0:01

This is Talking Droopl, a

0:04

weekly chat about web design

0:06

and development from a group

0:09

of people with one thing

0:11

in common. We love droopl.

0:13

This is episode 483. Meet your

0:15

host, Nick Laflin. On today's show,

0:18

we are talking with Nick. This

0:20

is your chance and my chance

0:22

to learn a little bit more

0:24

about our beloved talking droopal host.

0:27

And for those of you who

0:29

have your ears ringing right now,

0:31

with an unfamiliar voice, I'm Stephen

0:34

Cross, and the founder of Talking

0:36

Droople, and now I work behind

0:38

the scenes. And let's get on

0:41

with today's show, and welcome to

0:43

the show, Nick. Happy to be here.

0:45

It's funny, John and I record every

0:47

week, and for a long time you,

0:50

John and I recorded every week, but

0:52

now that I'm the subject, I'm

0:54

a little nervous. But I'm

0:56

sure that'll go away shortly.

0:58

Well, oftentimes you'll ask a

1:01

guess at the beginning or

1:03

mention how many times

1:05

they've been on the show. Have

1:07

you ever missed an episode? I

1:09

think one. I think I missed

1:11

like 99 or 100. I missed

1:14

the TV one. Oh, okay. That's

1:16

a long time ago. Yeah, I

1:18

think that might be the only

1:20

one. And for those listeners who

1:22

don't know me, I was

1:24

on the show up until

1:26

episode 300. and then stepped behind

1:29

the scenes and I think the

1:31

last time I hosted an episode

1:33

as like the intro was number

1:36

299 that was like over three

1:38

years ago now. Yeah, almost

1:40

200 episodes. Time flies. Boy time

1:42

flies. So this is a great

1:45

opportunity for listeners and for me

1:47

to learn a little bit more

1:50

about you. So we've got some

1:52

questions here. Some of them are business,

1:54

some of them are personal, and to get

1:56

your, get to know Nick a little better.

1:58

So Nick the Fr- I

2:01

have for you is we're approaching

2:03

500 episodes of Talking droopal and

2:05

when we hit that it will

2:07

be 12 years of recording. I'm

2:09

just curious on what is your

2:12

reaction to that? I don't know

2:14

I try not to think about

2:16

it because it feels like pressure

2:18

like I feel like we feel

2:20

this pressure every 100 episodes to

2:23

do something and I think the

2:25

only thing we've ever really settled

2:27

on is invite Dries to be

2:29

on to chat about the state

2:31

of Drupal. And so hopefully, hopefully

2:34

he'll join us again. It'll be

2:36

good to chat. I mean, that'll

2:38

be close to, I mean, start,

2:40

you know, Drupal CMS will have

2:42

been out for a couple of

2:45

months at that point. There'll be

2:47

a lot to talk about. But,

2:49

you know, when you first asked

2:51

me and John, if we wanted

2:53

to be on the show, I

2:56

remember, I still remember, I think

2:58

one of the things that you

3:00

said is, hey, this is an

3:02

experiment, if it's not a long

3:04

commitment. And the commitment is exactly

3:06

as long as my marriage has

3:09

been, right? Like a week or

3:11

so before. So it's been quite

3:13

the commitment. The listener is, like,

3:15

I think the listeners in me

3:17

as a listener now really, view

3:20

your role in the show as

3:22

like the developer's voice. You come

3:24

from the perspective of a coder,

3:26

a contributor, that kind of person,

3:28

which is great. It's a great

3:31

contrast to John, who comes at

3:33

the show from really a site

3:35

builder perspective. And I think the

3:37

dynamic of those two viewpoints always

3:39

makes for an interesting show because

3:42

both sides are covered and really

3:44

interesting questions come up for everyone.

3:46

What a lot of people don't

3:48

know. is you have another perspective

3:50

or another job on the show,

3:53

which is that you do all

3:55

of the recording, the post-production, and

3:57

the release of the show. So

3:59

I'm curious to know what of

4:01

that. that part of being involved

4:04

in this show, do you like

4:06

and dislike about the work behind

4:08

the scenes? Yeah, so I definitely

4:10

like, until I took over the

4:12

recording, I didn't actually listen to

4:14

the show. I like hearing it

4:16

a second time now because it

4:18

gives me a little bit more

4:20

insight, I think, into what types

4:22

of questions are interesting or when.

4:25

when we need to restate something,

4:27

right? Or like ask the question

4:29

again because there's a little too

4:31

much cross-talk. So I think before

4:33

that, you know, you took care

4:35

of that piece a bit, but

4:37

I think before that I didn't

4:39

realize like in the moment how

4:41

that can affect kind of the

4:43

listening experience. So I really like

4:45

that. I also enjoy the actual

4:47

active editing. I find it. I

4:49

can use that time generally to

4:51

contribute to something else, you know,

4:53

whether it's a specific product, like

4:55

it's time that's blocked off so

4:57

there's no meetings, but while you're

4:59

listening you don't have to like

5:01

be every second editing. So I

5:03

enjoy like it's kind of like

5:05

a blocked off time. On the

5:07

flip side, the piece I don't

5:09

like is the amount of time.

5:11

Every single week and it never

5:13

ends. Yes, and in general that

5:15

I mean... This show actually is

5:17

kind of a consequence of talking

5:19

about that commitment in time. You

5:21

know, it's one of the things

5:23

that we've talked about in the

5:25

last few, you know, talking Jupol,

5:28

I know what we call it,

5:30

meeting of the minds to talk

5:32

about the show itself. The quarterly

5:34

meeting that we have once or

5:36

twice a year. Yeah. Yeah. And

5:38

the idea is to give John

5:40

and I a break a couple

5:42

times a year and, you graciously

5:44

volunteer to. produced a couple of

5:46

shows during that block, and that's

5:48

what this is. So, you know,

5:50

this is one of the two

5:52

during this period. Really, it's not

5:54

that much of a... burden. I

5:56

found that I think this is

5:58

something I need to do about

6:00

my schedule though, but I found

6:02

in the last couple of months,

6:04

it's more meetings have been set

6:06

on Fridays, which is the day

6:08

that I edit, which means that

6:10

I don't finish the, like the

6:12

editing piece and the generating piece

6:14

until later in the day, which

6:16

means that I'm scrambling to upload

6:18

it at the end of the

6:20

day. And that feel, that's the

6:22

only time I felt pressure, right.

6:24

I had the same problem, although

6:26

this was planned, I had the

6:28

same problem, Ned Camp, right? Too

6:31

much prep for Ned Camp, so

6:33

I didn't have time to edit,

6:35

so I ended up doing it

6:37

on the weekend, which once a

6:39

year is fine, but you know,

6:41

when my Fridays, my Fridays used

6:43

to be just blocked off, and

6:45

so it was really easy and

6:47

kind of relaxing, but over the

6:49

last three or four months, more

6:51

clients have set weekly meetings and

6:53

Fridays, and so it's become a

6:55

little more pressure. You

6:57

know, there's nothing, I think a

6:59

lot of people would find editing

7:01

tedious, but enjoy it. I've always

7:03

enjoyed that part too, actually. One

7:06

of the problems I had when

7:08

I was doing it, not in

7:10

addition to all the other things

7:12

I was doing on the show

7:14

at the time, but I wasn't

7:16

religious about blocking off time, and

7:19

I think that over time weighed

7:21

on me and crushed me. So,

7:23

let's move on to some things

7:25

about your business. So, I'll listen

7:27

as no. because you say it

7:29

every week that your business is

7:31

called enlightened development. So I do

7:34

have a question on where that

7:36

name came from, but we'll get

7:38

to that in a minute. So

7:40

I think you've been doing your

7:42

own thing. I'll call you like

7:44

a solo printer for about 16

7:47

years or so. So I'm curious.

7:50

I kind of think of think

7:52

of you as working alone, but

7:54

I don't really know that you

7:56

do. I don't know if you

7:58

work on teams of people and

8:00

other companies. So I'm curious to

8:02

know a little bit. about that

8:04

structure. Do you really work alone?

8:06

Do you work with teams? What

8:09

does your business look like? Yeah,

8:11

so that's a good question. You

8:13

know, I, in Lane Development is

8:15

a company of just one. It's

8:17

just me. I do, there's kind

8:19

of like three modes that are

8:21

working, right? I have some clients

8:23

where I'm their only contact, right?

8:25

They are generally on the smaller

8:27

side. They need a website. anything

8:30

that it needs. Sometimes they'll have

8:32

their own designer, but generally anything

8:34

that they need, they go to

8:36

me. Those types of clients are

8:38

usually something, I don't have too

8:40

many of those clients. The other

8:42

two types are agencies, so I

8:44

have a lot of smaller agency

8:46

clients that, you know, they have

8:48

designers on staff, they maybe have

8:50

one or two developers, but they

8:53

just need additional help and want

8:55

droople expertise. and that in and

8:57

for them I either serve just

8:59

as a strict developer or as

9:01

an architect as well you know

9:03

those are kind of the tools

9:05

that I fill there but in

9:07

that case you know they have

9:09

project managers they have designers they're

9:11

finding the clients I'm just integrating

9:14

with their team kind of as

9:16

a developer or an architect and

9:18

then the third type is clients

9:20

that do have an internal team

9:22

they have internal designers they're not

9:24

an agency it's one project maybe

9:26

not one website but it's one

9:28

company And then I'm just integrating

9:30

with our team as a consultant.

