value of the enum and,  

Colin: that the, for like someone   who maybe hasn&#39;t played with enums  or is just joining us, like, is that   going to be the biggest trade off?  Is that like, usually, yeah, it&#39;s just   a string or some sort of int value.  

CJ: right.  Yeah.  So usually I think probably the   rule of thumb typically for enums  is like, if you have some very   small fixed set of things that.  Or some very small fixed set of values   that could be assigned to something,  then you might want to use an enum   where, you know, it&#39;s either one,  two, or three, and it can&#39;t be any   other value in terms of like how it&#39;s  technically implemented, you can do it   at the database level, Postgres supports  enums you can do it at, Like the model   level in rails, where you have a column  that is either a string or an integer.  And like, you know, if you want super,   super fast, speedy, whatever, then you  might decide to store an integer in   the database, but then rails has like  these, um, you know metaprogramming   tools that expose methods so that  you can call methods on your model.  And those can get mapped to names.  Which are attached.  So for example, if you have like a   status field and you have pending and  submitted and canceled or something,   those, you might consider making those  in enum where in the database, you   actually store just like zero, one or  two, but zero might be mapped to like   pending one might be mapped to submitted  and two might be mapped to canceled.  And then you&#39;ll get   methods on your object.  Like you know, thing dot submitted   question mark, and that will  return true or false depending   on whether or not it&#39;s submitted.  So there&#39;s like a, a lot of nice little   conventional things that you get from it,  but we were using it for an item type.  In our case, that&#39;s like for an   estimate, can you, an item type  might be the walls or the trim or the   ceiling or the crown molding or the  window casings and things like that.  Inside of a room.  And so you would build up these   estimate items for like a line item.  And each of those estimate items   would be tied to an item type.  So in the beginning it was fine.  It was like, okay, yeah, you can do the   wall ceiling trim and crown molding.  And then over time it was like,   okay, now we&#39;re painting exteriors.  Now we&#39;re painting cabinetry, which   needs like inside boxes, outside boxes.  You know, exteriors need like   fascia and columns and stairs and  like all kinds of other stuff.  And so Eventually it was like, okay,   now we&#39;re trying to encode way too  much just into the name of the enum.  So we got to a point where like the   name of the enum was like paint,  square foot, exterior siding, whatever.  And that points at number like 94 or   something, you know, and that&#39;s like,  okay, we&#39;re like abusing it too much.  This should be a proper model where   the model has like a name and maybe a  slug and an ID and like, you know, does   it accept paint colors or does it not?  And is it a.  This individual unit, like, are   we going to paint each of these?  Or are we going to paint one of them?  Are we going to paint it by the   square feet or by the linear foot?  And so a lot of that encoding can happen   in a proper model that is like really  hard when you&#39;re just using an enum.  

Colin: How How does that work   with when you want to change  or update or add to a model?  Is there some sort of versioning   or anything like that built in?  

CJ: So usually if you&#39;re adding, you   add a new, you can add a new enum  without it being a breaking change.  If you are like, if we   decided, you know, we have.  Pending submitted, canceled.  And if we wanted to add some other one   that was like waiting review or something,  we could just make that number four.  

Colin: I mean, in the sense of   the models themselves, like if,  

CJ: Oh,  

Colin: if you&#39;ve completely changed the   model options or, you know, we have a  new thing that like usually additional   things are, are move, like they break  forward and you don&#39;t really need to   worry about it, but then if you&#39;re  changing up stuff, how does that work?  

CJ: Right.  So yeah, when you&#39;re using an enum,   if you, if it&#39;s in the database,  it needs a database migration.  If you&#39;re using an enum in the model, you   can add to it or change it from the model.  If you&#39;re using a separate   data model instead of an enum.  That gives you a lot of power to like   hand over the keys to non technical users  who can just click around in the UI.  If someday the sales team decides that   they want to support painting, you  know, flower pots or something, they   can just go in and add a new item type  for flower pots and like, it should all   just work as expected without having  to like make a change to the code.  So  

Colin: I mean, I guess you&#39;re working   with things in the real world.  So like, it&#39;s not like we&#39;re going to   find something that we&#39;ve never discovered  before a fourth, a fourth dimension.  It&#39;s like, okay, how, what is the   width, the depth and the height?  We know there will not be yet another   measurement that we have to worry about.  