9:32

And then again, I kind of

9:34

do whatever it is that they

9:37

require of me. Sometimes it's architecture,

9:39

sometimes it's just straight development. So

9:41

those are the three types of

9:43

ways that I work. I would

9:45

say the majority of it is

9:47

the latter two, right? Most of

9:49

my clients are either agencies or

9:51

larger companies that have an internal

9:53

development team. Do you find yourself

9:55

working on? Large long-term projects or

9:58

a lot of small projects? It's

10:01

a mix. So I have some, I have

10:03

probably, you know, one of my longest

10:05

running clients has been a client now

10:07

for eight or nine years now. And

10:09

it's just one project that's a

10:11

big larger company. I have a

10:13

couple of smaller agencies that I worked

10:15

with and I call them agencies, but

10:17

a lot of them are like one

10:20

person, one or two person teams too,

10:22

right? And they have a couple of larger

10:24

clients of their own and I've been

10:26

working the same project with them for...

10:28

again, six, eight years. But then some

10:30

of the medium-sized agencies that work with,

10:33

I'll do three, four, five websites a year

10:35

with them. So it's more like a, you

10:37

know, three-month build, you know, they'll do, they'll

10:39

usually loop me in on the beginning

10:41

to just, you know, from an architectural

10:43

perspective to make sure they're not planning

10:46

something that's going to be really hard

10:48

to execute. But a lot of times

10:50

they'll do the design and planning and

10:53

content strategy up front, then just have

10:55

me do the, have me do the, have me

10:57

do the build out. Do you

10:59

bring in any contractors yourself to

11:01

work on projects that work through

11:04

enlightened development? I do

11:06

actually to I have a couple of

11:08

people I work with one of them

11:10

you know Tim does a lot of

11:12

work with me still and he works

11:15

with one of those longer running projects

11:17

he's been working with me now I

11:19

don't know four or five years and

11:22

then I get another front-end developer

11:24

that work with that's justice

11:26

skilled and He just helps out

11:28

on a couple of projects

11:31

here and there too. But I wouldn't

11:33

say it's too, as like a percentage

11:35

of the business that I do, it's

11:38

not very high because like I

11:40

said, most of my, most of

11:42

the agencies that work with have

11:44

designers in front of helpers.

11:47

Exactly. And so Tim helps me

11:49

when a client needs something.

11:51

that is beyond my skills. And on the

11:53

front end, it's very easy to get beyond

11:55

my skills. It's not, it's not, to be

11:58

honest, it's not beyond your skills, it's. beyond

12:00

your interest too isn't it? Well it's

12:02

interest but also it's more like if

12:04

you ask me to move make something

12:06

bold or move something I can do

12:08

it I know how to do it

12:10

but I don't know like I just

12:12

had a long discussion with them this

12:14

morning of just a core misunderstanding I

12:16

had of how CSS variables inherit and

12:18

work and it's one of those things

12:20

where I could figure it out myself

12:22

right or take a little trial in

12:24

error it's not a big deal yeah

12:26

but one of the things that I

12:28

really appreciate about Tim is he just

12:30

knows that like if i present a

12:32

problem to him is like well that's

12:34

a in a block blah blah blah

12:36

and that means that this and okay

12:38

so the reason why it's happening is

12:40

because the height's not being set by

12:43

some of one of his children in

12:45

oh here's the issue whereas me I

12:47

just have to like go through every

12:49

line and find if I change this

12:51

does it work and I mean I'm

12:53

the same thing the team I'm with

12:55

we brought in a fronting guy two

12:57

years ago now and what a difference

12:59

because there were two back-end developers and

13:01

we were doing all the front-end work

13:03

and it's not like it's like you

13:05

we can do it but having this

13:07

guy just look at something it's almost

13:09

like magic what he just fixes it

13:11

he fixes the issue immediately and it's

13:13

like it's because what he's doing all

13:15

the time it makes sense right as

13:17

a solo printer what is there anything

13:19

that you dislike or which was different

13:21

basically working alone Yeah,

13:24

I think. I mean, I've managed

13:27

to build my business in a

13:29

way that it works the way

13:31

I like it. And that's one

13:34

of the things I really like

13:36

about being a solopiture or a

13:39

freelancer, right? I can pick and

13:41

choose kind of how I model

13:43

my business, right? Now, obviously, it

13:46

has to meet demands of the

13:48

market, right? You can't just go

13:50

out and make up something from

13:53

whole. But... I mean, I don't

13:55

like, the only two pieces I

13:57

don't like are the uncertainty. Although

14:00

it's been pretty stable for, it's

14:02

been stable for a very long

14:04

time, and even though it's been

14:07

stable, at least 10 years, but

14:09

even though it's been stable for

14:12

10 years, there's still more uncertainty

14:14

there, right? Because, you know, you

14:16

lose a client. If you're an

14:19

agency and you lose a client,

14:21

you have a lot more clients

14:23

to back that up. Whereas I

14:26

have, you know, I purposefully diversify

14:28

and I have more than I've

14:30

had clients that I've tried to,

14:33

you know, Close to 100% of

14:35

my time, and I'm just I'm

14:37

just not comfortable with that I

14:40

want some diversification But I don't

14:42

like you know that uncertainty always

14:44

is there. It's always in the

14:47

back of your mind The other

14:49

piece that I don't like but

14:52

this probably isn't unique either to

14:54

freelancers is the amount of time

14:56

that meetings take up I I

14:59

prefer just working on the problem

15:01

doing development, but you know meetings

15:03

is part of it and but

15:06

when you're slow When you're solo,

15:08

it's a lot harder to fill

15:10

those gaps sometimes and get the

15:13

actual work done. I mean, it's

15:15

been 16 years, I've got a

15:17

good balance, but every once in

15:20

a while I had to rebalance.

15:22

So speaking of filling in the

15:25

gaps, I was looking at your

15:27

D.O. page preparing for this interview,

15:29

and I see you have 665

15:32

credits for fixing issues. on 63

15:34

different projects. And you're the maintainer

15:36

of 12 projects. I'm not sure

15:39

how many of those are super

15:41

active. And from listening to the

15:43

show, you've been talking about doing

15:46

some more core commitment work recently.

15:48

So I'm interested to know how

15:50

like, how important is contribution to

15:53

you. It seems like it is

15:55

very. very important and how do

15:58

you fit that into what you're

16:00

doing day to day. So contribution.

16:02

obviously is very important to me.

16:05

I mean, I feel like it's

16:07

part of paying back what Drupal

16:09

has given to me, right? You

16:12

know, Drupal, even in the early

16:14

days when I was just a

16:16

glorified site builder and all I

16:19

was doing was finding scripts online

16:21

to kind of tweak things or

16:23

patch things, right? None of that

16:26

would have been available without other

16:28

contributors before me, right? And so,

16:31

and so I feel like. I

16:33

feel like it's, if you're using

16:35

a tool like this on some

16:38

level, you should find a way,

16:40

well, let me rephrase that. If

16:42

you use open source, you should

16:45

find at least an open source

16:47

project you can contribute to, right?

16:49

I don't, I don't think anybody

16:52

can contribute to every open source

16:54

project that they utilize if they

16:56

utilize open source, but you should

16:59

pick a few and try to

17:01

contribute back, right, where possible. How

17:03

I maintain that in my business?

17:06

There's a couple ways. One way,

17:08

you know, one way is recently

17:11

I've been asking clients specifically if

17:13

they're willing to sponsor a specific

17:15

contribution. Sometimes that's been before. For

17:18

example, I worked on... How have

17:20

they responded to that question? In

17:22

general... I asked most

17:25

of my clients to just sponsor

17:27

a couple hours a week or

17:29

a month or something, I think

17:31

month, and I didn't get any

17:33

clients that agreed to do that,

17:36

just like blanket contribution. Specific issues,

17:38

especially if it's something that's affecting

17:40

one of their clients, if it's

17:42

important enough, they've approved it. And

17:44

some have just implicitly approved it,

17:46

right? If it's a bug that

17:49

needs to be fixed, I can

17:51

contribute that back, right? So like

17:53

conditional fields in droopal, which is

17:55

a module that lets you basically

17:57

say, hey, show this field of

17:59

the... other field has value X.

18:02

Conditional fields for a

18:04

long time since Drupal 9

18:06

I think hasn't worked for

18:08

paragraphs and I kept bumping

18:10

into that issue it's one

18:13

of those issues that's been

18:15

going on for five years has

18:17

200 comments on it and

18:19

has had multiple merge

18:21

requests or patches or things

18:24

and All it really needed to get over

18:26

the hump like the maintainer said he was willing

18:28

to commit it but I needed some tests and

18:30

I didn't know how to test like I had

18:32

never written a test for something quite like

18:34

that so I didn't know how much time it would

18:36

take and I had tinkered with it a couple

18:38

times and kept running into blockers and went to

18:41

like three or four of my clients that all

18:43

needed and said look will you sponsor my time

18:45

to do this and they all said well no

18:47

because we need it but it's not that important

18:49

and if and if and we don't know how much

18:51

time it's going to take it's going to take it's

18:53

going to take. So finally, I get

18:56

tired of all my clients

18:58

asking for it and it

19:00

just got under my, like, I

19:02

don't know how to describe it,

19:05

but it just like gets stuck

19:07

in my mind and I kept

19:10

thinking about it, so I just

19:12

fixed it. And it took me 12

19:14

hours, and I went back to

19:16

three of those clients and

19:19

asked them if they would sponsor

19:21

post merge. And they also, they, they

19:23

all, and I, I mean, I, I

19:25

don't know how to do that, so I

19:27

let them know that I was asking

19:29

three and they all agreed to sponsor

19:31

four hours. That's great. So I, now the

19:33

core contribution, that's something I'm

19:35

actively trying to figure

19:37

out right now because, you know, as

19:40

I've mentioned, as you just mentioned,

19:42

I've been doing a lot more

19:44

core stuff, the amount that

19:46

have been contributing to core is

19:48

not really sustainable long term.

19:51

hook work that I've been doing,

19:53

I saw an opportunity to get

19:55

something done that would benefit

19:58

the community greatly. and

20:00

it looked like I would be

20:02

able to get it done in

20:04

a few weeks where if it

20:06

didn't get done at that point,

20:08

I could see it taking two

20:10

or three years in the core

20:12

queue, right? Because every single, you

20:14

know, one of the things with

20:16

core commitment or core contribution is

20:18

generally bigger architectural decisions like this

20:20

become, they get discussed and usually

20:23

things end up being better in

20:25

the long run for it, but

20:27

that means that it's just very,

20:29

very slow. And so with the

20:31

hook. conversion. I basically, you know,

20:33

working with checks and several others,

20:35

you know, they're mentioned on the

20:37

issue. They, they help me immeasurably

20:39

in the background, but I realize

20:41

that we could convert them all

20:43

in a way that they were

20:45

almost as like, like equivalent, right?

20:47

So we weren't fixing any bugs

20:49

in them. We weren't doing, but

20:51

we were basically just taking the

20:53

way that they were and moving

20:56

them to object oriented. And that

20:58

has the advantage of being able

21:00

to convert all of core. in

21:02

one go. And now there's already

21:04

been countless issues cropping up about

21:06

like, okay, how should we do

21:08

this? How should we clean this

21:10

up? How should we organize this?

21:12

And that stuff is all great.

21:14

That should be hashed out. But

21:16

now we can hash that out

21:18

and then module to module, we

21:20

can go in and clean it

21:22

up and do it rather than

21:24

waiting to convert everything. So I

21:26

think, I don't know. Do you

21:28

mind me asking? Do you mind

21:31

me asking how much time for

21:33

this one particular? Oh, that took

21:35

me probably 80 hours in three

21:37

weeks. So my billables for the

21:39

bunch of October took quite a

21:41

hit. It could be interesting. And

21:43

anyone out there listening who is,

21:45

I don't know if you have

21:47

any billable time available, but maybe

21:49

someone who wanted to contribute to

21:51

droople through. core contribution but doesn't

21:53

have a developer to do it

21:55

they could reach out to you

21:57

right maybe that could be your

21:59

two three hours a month or

22:01

a week coming from a client

22:04

that you don't have yet. Yeah,

22:06

if anybody wants to, in fact,

22:08

I should reach out to, there's

22:10

one person in particular that said

22:12

I should reach out to when

22:14

I'm considering doing this again and

22:16

I haven't, so I should. But

22:18

yeah, if anybody wants to sponsor

22:20

time for me to work on

22:22

core or even module specifically, I

22:24

would love to have that discussion

22:26

because yeah, the core contribution bug

22:28

has bit me. I would love

22:30

to continue it at the pace

22:32

that I am, but you know

22:34

if I'm being realistic it's I

22:37

can't sustain this for too much

22:39

longer at the level that I've

22:41

been doing it, but but you're

22:43

doing too much of the free

22:45

work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but

22:47

they're nice, but the nice thing

22:49

is, like I said, you know,

22:51

one of the reasons why I

22:53

did push through was I saw

22:55

an opportunity to save the community.

22:57

I don't even know how many

22:59

hours of, you know, just churn

23:01

and discussion. And like I said,

23:03

the discussion that needs to happen

23:05

on that stuff can still happen.

23:07

It's just rather, let's discuss it

23:10

before we do it. It's like,

23:12

okay, let's discuss how the organization

23:14

has been done. And I'm really

23:16

glad that I did it for

23:18

a few reasons. One, I mean,

23:20

other than just being proud of

23:22

the contribution, but we uncovered, I

23:24

don't know how many, like, fairly

23:26

critical bugs. that would have been

23:28

uncovered until things started getting converted.

23:30

So we were able to fix

23:32

at least three or four things

23:34

that would have been that they

23:36

were painful. Some of them were

23:38

painful to fix and took a

23:40

few days of work. But it's

23:43

a lot less pressure to do

23:45

that when people aren't using the

23:47

system. These bugs, Nick, that you

23:49

found by looking through the code

23:51

and suspecting there was a problem

23:53

or was is any testing the

23:55

testing discover these bugs? So they

23:57

were bugs for example like. We

24:00

had marked we had thought that

24:02

you could convert let me think

24:04

through this for a second You

24:06

keep using the word we too.

24:08

Yeah, oh, I did I worked

24:11

very closely with checks on doing

24:13

a lot of this stuff so

24:15

a lot of the questions I

24:17

can't give him I mean he

24:19

goes by the username goes to

24:21

droop will pass now on droop

24:23

letter I can't give him enough

24:25

credit for helping me, but but

24:27

for example we had converted hook

24:29

hook info which if you don't

24:31

know what that hook does it's

24:33

the one that allows you to

24:35

put your hooks in random ink

24:37

files and have them just auto

24:39

load so like if you write

24:41

a module or download a module

24:43

many times there will be a

24:45

module name dot tokens dot ink

24:48

file and has all the token

24:50

related stuff and a module name

24:52

dot views dot ink file and

24:54

that holds a lot of views

24:56

data altering right and so those,

24:58

you know, because of the way

25:00

objects oriented hooks work, those hooks

25:02

can't be object oriented. But we

25:04

didn't know that. Or cash flush.

25:06

There's a, there's a hook for

25:08

flushing cash or for reacting on

25:10

cash flush. Initially, like there's no

25:12

reason I think that that can't

25:14

be object oriented. Well, it turns

25:16

out that module installer calls it

25:18

by calling, by taking every module

25:20

name that it's installing and calling

25:23

the function. model name, underscore, cash,

25:25

flush, underscore, flush, which is what

25:27

the hook name used to be,

25:29

but now it's not procedural, and

25:31

now it's an object drawing, it's

25:33

in a class and a method.

25:35

So that doesn't work. So we

25:37

had to fix it. So a

25:39

lot of that stuff just wouldn't

25:41

have been discovered until people started

25:43

converting stuff. But because we did

25:45

the conversion on core and core

25:47

implements so many hooks, we able

25:49

to uncover tons and tons and

25:51

tons and not tons. Maybe half

25:53

a dozen issues like that. And

25:55

fix them. And fix them before.

25:58

11.1 came out. So it's a

26:00

lot. tidier. So for those of

26:02

you listening who love it

26:04

when Nick dives a little

26:06

deep into something you've just

26:08

got your five minutes for

26:11

this episode and we're gonna

26:13

move on to some personal

26:15

background questions. Now the first

26:17

one I just added to

26:20

the list you'll see and

26:22

I misspelled it. I don't

26:24

know that in the show

26:26

anyone has ever discussed your

26:28

office mate. Anyone who's a

26:31

patron will get the pre-show

26:33

and hear about the office

26:36

mate, but tell me about

26:38

your office mate, Nick. Kitako,

26:40

yeah, Kitako is my wife

26:42

a nice dog. He's a

26:45

Foxhound beagle mix. So

26:47

he kind of looks like a

26:49

beagle, but he's the size of

26:51

a lab. He's about 75 pounds.

26:53

He's about five pounds overweight right

26:55

now. He needs to go on

26:58

a diet, but he is never

27:00

happy to be on a diet.

27:02

He's gonna be nine in January.

27:04

Yeah. Yeah, he was born. So

27:06

we got him when he was

27:08

three months old. He was born the

27:10

day we bought our house. So he

27:12

kind of took that as a sign

27:15

that we should adopt him. And

27:17

I always wanted. I didn't

27:19

always want a dog. When my

27:21

wife said she wanted a dog, I

27:23

thought about it and realized the

27:25

kind of dog I wanted was

27:27

like, oh my goodness, what's the name

27:30

of the dog? I can't even think

27:32

of it right now. Basset

27:34

hound. Bassetound. I wanted a Basset

27:37

hound. And Joanna heard hound.

27:39

And there was a shelter near us

27:41

that said they had some hounds in.

27:43

And so she said, let's go look

27:45

at it. And... He's a big old

27:47

foxhound and I looked at and I looked

27:50

at him. He was super super calm and

27:52

that's really what I wanted I didn't

27:54

want a high energy and I knew hounds

27:56

are high energy right? She's like well, but

27:59

she didn't hear She didn't know that

28:01

hounds are generally high energy and that

28:03

just basset hounds aren't. Right, I was

28:05

going to say, because he's a high

28:07

energy dog, right? Yeah, so he was

28:09

super calm when we got him. He

28:11

was super calm the next day. He

28:14

was super scared. No, he had just

28:16

been neutered and was on drugs and

28:18

was depressed. I get it. He woke

28:20

up on the third day and we

28:22

learned that we had a very high

28:24

energy dog. Right. They kind of, they

28:26

warned us a bit when we were

28:29

adopting him, but we already started. It's

28:31

funny how quickly you get attached to

28:33

someone. And we were filling out the

28:35

paperwork and like, by the way, you

28:37

have to be careful and heat because

28:39

he will run until he dies. And

28:41

I was like, hmm. Is he high

28:44

energy? She's like, yeah. I was like,

28:46

okay, but he seems calm. I didn't

28:48

quite believe her. And like I said,

28:50

at that point, we already started and

28:52

I was like, once you started off.

28:54

And I started off. And now you

28:56

started off. And now you started off.