CJ: Exactly.  Yeah.  So yeah, just kind of doing   surgery, replacing that with models,  and that&#39;s been a big project.  Yeah, just like putting a bow on and a   little cherry on top of the calendaring  stuff, but for the most part, like, the   calendaring, staffing, clock in, clock  out stuff is all Pretty much wrapped up.  So  

Colin: Very cool.  

CJ: yeah,  

Colin: Yeah.  I think definitely update your   blog posts, but I think a blog  posts around death to enums or   something might be interesting too.  

CJ: yeah, okay.  Yeah, I think that&#39;s coming in hot.  Ooh, another, yeah, I can&#39;t remember if   we talked about it last time, but I have  a blog post in mind about splitting Redis   instances, like one for view caching and  one for sidekick, which was a thing that   bit us and took a while to figure out  

Colin: that.  

CJ: yeah, what&#39;s going on   over there, project tracking,  you got some, yeah, what,  

Colin: Yeah, I guess.  

CJ: your preferred  

Colin: Oh man, I guess DevRel is   like more of my brain is right now,  but we&#39;ve been trying to figure   out how to track what we&#39;re doing.  When we do so many things, we   do a little bit of everything.  We, as a company uses   sauna for a lot of stuff.  We also use notion for a lot of stuff.  We have get hub for a lot of stuff.  And what&#39;s tricky is not necessarily   like, where do you put all the tasks?  It&#39;s.  What is, if we only have two people&#39;s   worth of time, what is the most  important things for us to be doing?  What are things that are popping   up that we don&#39;t know about?  What are things that we know are going   to come up that we don&#39;t think about yet,  but we don&#39;t want to keep it in our brain?  And like, this feels like a solved   problem everywhere all the time, but  the challenge is if you common view   that board by yourself tomorrow.  It&#39;s hard to know what of these   things are hard, take a long time.  Are things that we can do in our sleep   things that we already did unless  we really have a good system for it.  And this kind of goes back to   the slow productivity episode  that we talked about, where.  When someone does come with, with   something that they need you to do, like  asking them to go put it on the list and   they&#39;ll see how many other things you&#39;re  doing and they&#39;ll be like, Oh, maybe I&#39;ll   just do it myself or maybe it&#39;s actually  not as important as I thought it was.  But like today you couldn&#39;t do that   because you&#39;ll be like, Oh yeah,  they just have a lot of stuff.  Let me just put this on   the top of their pile.  And the problem with that is that we   don&#39;t either know that it&#39;s been added.  And that can be solved all sorts of ways.  So we&#39;re just trying to think   through like how to do this.  And we&#39;ve mocked up a thing in   notion to just play around with  like different concepts and ideas.  And I went down this like notion   template rabbit hole and bought  a few temp project templates to   see how other people are doing it.  And man, people are doing some crazy   stuff in notion, which is awesome.  But then you&#39;re spending more   of your time curating notion.  Then actually doing the work.  So we traveled a really   long circle around.  So now we&#39;re going back to Asana in   part because the team can also see it.  We&#39;re just going to try to   figure out how to make it more.  Like you don&#39;t get to just   add things to our list.  They&#39;ll probably be a different project.  That&#39;s like an inbox.  And then we&#39;ll move things into our   project that we, if, if it&#39;s in the inbox,  you can count on the fact that we haven&#39;t   seen it yet till it&#39;s been processed.  So we&#39;re still figuring   it out, but it has helped.  Even the notion has helped to take   things out of my head so that I don&#39;t  have to carry them around with me.  Like when I go home and just like.  Not have to worry about it   or if someone goes on PTO or  something like it&#39;s all in there.  We might end up doing some sort of like   top five thing instead of trying to  figure out like how do we tell everyone   what&#39;s important and what&#39;s not important.  Like we could just say what is important   and everything else is below the line.  I don&#39;t know.  Have you had any need to   demonstrate like urgency and  importance and stuff like that?  

CJ: Yeah, and we, we actually had   a similar discussion with our team.  At the offset a few weeks ago where   we were like, why do we need to put  tasks individual tasks into projects?  Like if I know that there&#39;s something that   needs to be done Can I just like create  a task assign it to myself and do it and   we kind of made a A rough rule that like  every task must be assigned to a project.  And so we use linear   for project management.  I don&#39;t know if that was one of   the ones that you checked out.  But that&#39;s like also a company   wide thing that we&#39;re using.  So if we were.  Had a place using Asana.  We, we would certainly use Asana.  I don&#39;t know if Asana has   the concept of projects.  But where we landed was like every   task should be attached to a project.  And then what we&#39;ve done is put   those projects into initiatives.  And I think they used to be called   roadmaps or something in Asana.  And so like when we meet with the   stakeholders from different teams,  we&#39;ll pull up their roadmap and be   like, here&#39;s all the projects that  we know we&#39;re working on for you.  And like rough statuses of each of those.  Here&#39;s the two that are   in flight right now.  Here&#39;s like, what&#39;s on deck.  And then here&#39;s everything under that.  But I think the biggest takeaway   from that meeting was that the main  Reason for doing all of the overhead   regarding project assignment and  project management was for reporting up.  It was like all about visibility   up and like very little about.  Like internal productivity and   like us getting stuff done.  It was like almost all about like, yeah.  How do we communicate to other teams,   how, and what we&#39;re working on.  And yeah, exactly.  Like where in the priority   does their tasks fall?  So, but yeah, back to your, one   of your earlier points about like,  when you look at a ticket, you don&#39;t   know, is this big, is this hard?  Is this going to take forever?  Is there like how many   unknown unknowns are there?  And there, that&#39;s like a very challenging   thing that I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve ever been  on a team that got super, super right.  We&#39;ve done, I&#39;ve been on teams that   have tried the like Fibonacci thing.  We&#39;ve tried the t shirt sizing thing.  We&#39;ve tried like a bunch of different   approaches to measuring tickets.  I think in my experience.  Breaking things down as far as   possible can be really helpful to  trying to like estimate out how   long something is going to take.  But yeah, even then there&#39;s a lot of   times where like you don&#39;t know what  you don&#39;t know until you get into it.  And so roughly what I&#39;ve been finding is   that the projects that we&#39;re working on at  Craftwork When we sit down to like design   it or think about it, we might write out  like 40 tickets or, you know, 35 tickets.  By the time it&#39;s done, we have   like 85 tickets or something.  And so it&#39;s like, you know,   more than 2x the number that  we thought we were going to do.  And of those 85, like 15 of them   end up just like never being done.  Ever.  They&#39;re just like stuff that we thought   we were going to do that ends up in  this bucket of like, yeah, nice to have,   but not happening until like, yeah.  So like a project, like the priority of   the project is actually, there&#39;s like a  cut line where like, after you&#39;ve finished   a certain amount of the work related  to a project, it&#39;s like, okay, we&#39;re   cutting right here because there&#39;s work.  That&#39;s part of another project.  That&#39;s actually higher than this.  And so maybe someday we&#39;ll   come back to these 15,  

Colin: those are listed as fast follows.  And then how often does the   fast follow actually happen?  And yeah, yeah.  That sounds very similar.  I do like, I&#39;m sure that there&#39;s   research being done on this, but  it&#39;s like that I&#39;ve been able to   point to in any project I&#39;ve been in.  I think what I&#39;m coming to terms   with on our, Team is that like, there  is enough stuff going on for like   a full time air traffic controller.  Like, I guess that&#39;s a project manager   really at the end of the day, but because  of we&#39;re like parallel to every other   team and there&#39;s things that can pop  up tomorrow that need to go out next   week that moves everything around.  And so like the issue is right now we   do the traffic controlling and the work  and the follow ups and all that stuff.  And so things get.  You know, it&#39;s just hard   to keep everything in sync.  And I&#39;ve still got note   cards that I write things on.  And I&#39;ve still got a sauna notion.  And very similarly, a lot of the   Asana stuff, like using the built  in project updates and project like   analytics and stuff will be interesting.  We&#39;ve never used those as DevRel, but   like being able to do like a weekly  recap that goes up to people above us.  So they know what we&#39;re working on.  I think you mentioned like,   was it 15 fives in the past?  