28:59

And now you started off. And now

29:01

you started off. And now you started

29:03

off. And now you can't, you can't,

29:05

you can't, you can't, you can't, you

29:07

can't. Yeah, so we got ourselves a

29:09

very high-energy too. Yeah, and he hangs

29:11

out in the office with you most

29:14

of the day? Yeah, he hangs out,

29:16

goes outside about five times a day.

29:18

But yeah, he usually alternates between going

29:20

in his house and sitting on my

29:22

feet. So let's expand from your office

29:24

mate to the rest of your life.

29:26

Maybe you could fill us in on

29:29

what your home life is like as

29:31

much as you're comfortable doing. Yeah, so

29:33

as listeners know, I'm married. I've been

29:35

married to Joanna for 11 and a

29:37

half years now. And, you know, we

29:39

do almost everything together. We usually have

29:41

breakfast in the morning. I'm not going

29:44

to go through a whole day like

29:46

that, but, you know, that's one of

29:48

the big changes getting married. I never

29:50

ate breakfast before now, every morning, I

29:52

make breakfast with her. But, you know,

29:54

she works from home now too. She

29:56

is, she and I are... doing

30:00

a lot of Pilates, right? We

30:03

started, I don't know if I

30:05

mentioned that on the show, but

30:07

we started taking Pilates about two

30:10

years ago. We do that four

30:12

times a week right now, four

30:14

times a week. So do that,

30:16

we watch a lot of movies

30:19

and you know, kind of just

30:21

hang out, see family. I, you

30:23

know, I never know what, this

30:26

is one of the questions that

30:28

was like, well, you know, when

30:30

you asked this, like, what answers

30:32

expected. Did you grow up in

30:35

Worcester, which is where you live

30:37

now? I grew around Worcester. You

30:39

know, I moved here, I moved

30:42

specifically to Worcester in 2010, I

30:44

think. So for those who don't

30:46

know the geography of Massachusetts, where

30:48

is Worcester? Worcester is right in

30:51

the center. They call it the

30:53

heart of Worcester. Now it's technically

30:55

not the geographic center. Rutland, Rutland,

30:58

that Rutland is. You know Rutland's

31:00

a small town and it's kind

31:02

of their only claim to fame

31:04

so I like to consider it.

31:07

I call it like the snow

31:09

and and tornado alley of Massachusetts,

31:11

right? It seems like all the

31:14

snowstorms run right through Worcester Yeah,

31:16

we get in fact we get

31:18

about we're supposed to get half

31:20

an inch of snow. We got

31:23

about five this morning. So I

31:25

had to go shovel after this

31:29

Do you want to talk

31:31

about at all about your

31:33

childhood or your family? Brothers

31:35

and sisters? Yeah, sure. So

31:37

we have, so yeah, so

31:40

I have a big family.

31:42

Growing up and right now,

31:44

yeah, so growing, I have

31:46

six brothers and sisters. Six.

31:48

Six. And so where are

31:50

you in that hierarchy? I'm

31:53

the oldest and my sister,

31:55

and it goes, you know,

31:57

the couple of quirk. It

31:59

goes boy, girl, boy, girl,

32:01

boy. My youngest brother was born,

32:04

he's 15 years younger than me.

32:06

He was born in my birthday.

32:08

So we share. So after I

32:10

turn 15, I no longer had

32:12

birthdays. I mean, I did, but,

32:14

you know, I did, but it, you

32:16

know, I did, but it was

32:18

more, we shared. That's a problem

32:20

when you're older, it's kind of

32:22

cool. Yeah, I mean, I mean,

32:24

at that point I was 16,

32:26

so that's true. But yeah, they,

32:28

you know, and then I've got

32:30

tons of tons of cousins, but

32:32

I would say the biggest addition

32:35

right now is nieces and nephews.

32:38

My sister had her first

32:40

daughter four and a half

32:42

years ago. And since then,

32:45

we've got an additional, they're

32:47

now seven nieces and

32:49

nephews in my family. Wow.

32:51

On the holidays, do you

32:53

guys all get together? We

32:55

do so we actually that was a

32:58

big discussion This year is to figure

33:00

out how to organize it because You

33:02

know There's just so many people now

33:04

we have to all fit in one

33:06

place and and we so we kind

33:09

of rearrang You know, I don't know

33:11

how much our listeners want to hear

33:13

about the the ins and outs of

33:15

the the Laflin family holidays, but we

33:17

had to like rearrange a bunch of

33:19

stuff in the in the dynamic this

33:21

year and it worked so much better

33:23

So I'm glad we did. But yeah,

33:25

holidays are getting the decibel levels

33:27

going up. Yeah, of course. But

33:30

it also is making a lot

33:32

of fun. We usually have like

33:34

a novena each year. So

33:37

novena is a Colombian tradition

33:39

during the holidays. They have

33:41

a starting on the 16th, I think.

33:43

They get together in each other's

33:46

houses and kind of read the story.

33:48

Christmas, right? So it's like on the

33:50

first night, on the second night, and

33:52

some prayers and then has some carols

33:54

and food and stuff. So it's a

33:56

huge tradition in Columbia. So how did

33:58

you get a Colombian tradition? your family?

34:00

Oh, my wife is calling me.

34:02

Oh, okay. So nice leading question

34:05

there. Yeah. So Joanna, Joanna brought

34:07

that tradition with here and maybe

34:09

four years ago we started doing

34:11

with all the, you know, with

34:14

my family too and having the

34:16

nieces and nephews. And one of

34:18

the things, so usually we just

34:20

pick a day that's convenient, but

34:22

it's within the novena. And one

34:25

of the things that we started

34:27

doing. is giving all of her

34:29

nieces and nephews their Christmas gift

34:31

during that day so that our

34:34

gift comes. Yeah, our gift comes

34:36

during a day when it's not

34:38

Christmas and everybody's all mixed in.

34:40

That's great. Yeah, and we always

34:42

have, you know, food and a

34:45

pseudo potluck, you know, people bring

34:47

desserts and stuff and that we

34:49

provide kind of a main meal.

34:51

Yeah, it's definitely looking forward to

34:53

it. It's always fun. Yeah, so

34:56

outside of droople and... the

34:58

things that you do for the

35:00

community. I think everyone knows it.

35:02

You have a love for Lego.

35:04

We can see it behind you

35:07

right now. In our newsletter, each

35:09

week, there's a mini figure that

35:11

you contribute to some information about,

35:13

which is really cool. So I'm

35:15

a little bit interested in your

35:17

Lego stuff, so... Do you have

35:19

any particular collections or sets that

35:21

you collect particularly because the Lego

35:24

universe is so big? Yeah. And

35:26

would you see yourself a collector?

35:28

I don't even know that are

35:30

you? Yeah I would consider myself

35:32

probably more of a collector than

35:34

you know like a custom builder

35:36

or something right some one of

35:38

the things I like about Lego

35:40

is that there's so many different

35:43

ways to enjoy the hobby right

35:45

so I'm a collector I mean

35:47

I enjoy building the sets I

35:49

collect I'm not a I think

35:51

there are some collectors who just

35:53

buy boxes and boxes and have

35:55

no intention of building them. You

35:57

know, that's not the type of

35:59

collector I am. I'm a collector.

36:02

There's people that like to build

36:04

custom brand new things. There's people

36:06

like to do photography. There's people

36:08

that like to do stop motion,

36:10

right? There's a million ways to

36:12

enjoy the hobby. To answer your

36:14

question, there are three main ones

36:16

I collect that I would consider

36:19

myself, well, a few. The three

36:21

main ones are the mini figure

36:23

collectible series, which is a series

36:25

that, you know, Lego releases three

36:27

set. three sets of these a

36:29

year. There's usually 12 figures in

36:31

them. And they're either 12 from

36:33

some IP, like they've done Marvel,

36:35

they've done Disney a few times,

36:38

they've done Harry Potter a couple

36:40

times, or from like a custom

36:42

one that they, you know, they

36:44

just make stuff up, right? And

36:46

so I always get those, right?

36:48

I have every single one of

36:50

them, except for there's one called

36:52

Mr. And this is the one

36:54

thing I really don't like about

36:57

Lego. During their 10th anniversary and

36:59

the 10th Collectible series, they put

37:01

a gold mini figure, not real

37:03

gold, like gold, chrome painted, in

37:05

5,000 boxes, and that's all that

37:07

there were, across the world. And

37:09

it's one of the only true

37:11

counterfeit ones. But to buy one

37:13

of those authenticated is above five

37:16

or six thousand dollars So I

37:18

will never own one of them

37:20

I mean if I find one

37:22

or hit the lottery maybe but

37:24

I can't justify spending that money

37:26

on On a single figure so

37:28

that's that's the main one I

37:30

collect and I love it because

37:33

do you put all of them

37:35

in case I've seen the cases

37:37

that you have You don't have

37:39

to show us on camera, but

37:41

do you case all of the

37:43

mini figures? Well, it's not possible.

37:45

I've cased all of them, but

37:47

the most recent probably like five

37:49

series just because I filled the

37:52

cases I have and I don't

37:54

have more wall space to put

37:56

it. That's what I was thinking.

37:58

I was thinking you only have

38:00

so many walls, right? Yeah. Yeah.

38:02

And then so then the other

38:04

two series that I collect, no

38:06

matter what, are these buildings. So

38:08

you can see the buildings right

38:11

there. Yep. And some up here.

38:13

So those are the called the

38:15

modular building series. I have every

38:17

single one of those. They just

38:19

announced the newest one. I don't

38:21

remember what it is. But I

38:23

have every single one of those.