CJ: Yeah, 515s.  Yeah, yeah,  

Colin: those kinds of things.  I think we, we used an app called 15   five at panty drop and like, that was  nice to like, what did you do this week?  Cause there are some weeks where   I do so much little tiny things,  but if you then told me like,   what was your impact this week?  I&#39;d be like, shit.  Like, I know all those things needed   to get done, but if we looked at like  the core priorities of either our team   or the company or whatever, did I move  towards that or did I just like shuffled?  deck chairs around on the   Titanic type of situation.  And so you don&#39;t always   want to get caught.  Obviously there&#39;s tasks that   need to get done that roll up to  someone else&#39;s priority that is   core to the business and stuff.  But just so that you feel like you   have like autonomy and purpose and  all that, it&#39;s like, you also want   to be able to knock off like rewrite  of the docs you&#39;ve been trying to do   or the migration of the enums, Right.  So that you can put it   behind you and say it&#39;s done.  

CJ: Yeah.  I think a lot of it too, on the   tactical side, not on the project  management side, a lot of it is   about energy and enthusiasm and like  how pumped you are to do the work.  And if you open up that project list,   wherever it is, and you&#39;re like just  dreading every single project on there,   like you&#39;re not going to have a good  time and you&#39;re probably going to leave.  So like having a mix of like stuff   that you&#39;re pumped about and stuff  you&#39;re, That, you know, like your   vegetables, but also you got to  have a cookie every once in a while.  That&#39;s like, all right let&#39;s just   like, you know, play with the CSS  animation on this, in this button   that&#39;s buried somewhere, you know?  So  

Colin: I&#39;ve been thinking about it   more and more like a conductor of an  orchestra where you have space and noise.  Right.  And so you have space between the   notes is what makes it into music.  If they all play at once without any   thought, then it&#39;s not going to be good.  And.  Yeah, you have to have some small wins.  It can&#39;t just be the big, huge, you know,   maximum effort tasks after, like you  can&#39;t run a marathon over and over again.  There&#39;s gotta be some like tasks to   come back and just clean some stuff up  that we knew we needed to do and come   back and maybe even just do a small bug  fix that people have been asking for.  And everyone&#39;s like, Oh, thank.  You know, that, that might get   more attention than the big  scary thing, but the big scary   thing also still needs to happen.  So kind of having like some good   little stop stopping points along the  way where you can look backwards and   just take a break or, or switch gears  and, and intentionally context switch.  Cause yeah, to your point,   you&#39;re going to burn out.  You&#39;re going to leave if not.  So  

CJ: you feeling like, or I   guess I&#39;m curious like where  you get your inspiration and   motivation and vision from?  Is it like the company, you know,   the CEO is like writing some vision  doc and then you&#39;re taking that   and deciding what projects to do?  Are you working with directly   with like product managers from  other teams to decide what to do?  Like kind of where does, where does   your remit, I guess, come from?  

Colin: yeah, for me, it&#39;s mostly   going to be from product and they&#39;ve  already done all of the up the   chain to the, all the way up to  the CTO and CEO and done all that.  So by the time it gets to us, it&#39;s   like, this is what we&#39;re focusing on  either quarter or half a year at a time.  And so like, we kind of know like what   things we&#39;re going to be releasing.  What things do we need to monitor   and join product meetings and talk  to developers and stuff ahead of   time, start getting docs ready.  Is the feature done enough   that we can start docs?  Can we get the engineers   to write the docs?  So we can edit them.  So yeah, it kind of   goes in waves like that.  And then we get like PRS for stuff   that just might not be correct anymore.  So there&#39;s, there&#39;s the less vision   stuff, but the vision of like,  we want to have a good developer   platform or good experience.  So like if the docs are   wrong, let&#39;s correct them.  Go get some quick wins and review   and merge some PRs and ship some  new docs and stuff like that.  