38:25

And you know, those are some

38:28

of my favorite builds. They're very

38:30

detailed. They always have funny little

38:32

details. They're a lot of fun.

38:34

Yeah, so the modular series. And

38:36

then the third one that I

38:38

always buy, although I haven't completed

38:40

this one, is the Christmas set.

38:42

So the Christmas set, every year

38:44

they come out with a $100

38:47

set, it's one of the only

38:49

ones that they didn't increase the

38:51

increase the price the price the

38:53

price on. this year's was the

38:55

same price. It's always a great

38:57

value and I always make a

38:59

nativity with it. And again I

39:01

don't I don't have every single

39:03

one of those because I got

39:06

in a little too late and

39:08

all the there's like four or

39:10

five when they first started getting

39:12

their five six hundred bucks each

39:14

not right not planning on those

39:16

are more attainable though when you

39:18

get to the yeah to complete

39:20

your collection. So I so I

39:23

did so there's a website called

39:25

and this was part of my

39:27

hobby for a while though. Now

39:29

that I've completed most of my

39:31

collection, you know, and I'm just

39:33

buying newer ones, I don't do

39:35

this as much. But there's a

39:37

website called Bricklink, and Bricklink is,

39:39

it's owned by Lego now as

39:42

well, but it's for, it's kind

39:44

of like eBay for Lego. You

39:46

can buy use sets, you can

39:48

buy used parts, it's very intimidating,

39:50

but you're getting real Lego. Right.

39:52

Right. And they're very incentivized to

39:54

make sure things are resolved. And

39:56

I didn't, so you can, so

39:58

you can, what you can do

40:01

is you can build like a

40:03

wish list that has all the

40:05

parts of the set and then

40:07

buy the pieces piece by piece.

40:09

By like, now, what I learned is

40:11

generally that ends up being about as

40:14

expensive as just buying the set

40:16

outright, because you end up having

40:18

to pay shipping from each individual person,

40:20

and you end up doing, you

40:22

end up in situations where like. A

40:24

lot of sellers have like a minimum price

40:27

or something so you end up adding some

40:29

extra stuff to fit and and the big

40:31

one is You get almost to the end. It's

40:33

like you need free of this part But

40:35

this person has one and this person has

40:37

one and this person has one and that

40:39

now you have to buy three things and

40:42

pay shipping for $0.30 apart since like

40:44

if you're gonna buy something just save up

40:46

the money and invest in buying the set

40:48

out right. I guess that's good if you

40:50

just need if you have missing pieces

40:52

and things like that, but to put

40:55

a whole set together like that, it's

40:57

difficult, right? Or expensive? Well, yeah, the

40:59

other reason to do it is, well,

41:01

there's a few other reasons. One is,

41:03

if you're building a custom set, right?

41:05

Oh, sure. And you just need a bunch

41:07

of parts of something, right? That's one

41:10

reason. The other one, and I did this

41:12

for a while, like if you want to.

41:14

Is there not a place you can get

41:16

from Lego to get from Lego to get

41:18

parts individual, And not

41:20

everything. Oh, that's it. Oh,

41:22

okay. I didn't realize that.

41:25

And you can get parts

41:27

from like the 70s or 60s

41:29

or right, you know, whatever in

41:32

Brooklyn. Yeah, it's good.

41:34

So last Lego question.

41:36

Sure. What's on your grail

41:38

list of Lego? The things

41:40

that you hope to get

41:42

someday other than gold man.

41:44

I mean. I

41:48

mean that's kind of the only one

41:50

I mean the only the other

41:52

ones are I mean I because I'm

41:54

a completionist I would probably

41:56

like at some some data

41:59

maybe because the Christmas Village sets

42:01

that I'm missing. But I don't,

42:03

I don't, I don't have the

42:05

drive to really complete that series

42:07

as much anymore. I mean, one

42:09

that I had fun finishing, let

42:11

me get it. I had fun.

42:13

There was a series that Lego

42:15

did maybe five years ago called

42:17

the volcano explorers. And there were

42:19

only eight sets and they were

42:21

all small like this. I completed

42:23

this though, but those, none of

42:25

them were too expensive, even though,

42:27

even though they were used, even

42:29

though they were used, because they

42:31

were used because... they were they

42:33

were mess market and you know

42:35

they weren't that old but you

42:37

know I had fun collecting those

42:39

too but yeah I think in

42:41

fact I'm I'm kind of on

42:43

the opposite end of it because

42:45

there were some sets that I

42:48

got because when they came out

42:50

they were like oh that's my

42:52

whole look real like I got

42:54

the sand crawler I got the

42:56

one of the I got the

42:58

Ewok village right but I don't

43:00

have space to display them and

43:02

build them So for the last,

43:04

I haven't sold them yet, but

43:06

for the last probably six months,

43:08

I've been looking at them and

43:10

being like, you know what? Maybe

43:12

it's time to let those go

43:14

because those sets are ones that

43:16

people, a lot of people really,

43:18

really want. They never had, they

43:20

didn't have a chance to get

43:22

them when they were out in

43:24

stores. And the ones I have

43:26

are new in box and just,

43:28

I'm afraid to build them because

43:30

they're, they're plagued by an issue

43:32

called brittle brown. And there was

43:34

a five or six year period

43:36

I think in Lego history and

43:38

this has happened with a couple

43:40

of the colors too, but brown

43:42

is the notorious one. The formula

43:44

they used to make the Lego

43:46

brown made the Lego brittle. After

43:48

a certain age? Yes, after a

43:50

surprisingly short amount of age, like

43:52

one or two years. Really? And

43:54

that sounds like a recall. Yeah.

43:56

I mean, they'll, so I'll get

43:58

to that in one second, but

44:01

they're, they're brittle enough that you'll

44:03

put a piece together and will

44:05

shatter into ten pieces in your

44:07

hand. Really? And those sets are

44:09

made almost exclusively from around. So

44:11

I know, I bet you I

44:13

would lose about 10 or 15%

44:15

of the set. Now, if you

44:17

built them. If I built them.

44:19

Now, to be fair, Legos, customer

44:21

services, great. If you break any

44:23

pieces, they'll replace them. The problem

44:25

is, for some of them, or

44:27

for some people, the piece that

44:29

they'll replace it with won't be

44:31

the same color because. Right. Brown

44:33

is broke. So like I have

44:35

one of the sets that I

44:37

got and I got a brand

44:39

new but it didn't build it

44:41

for a couple years. There was

44:43

a part There was like a

44:45

it's like a plant pot and

44:47

you put like a ball in

44:49

it to make some kind of

44:51

design and the piece shared off

44:53

because it was brown So they

44:55

replaced it, but they replaced it

44:57

with a gray one. So now

44:59

it's not technically official and they

45:01

were actually kind enough to send

45:03

two because the set had two

45:05

of two of them matching and

45:07

they did, but it wasn't a

45:09

particularly expensive part, but it wasn't

45:12

a cheap party. There was like

45:14

a, you know, if you buy

45:16

it on bricklink, it's like two

45:18

or three dollars, which doesn't sound

45:20

like a lot, but you know,

45:22

a lot of pieces are like

45:24

half a penny or something. So

45:26

it's, you know, so customer, you

45:28

know, Lego customer support will provide,

45:30

you know, whatever pieces you're missing

45:32

or broken if you need to,

45:34

but I don't want to have.

45:36

go through the heartbreak of breaking

45:38

30% of this and putting together.

45:40

So might as well settle to

45:42

somebody who will enjoy breaking themselves.

45:44

So beyond code contribution, Pilates, and

45:46

Legos, are there any other hobbies

45:48

or interests you have? Yeah, I

45:50

mean, the big ones are, so

45:52

another, so I kind of cycle

45:54

through hobbies, I've realized, and I

45:56

didn't realize this until a couple

45:58

years ago. And some of them

46:00

might come back to it. Like

46:02

let go right now, if I'm

46:04

being honest, is. on the lower

46:06

end of the cycle. Sure. But

46:08

I've come back to it many,

46:10

many times. One of my first

46:12

collection hobbies was Magic the Gatherings.

46:14

Okay. So I played that quite

46:16

a bit with my brothers, you

46:18

know, and sometimes we still play,

46:20

but not as often, but really

46:22

I enjoy collecting it. It's been

46:25

and cataloging it. I think that's

46:27

one of my hobbies is cataloguing

46:29

the collection. That's part of the

46:31

fun, but. That one, that one,

46:33

I think, went away when Lego

46:35

became my hobby, right? Right. But

46:37

I still have quite a, quite

46:39

a MTG collection. Home, home automation.

46:41

I didn't realize this at the

46:43

time, but that was a hobby.

46:45

Right. And again, about. You used

46:47

to think it was a necessity

46:49

to have house, right? Well, I

46:51

didn't think it was just a

46:53

necessity, but I thought it was

46:55

just like. part of yeah like

46:57

I guess yeah part of owning

46:59

the house but now I've realized

47:01

that the the hobby was like

47:03

getting a set up and now

47:05

it's maintenance and who likes maintenance

47:07

right so so it's been slowly

47:09

decaying over the last couple years

47:11

almost everything works still but yeah

47:13

I have to spruce it up

47:15

at some point but the most

47:17

recent hobby and this is part

47:19

of the reason why the you

47:21

know the Lego one is a

47:23

bit on the down cycle is

47:25

modular synthesizers. So I have a

47:27

friend that's into them. And a

47:29

synthesizer, I think you know what

47:31

that is, is like a keyboard

47:33

that can make some sounds. So

47:36

a synthesizer is made up of

47:38

a bunch of different parts that

47:40

they just put together in a

47:42

keyboard for you. Well, a modular

47:44

synthesizer allows you to take those

47:46

parts and buy them individually. So

47:48

you might have to edit this

47:50

out depending on how this works.

47:52

But you can see down here.

47:54

Holy moly that's part of

47:57

my modular synthesizer Okay. So

47:59

you can, I'm not going

48:01

to turn it on right

48:03

now because it's not fully

48:05

connected to everything, but you

48:07

basically can generate almost anything

48:09

you can imagine with that.

48:11

And so that's been. For

48:13

example, like, generate, like what?

48:15

Well, in my case, yes.

48:17

Generally, something that isn't always

48:19

super pleasant to listen to

48:21

because I don't know what

48:24

I'm doing. But occasionally I

48:26

make very cool sounds. So

48:28

for example, if you listen

48:30

to a lot of techno

48:32

or house music. I just

48:34

got a question for you.

48:36

I think you have an

48:38

electrical engineering degree, am I

48:40

right? No? No, plastics. Okay,

48:42

oh, okay. Thought it was

48:44

electric. Plastics engineering. Okay, plastics.

48:46

So, um, I left that

48:48

question now. I should have

48:51

put that question in here.

48:53

I should have put that

48:55

question in here. That's about

48:57

electronics and things like that

48:59

There can be so So

49:01

I specifically am more interested

49:03

in what's called the euro

49:05

rack So apparently that I

49:07

don't know too much about

49:09

this piece, but there's there's

49:11

like three or four specs

49:13

of what you can get

49:15

into module synthesis The most

49:18

popular one is euro rack

49:20

Basically what that means is

49:22

besides like voltage and things

49:24

voltages and things aligning it

49:26

just means that it will

49:28

fit in a new standard

49:30

3U surfer rack size, right?

49:32

And the way that they

49:34

generally work is they usually

49:36

have like knobs buttons, things

49:38

like that, and then they

49:40

use what are essentially audio

49:42

jacks like 3.5 millimeter cables

49:45

to connect one instrument to

49:47

the next. And so for

49:49

example, there's a module that

49:51

I have called Pam's Pro

49:53

Workout. This is one of

49:55

the things I love about

49:57

it too. They all have

49:59

like... really cool names and like things

50:01

but what all PAM's pro workout is is

50:04

a clock right so it sends a beat

50:06

a specific yeah this is greatly

50:08

simplifying it because one of the

50:10

reason like almost everybody has a pan

50:12

speak as one of their first like

50:15

utility model thing yeah yeah yeah and

50:17

but it it's more complicated

50:19

in that but yeah so like it has a

50:21

button to start it and stop it

50:23

has eight outputs and you can individually

50:25

set them so you can have one

50:27

that's at like 200 beats per minute

50:30

when that's 100 beats per minute. Uh-huh.

50:32

Yeah. Way more features than I'm glossing

50:34

over. But basically, when you're running a

50:36

bunch of different things, you want to

50:38

make sure that they're all at the

50:40

same beat or some predetermined

50:42

different beat that's compatible.

50:45

Right. And so that module is just the

50:47

clock. Right. The one that the first one

50:49

that I bought that was actually useless

50:51

because I didn't have anything else was

50:53

it. It's called the, what is it

50:55

called. What is it called. What is it called.

50:57

It is called a pet rock. And I bought

51:00

it because the person that built

51:02

it built it fully open

51:04

source, both hardware and software,

51:06

and he sold it at cost. And so

51:08

if you buy it at cost, I paid

51:10

it. I paid more because I wanted

51:12

to support it, but like it cost

51:15

20 bucks. You know, it was not

51:17

not expensive at all. But and

51:19

the idea behind that one is

51:21

you put a signal in generally

51:23

a clock and it takes the day

51:25

of the day of the week. the phase of

51:27

the moon and the mood and the

51:29

mood changes every month. So there's

51:31

four moods and then generates

51:33

a randomized output based on the input.

51:36

So every night at midnight, because the

51:38

day changes and the phase of the

51:40

moon may or may not change for

51:42

the same given input, it's going

51:44

to have a different pattern output.

51:46

And I just thought that was

51:49

fascinating. And then so they always

51:51

have things like that. And then there's.

51:54

I mean, there's just a lot to get

51:56

into there. So you can you can

51:58

use it to make. general synthesizer sounds

52:00

like any kind of electronic music that

52:03

you listen to not any but a

52:05

lot of it will use something similar

52:07

to whether it's in software or full

52:09

synthesizers will use things that are can

52:11

come from a modular synth. So that's

52:13

that's my current hobby. That's what I've

52:15

been spending a lot of my time

52:18

reading about and Well, maybe in a

52:20

future show, you could give us a

52:22

little sound sample that we could use

52:24

for an intro or an outro or

52:26

something. Yeah, I can look, I have

52:28

some recordings, I can see if I

52:31

have one that. It's cool to put

52:33

in. If you had one, I could

52:35

include with this show, send it off

52:37

to me. And I'll put it as

52:39

the outro music. I can do that.

52:41

And let's not call it music. Let's

52:43

not be. Let's not be that ambitious.

52:46

Outshow sounds. I mean, to be clear,

52:48

so one of the things I like

52:50

that I think this is one of

52:52

my philosophies. Hobbies are hobbies. They're meant

52:54

to be fun, right? But a lot

52:56

of times it's good to have a

52:59

goal around it and one of my

53:01

long term, two of my long term

53:03

goals with this hobby. Unless I decide

53:05

to stop paying attention to it for

53:07

some reason, which I think is also

53:09

fine. But two of the goals I'm

53:11

working on, one is understanding how it

53:14

works well enough that I can turn

53:16

it on and make a sound approximately

53:18

close to what I want to, because

53:20

a lot of what I end up

53:22

doing right now is... Surprising things in.

53:24

Turning knobs, turning knobs and going, oh,

53:26

that sounds horrible, but I have no

53:29

idea why. Oh, that sounds cool, but

53:31

I also don't know why. And so

53:33

if you change anything, you can't. you

53:35

set something up in a way that

53:37

you turn it back, turn it off

53:39

and turn it back on and it

53:42

doesn't make that sound again. And so

53:44

one of my goals is understanding, I

53:46

guess the theory behind it well enough

53:48

to know like if I plug this

53:50

in here to here, it will make

53:52

a pleasant sound. Or maybe not pleasant,

53:54

but the sound that I wanted to

53:57

make, right? Because. more often than not

53:59

right now, many times. Like for example,

54:01

I have a semi modular called the

54:03

East Beast. It's great. Semi modular just

54:05

means it has a lot of like

54:07

built in pieces so you can kind

54:10

of, like it's good for a starter

54:12

thing because it has all the pieces

54:14

you need to make noise, right? But

54:16

when I pass through that and use

54:18

that to try to drive something else,

54:20

the... It doesn't make any noise unless

54:22

I turn the attack almost completely down.

54:25

An attack, if you have an envelope,

54:27

the attack is the first part when

54:29

it's going up. It only works if

54:31

the attack is almost off, meaning it's

54:33

like almost immediate, like it doesn't exist.

54:35

I have no idea why. I've asked

54:37

in Discord and people who explained it

54:40

to me, and I thought I understood,

54:42

but then I tried to do something

54:44

with that newfound knowledge and immediately doesn't

54:46

work. So that's long-term goal number one.

54:48

Understand the underlying principle is well enough

54:50

to be able to just kind of

54:53

like plug some stuff in and generally

54:55

get what I expect Long-term goal number

54:57

two with this hobby is and I

54:59

didn't realize when I made this goal

55:01

how long term this is This is

55:03

probably a couple of years if I'm

55:05

being honest I want to be able

55:08

to configure my synthesizer in such a

55:10

way that I can push a button

55:12

to start it and maybe I have

55:14

to tweak some knobs and stuff But

55:16

basically push a button to start it

55:18

and have a complete song come out

55:21

Because one of the things that I learned

55:23

with most music and with most, especially modular

55:25

synthesis, is people, even people that use them

55:27

strictly for making music, because there's a lot

55:29

of artists that do this, they use it

55:31

for part. And then they do something else

55:33

and use it for part. You have to

55:35

kind of think of it more as an

55:37

instrument. And then they do another thing, use

55:40

it for part. And then use a different

55:42

type of a machine to do the drums

55:44

and use it for part. I want to

55:46

be able to be able to just push

55:48

a button and have the whole song and

55:50

have the whole song come out. But

55:52

that's going to take a very

55:54

long time. Well, speaking of goals,

55:56

one of the questions I have

55:59

on here. for you was, or

56:01

still is, do you have any

56:03

dreams or goals you're currently working

56:05

towards? Do you have others that

56:08

are not related to modular synthesis?

56:10

Yeah, so I mean, I think

56:12

it's always important to have goals.

56:14

I think, I mean, the only

56:16

ones that really will talk about

56:19

our work. I think one of

56:21

the big one, we kind of

56:23

already touched on this a little

56:25

bit, but one of the big

56:27

ones I'm working on now is

56:30

figuring out how to keep my

56:32

business sustainable while contributing to core,

56:34

because I'm enjoying, I mean, enjoy

56:36

all types of contribution, I enjoy

56:38

the show, I enjoy, you know,

56:41

the contributed modules and even just

56:43

applying in messages, but at least

56:45

recently, the contributing to core has

56:47

been really satisfying. But I need

56:50

to do it in a sustainable

56:52

way. So. One of my big

56:54

goals, and this is kind of

56:56

short term and medium term, is

56:58

figuring out how to do that.