CJ: Yeah, it&#39;s, it&#39;s a   tough balance to strike.  And yeah, like I think I&#39;ve at least.  Enjoy building stuff really   quickly for people that I&#39;m like  interacting with day to day.  And so, yeah, it can be, it can be   challenging if the vision comes down  from like super, super high up that   field might feel disconnected from  what, what you&#39;re seeing on the ground.  And so yeah, I don&#39;t know, but yeah.  

Colin: Well, in smaller companies,   like you are closer to, like,  the whole team can be in.  

CJ: yeah, yeah, yeah,   that is, that is nice.  

Colin: versus like a discord, a   stripe slack, like not everyone&#39;s  going to be in the same room.  So the vision can change and game   a telephone and all sorts of stuff.  

CJ: Yeah, totally.  What else is going on?  We already talked about DevRelCon.  Have you ever read that   book, Steal Like an Artist?  

Colin: Don&#39;t think so.  Still like an artist   from Austin Cleon clone.  

CJ: Yeah.  

Colin: How is it?  

CJ: So Mike sent me this book and I   had, apparently I had read it before.  I, I don&#39;t know.  On my Goodreads it said   that I had already read it.  I, I might&#39;ve listened to it,   but this was the first time like  reading the physical version.  And I.  Really liked it.  I thought it was kind of, it was   like a fun read and the way that  it was laid out was kind of fun.  He also has another book, I think it&#39;s   called like newspaper poems or something  like this, where he kind of like takes   a newspaper and then uses a Sharpie  to like black out parts of the words.  And so what remains,   it becomes like a poem.  So it was like taking some   other thing and then doing that.  So there&#39;s like a lot of artistic   little kind of blurbs and tear  outs and ways to look at stuff.  But Yeah, I really enjoyed it.  I thought there was   good reminders in there.  For example, like figuring out people   you draw inspiration from for like  anything, like in, in my case, I was   thinking a lot about like devs that  I look up to and have kind of like   followed their career over time.  You know, major, you know, major folks   like Jim Weirich and Sandy Metz and  Gary Bernhardt, also like content   creators, Ryan Bates, Abdi Grimm Kent  Dodds, and then also, you know, people   who I&#39;ve worked with or collaborated  with who I thought had like just insane   work ethic and high productivity and  we&#39;re just like really successful.  But one of the recommendations was like,   go find the people who you look up to  and then figure out who are, who are   the people that they looked up to and  kind of like follow the family tree up   and do research and try to figure out  kind of like, The foundational reasons   that, or, you know, kind of like core  values that might&#39;ve driven that.  So that was kind of interesting to   think about and also like think about  areas where I might be curious to   find some more folks to like learn  about and maybe be inspired by.  

Colin: Yeah, I think   this book comes up a lot.  Along with the war of arts as well.  Cause I think a lot of it also   comes down to like motivation,  inspiration, creativity, and like,   are you getting it from other people?  Like every thought.  Right.  Even when we talk about ideas on here,   it&#39;s like, we get afraid that someone&#39;s  going to steal our idea and go and do it.  Right.  And everything is a copy   of something at some point.  It&#39;s like, is it even once I have   like an idea for something, I  know there&#39;s like 10 other people   who are probably thinking on it.  Maybe are they actually doing   it as a whole other question?  Like, do you, cause it   takes a lot to do something.  So I do wonder, like, I&#39;ll have   to read this book, but I wonder.  How this is framed.  Like, have you, are you in   the middle of reading it?  

CJ: no, I finished, I finished it.  Yeah.  

Colin: Does it apply at all to the literal   steel, like an artist of AI and, and  

CJ: that&#39;s interesting.  It, it actually, it perfectly does.  And here&#39;s how, so I think like one   of the most core tenants of the book  is basically this concept of like   an artist doesn&#39;t just like, Imitate  a, like the same exact artist.  Like they&#39;re, they&#39;re not   going to pick one person and  do something just like them.  What they&#39;re doing is like looking   at a whole field, like a whole bunch  of different artists and looking at   each piece and saying, what&#39;s the one  thing that I really like about that.  And in stealing like just the good   bits and then remixing it to be  their own thing, instead of just   being like, okay, I see, you know,  Colin&#39;s got that really cool.  Hat on, I&#39;m going to put on   the same exact yellow hat.  It&#39;s like, okay, cool.  You&#39;re not, you know, you didn&#39;t really   come up with your own thing, but yeah.  And so in that way, I do think that AI,   because it is combining so many different  sources, like it is steel, like steel,   like, I guess it&#39;s like steel, like an  LLM, you know, just like yeah, exactly.  Yeah.  