57:01

Because what I've been doing recently

57:03

really, really isn't. Similarly, and this

57:05

has just been kind of a

57:07

long-term goal my whole career, and

57:09

I think I might have hinted

57:12

at this on other shows, but

57:14

how to figure out how to

57:16

remain relevant, you know, from a

57:18

development perspective. something that really stood

57:20

out to me early on in

57:23

my career as I was starting

57:25

with jupil and development and stuff

57:27

and you know getting new clients

57:29

a few of my new clients

57:32

were coming from relationships that they'd

57:34

had for a long time with

57:36

the developer but the developer just

57:38

didn't hadn't built new skills right

57:40

so when I was you know

57:43

getting the new contracts their contracts

57:45

were you know this would win

57:47

2008 they've been working with their

57:49

clients since you know 2000 or

57:51

95 or something and when you

57:54

look at it everything was built

57:56

manually And so one of the

57:58

things that, you know, this is

58:00

one of my goals is always

58:02

like, how do I make sure

58:05

that I don't become one of

58:07

those developers in 10 years, where

58:09

it's like, right? Why are you

58:11

doing it that way? You have,

58:14

we haven't done it that way

58:16

in 10 years. Right. Because I

58:18

mean, I just don't want to

58:20

be a cobal developer, right? There's

58:22

still demand for cobal developers. Sure.

58:25

But you shouldn't be hurting cold

58:27

nowadays. Right. I mean, that's a,

58:29

that's a goal that it would

58:31

be nice that a lot of

58:33

developers had because our industry just

58:36

keeps moving and moving and never

58:38

stops. Yeah. Now the footside is,

58:40

it's easy to fall into that

58:42

comfort rut though. Yeah, it is.

58:44

But the footside is I also

58:47

don't want to be in, one

58:49

of the reasons why I settle

58:51

on a droop, but I don't

58:53

want to be one of those

58:56

developers. chasing the newest fatty like

58:58

I don't want to be chasing

59:00

like just because technology is new

59:02

like JavaScript framework yeah especially as

59:04

a freelancer I can't be chasing

59:07

the newest JavaScript framework every week

59:09

they changed too frequently but AI

59:11

and we've talked about this ad

59:13

nauseum on the show but yeah

59:15

with all those flaws it's it's

59:18

a paradigm shift it's something I

59:20

need to understand right and so

59:22

as much as I keep finding

59:24

problems with it. I still keep

59:26

forcing myself to use it because

59:29

it's a paradigm shift I have

59:31

to understand. Do you have any

59:33

personal goals you'd like to share?

59:35

Personal goals. Believe it or not.

59:37

And I haven't actually even started

59:40

really trying to achieve this goal,

59:42

but it's been in the back

59:44

of my mind. And it's so

59:46

corny because it's one of those

59:49

like, per typical like New Year's

59:51

resolution or goal type things. I've

59:53

been thinking about wanting to be

59:55

able to get 100 pushups in

59:57

100 seconds. Okay. Like be able

1:00:00

to do it. And at one

1:00:02

point, I started going. towards this

1:00:04

goal at one point in the

1:00:06

past, probably 10 years ago now.

1:00:08

And I never achieved it. I

1:00:11

mean, I did get, I could

1:00:13

do 60 and 60 seconds. And

1:00:15

I could, and then I would

1:00:17

very quickly flag off at that

1:00:19

point. That's very difficult. I probably

1:00:22

get to, I mean, at that

1:00:24

point, I was in the best

1:00:26

shape of my life. It was

1:00:28

before I get married, I was

1:00:31

when I was fencing. I'm not

1:00:33

going to blame your marriage, don't

1:00:35

do that. No, no, no, no.

1:00:37

No, no. I will, I will

1:00:39

rephrase that, but I will, I

1:00:42

will clarify in second, but at

1:00:44

the time, I was single, so

1:00:46

I was going to the gym

1:00:48

like eight hours a week and

1:00:50

going fencing another 10 hours a

1:00:53

week. And so, fencing, let's add

1:00:55

that to the list, okay. Yeah,

1:00:57

I used to, I used to

1:00:59

fence, right. So, yeah. So at

1:01:01

that point, you know. But I

1:01:04

finally feel like with Pilates I've

1:01:06

gotten to the point where I

1:01:08

could probably do that again. And

1:01:10

I've been thinking of, I don't

1:01:13

even remember what I was reading

1:01:15

or watching. And I was like,

1:01:17

you know, it'd be nice to

1:01:19

see if I could actually achieve

1:01:21

that goal again. So maybe next

1:01:24

year. Yeah, that's an interesting one.

1:01:26

So as we come closer to

1:01:28

the end of this episode, I

1:01:30

wanted to jump back into droople

1:01:32

a little bit. Sure. And on

1:01:35

a on a droople note for

1:01:37

talking droople, um, droople has changed

1:01:39

significantly, right, since our first episode

1:01:41

zero, zero, zero. If you remember

1:01:43

back then, I think droople seven

1:01:46

was just out, maybe 13 years

1:01:48

ago? Is that sound right? Or

1:01:50

2011. Yep. Yeah. And Jupiter itself,

1:01:52

like we've kind of gone through

1:01:55

these phases of, you know, Jupiter's

1:01:57

gonna focus on the enterprise. Jupiter's

1:01:59

gonna focus on EPI first. Jupiter

1:02:01

is gonna focus on ambitious site

1:02:03

builder. I mean, we keep as

1:02:06

a product, it kind of has

1:02:08

evolved into different focuses. So I'm

1:02:10

curious as to what do you

1:02:12

think today about droople

1:02:15

as a product? And

1:02:17

maybe what are

1:02:19

you most optimistic about

1:02:22

with it? I am obviously

1:02:24

biased. This is

1:02:26

a fine show. I know.

1:02:29

But I'm really optimistic. I

1:02:31

think I think Jupu

1:02:33

had been stagnating for

1:02:36

a while. I think

1:02:38

the recipes initiative,

1:02:41

I think Star Shot, I

1:02:43

think a lot of those

1:02:46

have breathed a lot of

1:02:48

new life into it. I

1:02:50

think the AI. project, like I

1:02:53

said, as much as I think

1:02:55

AI has things that need to

1:02:57

be solved, I think that

1:02:59

that brings a lot of

1:03:01

optimism. I'm really

1:03:04

excited about the future

1:03:06

of Jupu. I think it's good

1:03:09

to focus again on the

1:03:11

site builder, right? I think

1:03:13

that's where a lot of

1:03:15

the people that got into

1:03:18

Jupuu, get started. It was

1:03:20

just easy to start building

1:03:22

a site yourself. And if

1:03:24

we're being honest, now that's not so

1:03:26

easy. Like, you can use the tar,

1:03:28

although, you know, and just download it

1:03:31

from the website and install that.

1:03:33

And I found a few people

1:03:35

recently in some issues that

1:03:37

are doing that still. But you're

1:03:40

not going to get the best experience

1:03:42

that way. But the truth

1:03:44

is, things like Composer are

1:03:46

intimidating for a site builder,

1:03:48

right? I think package manager

1:03:50

has a lot of potential to

1:03:53

allow people package managers the new

1:03:55

module that basically kind of sits

1:03:58

between jupil and composer. Right,

1:04:00

so I think that has a

1:04:02

lot of opportunity to make like

1:04:04

one click installs and managing your

1:04:06

site through the Y, but also

1:04:08

having a composer system achievable. I

1:04:10

think there could be some work

1:04:13

done to make, I think DDev

1:04:15

really should be the standard development

1:04:17

environment for Drupal, like as an

1:04:19

official thing, because almost every other

1:04:21

product out there, except for maybe

1:04:23

WordPress, a lot of other products

1:04:25

out there. have an official way

1:04:27

to get started. And if you

1:04:29

have that, you can just build

1:04:32

better documentation around it. Randy can

1:04:34

get more support, right? I think

1:04:36

that's just the way to go.

1:04:38

I'm really excited about the future.

1:04:40

I mean, I think just recipes

1:04:42

and star shot have one of

1:04:44

the big things is a lot

1:04:46

of people look at it and

1:04:48

be like, what are people doing

1:04:51

on in droopal and how do

1:04:53

they do it? I think for

1:04:55

the last few years, there just

1:04:57

hasn't been a lot of like,

1:04:59

like not that people are hiding

1:05:01

agencies just did their own thing.

1:05:03

They built their own starter kit.

1:05:05

They built their own starter database.

1:05:08

And it didn't get shared. StarShot

1:05:10

is allowing that to be publicly

1:05:12

talked about. So people are saying,

1:05:14

like, oh, we need the solution.

1:05:16

Every kind of uses this solution,

1:05:18

but it does really miss this

1:05:20

piece of it. Let's fix that

1:05:22

for StarShot or for Jupiter CMS.

1:05:24

We need to rekindle the flow

1:05:27

of new contributors. And I think

1:05:29

Jupiter CMS has that potential. but

1:05:31

we have to figure out how

1:05:33

to help that along. Like, it's

1:05:35

not enough for Jupil CMS to

1:05:37

bring more users and more people.