Colin: Interesting.  

CJ: but it was, it was interesting to   me because I, I think oftentimes, When  people are learning how to code, they   say, Oh, I want to build clones of things.  And it&#39;s a great way to learn, like,   let me build a clone of Reddit or let  me build a clone of Facebook, or let   me build a clone of, you know, Netflix  or something, just to try to get an   idea of like, how would they go about  writing the CSS and structuring the   data model and building out the backend  and whatever of all these different   platforms, it&#39;s a great way to learn.  Like little tools and tricks.  But then at the end of the day, being   able to take all of those pieces  and instead of making something that   mirrors perfectly someone else&#39;s site,  you want to be able to make your own   site that has, you know, the, all of  the best parts or what you think are   the best parts of those other sites.  So  

Colin: goes into the, the buckets thing.  Like there are so many   financial tools out there.  And then like, we&#39;re like, well, we   want to do it a little bit differently.  And I had to laugh because I was   listening to mostly technical and I  guess Aaron Francis is also building   his own tool, but like only for himself.  And it&#39;s also going to be   a project management tool.  And also it&#39;s like a   super app for themselves.  And there&#39;s like, I just don&#39;t   like the way that most people.  do these things.  And Ian was actually using a new   tool that I&#39;ll have to find that  does what a lot of these tools do,   but doesn&#39;t do the budgeting piece.  Because like, unfortunately, and   fortunately, once you hit like  a certain income, like you just   need to make sure that the buckets  are right, literally, right.  Instead of the indiscreet.  Like, do you want to categorize   20 transactions or do you want to  just make sure the buckets, right?  So good name, by the way, TJ,  

CJ: Yeah.  Yeah.  Buckets.  cjav.  dev.  We&#39;re, we&#39;re, we&#39;re, I don&#39;t know, maybe   we&#39;ve got to put up a domain for that  thing and just like let people run loose.  I, I hit up Stripe again with some   feedback and we&#39;ll see what they say,  but yeah, things are just still not   working as expected, so I don&#39;t know.  We&#39;ll see if it ever lands,  

Colin: I&#39;m hoping to have some more   time to work on that and some other  fun projects trying to get back into,   I think we&#39;ve talked about so many  project ideas on here, the conference   room, booking and calendaring and  I&#39;m feeling, feeling the itch.  I need to steal like an artist a   little bit and just make some stuff,  even if it&#39;s not a net new thing,   like just working on buckets and like,  we know what we kind of want to see.  I still am using co pilot very like.  I don&#39;t do the transaction recording   like I did the first month or two  that I did it, but seeing the buckets   and how it works has been helpful.  But still stuff I would do   differently and buckets itself.  And yeah.  I think there&#39;s, there&#39;s a big topic   that we&#39;ll be able to talk about  in a future episode as it pertains   to co working spaces again, and  business and, and all that stuff.  But I think we can   probably leave it there.  

CJ: Yeah, there&#39;s your   there&#39;s your cliffhanger.  So you got to stay tuned.  Yeah.  Follow for part two.  

Colin: Yes.  Well, good hanging out.  Where can people find notes for the show?  

CJ: Yeah.  Head over to buildandlearn.  dev.  And yeah, we&#39;ll drop links to all   the resources we talked about.  And yeah, we&#39;ll catch you   in your earbuds next time.  Thanks for  

Colin: Bye friends.  All audio, artwork, episode descriptions and notes are property of CJ Avilla, Colin Loretz, for Build and Learn, and published with permission by Transistor, Inc.  [**Broadcast by**](https://transistor.fm &quot;Broadcast by Transistor.fm&quot;)

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