1:05:39

We also have to find out

1:05:41

how to get them to be

1:05:43

productive contributors back to Jupil. Whether

1:05:46

it's code contributions or documentation contributions

1:05:48

or evangelism contributions, we need more

1:05:50

contributors again. On the flip side,

1:05:52

I think one of the reasons

1:05:54

why the hook problem or problems

1:05:56

are not the right word, the

1:05:58

hook. conversion issue piqued my interest

1:06:00

so much. was because it's a

1:06:03

big part of jupil that's just

1:06:05

we know it didn't make it

1:06:07

to object or into for jupil

1:06:09

eight and I think people kind

1:06:11

of assumed it would at some

1:06:13

point and it's take it took

1:06:15

10 years and so it's just

1:06:17

really excited me to be able

1:06:19

to be like okay this is

1:06:22

something that jupil like everybody knew

1:06:24

that it was one of the

1:06:26

big things that jupil needed a

1:06:28

faceoff done we finally got it

1:06:30

wouldn't be nice to just adopt

1:06:32

it right the new way is

1:06:34

made, and that there's an issue

1:06:36

on droop a little for this,

1:06:38

maybe I can find it, there's

1:06:41

a new way made, but then

1:06:43

the old way, and this is

1:06:45

the right way to do this

1:06:47

for most things, the old way

1:06:49

sticks around, right? Procedural hooks still

1:06:51

work, but the way droopal as

1:06:53

a community generally works is, those

1:06:55

procedural hooks will stick around for

1:06:58

far longer than they should. Like

1:07:00

we have a new way of

1:07:02

doing things, let's try to get

1:07:04

the community to just convert everything.

1:07:06

you know, we use annotations for

1:07:08

a lot of stuff in core,

1:07:10

and a lot of things have

1:07:12

been moved to attributes, but we

1:07:14

support both. But now we need

1:07:17

and we can deprecate at annotations,

1:07:19

but like wouldn't it be great

1:07:21

to like find a way to

1:07:23

just like convert everything at once?

1:07:25

I was looking at an issue

1:07:27

the other day, and this is

1:07:29

one of those things that I

1:07:31

don't even think about sometimes as

1:07:33

a developer, but you find the

1:07:36

issue and you're like, like, huh,

1:07:38

and I'm doing my best to

1:07:40

avoid getting sucked in by this

1:07:42

issue too, but, but, Right? There

1:07:44

are magic arrays. You just have

1:07:46

to know random way what they

1:07:48

are. Something I didn't even realize,

1:07:50

depending on how you do a

1:07:52

table, you get different markup. Like

1:07:55

if you do pound table, you

1:07:57

get one thing, if you do

1:07:59

theme table, you get another. Oh,

1:08:01

really? I don't know. I didn't

1:08:03

know how I didn't know that.

1:08:05

Well, there's an issue to create,

1:08:07

I forget like a builder, I

1:08:09

forget the title exactly, but like

1:08:12

a builder option. So basically, like,

1:08:14

you instantiate you instantiate a table

1:08:16

object. ad row ad header And

1:08:18

the only thing that still outputs

1:08:20

the render array. All that really

1:08:22

does, though, is give you a

1:08:24

way to get type hints on

1:08:26

what's expected in the IDE. It

1:08:28

makes your developer experience so much

1:08:31

nicer. And then when render arrays

1:08:33

eventually go away, there's another 10,

1:08:35

12-year issue to get render arrays,

1:08:37

they now just have one place

1:08:39

to kind of interact with and

1:08:41

manage. And the thing that gets

1:08:43

me excited about this one is

1:08:45

I was. just chatting about a

1:08:47

little checks. And an hour later,

1:08:50

he had written a recto rule

1:08:52

that basically scans the entire code

1:08:54

base, finds every single render array

1:08:56

in there, I think, and generates

1:08:58

that and generates the builder for

1:09:00

it so that you can then

1:09:02

convert it. And it's like those

1:09:04

types of things like these, like,

1:09:07

render arrays are always a pain,

1:09:09

but I never like sat down

1:09:11

in question, like, why do we

1:09:13

have to do it that way?

1:09:15

Like it's just always like, okay,

1:09:17

what is this key? How do

1:09:19

I need to structure it? Like

1:09:21

it's just, it's something I'm so

1:09:23

used to. I never even step

1:09:26

back to question why we're doing

1:09:28

it that way in the first

1:09:30

place. This is an example of

1:09:32

why our listeners love you so

1:09:34

much, Nick. We started with a

1:09:36

question that was, what are you

1:09:38

most optimistic about? And we're now

1:09:40

talking about the details of render

1:09:42

arrays. It's the beautiful contribution that

1:09:45

you make to the show every

1:09:47

single week. The way my mind

1:09:49

connects topics is exactly fantastic. I

1:09:51

was going to ask you the

1:09:53

final question here was going to

1:09:55

be, I'm not sure I need

1:09:57

it, I'm going to ask you

1:09:59

anyway, but I'm going to leave

1:10:02

you to 30 seconds to answer

1:10:04

it, okay? The question is. 482

1:10:06

episodes, you've had a number of

1:10:08

pet peeves that you have hopped

1:10:10

on over the years. So if

1:10:12

you could change. one thing about

1:10:14

droople the product or the community.

1:10:16

Just one thing, bigger or small,

1:10:18

what would it be? Can't say

1:10:21

render a raise. No, it would

1:10:23

be willingness to make changes in

1:10:25

core that aren't perfect. That are

1:10:27

incremental improvements. I

1:10:30

think everybody, I don't think this

1:10:32

is a surprise to anybody that

1:10:34

works in core. But right now,

1:10:36

one of the biggest barriers to

1:10:38

progress, I think, or quick progress

1:10:40

is you decide you want to

1:10:43

make a contribution, you make an

1:10:45

issue, push it up, deal with

1:10:47

all the code sniffing and PhD

1:10:49

stand stuff that you have to

1:10:51

to get it, test running. And

1:10:53

somebody comes in and says. What

1:10:56

about this case? What about this

1:10:58

edge case? We need to handle

1:11:00

that. We need to handle this.

1:11:02

And it's hard to argue with

1:11:04

those because the comments are generally

1:11:06

right. Yeah. Yeah, because the thing

1:11:09

because what happens is that then

1:11:11

now there needs to be a

1:11:13

balance, right? There needs to be

1:11:15

a balance. There are some pieces

1:11:17

that you need to be really

1:11:19

rigorous on, but that kills momentum.

1:11:22

that kills people. I know of

1:11:24

at least two or three people

1:11:26

that have said that would be

1:11:28

fantastic contributors to court that said

1:11:30

they just don't contribute to court

1:11:32

because it's too much of a

1:11:35

hurdle. But it's like you just

1:11:37

can't, it's very difficult to incrementally

1:11:39

improve stuff because people just want

1:11:41

the whole picture and you have

1:11:43

to be ready for a battle,

1:11:45

like you have to be ready

1:11:48

to push through that piece or

1:11:50

you have to be willing to

1:11:52

iterate multiple times. I mean that's

1:11:54

one of the reasons why I'm

1:11:56

so proud of the hook conversion

1:11:58

of the hook conversion. It's not

1:12:01

just because of the work that

1:12:03

checks and I go. I don't

1:12:05

know how to pronounce his username

1:12:07

and catch, it's not just the

1:12:09

work that we all did, but

1:12:12

it's also that I managed to,

1:12:14

like from a project management side,

1:12:16

I managed to convince and get

1:12:18

that changed through so quickly and

1:12:20

cleanly. Like, I, that's one of

1:12:22

the things I'm most proud of.

1:12:25

Like, you kind of just, like,

1:12:27

normally that type of change would

1:12:29

just take so much discussion. I

1:12:31

mean, That's the, I know I've

1:12:33

gone way over 30 seconds, but

1:12:35

at least I'm only talking about

1:12:38

the same thing. The piece I

1:12:40

would change is like willingness to

1:12:42

push through something that, but the

1:12:44

problem is then you just end

1:12:46

up with half solutions. So like

1:12:48

I said, I don't know what

1:12:51

the actual solution here is, but

1:12:53

like the thing is when you're

1:12:55

reviewing something, it's easy to find

1:12:57

something to be like, I would

1:12:59

like that to be a little

1:13:01

bit better. And if you're the,

1:13:04

but if you're the person contributing,

1:13:06

contributing, question really quickly becomes, it

1:13:08

sometimes removes your passion for, right?

1:13:10

Because, but like I said, there

1:13:12

are some things where you really

1:13:14

have to be very rigorous and

1:13:17

very nipickey. Like, for example, layout

1:13:19

builder. I have a love hate

1:13:21

relationship with layout builder. it's great

1:13:23

it solves a problem that you

1:13:25

can't solve elsewhere if we if

1:13:27

we attach the level of rigor

1:13:30

we do to a lot of

1:13:32

core shoe cues i don't know

1:13:34

if layout builder ever would have

1:13:36

made it into core okay but

1:13:38

then again there's a lot of

1:13:40

painful things still about layout builder

1:13:43

that like it just doesn't integrate

1:13:45

quite right with the rest of

1:13:47

droopal some of that is due

1:13:49

to long standing issues with views

1:13:51

with views right I think

1:13:54

now as much as I curse Leo

1:13:56

Bill that we're needing to dig into

1:13:58

the internals, is it better that it's

1:14:00

in... droople? Absolutely, I think. Even though

1:14:03

I don't use it all that much,

1:14:05

it's a good thing to be in

1:14:07

droople. Am I scared what's going to

1:14:09

happen with? I'm very excited about experience

1:14:12

builder. I'm afraid to see what the

1:14:14

underlying structure is going to be, because

1:14:16

to be that flexible, I don't know

1:14:18

how you can integrate with droop. And

1:14:20

this is something that John and I

1:14:23

discussed with Matt Klamman, because he's been

1:14:25

doing a lot of work there. I

1:14:27

think they're just going to make experience

1:14:29

builder a separate type of a separate

1:14:32

type of entity. At least that's one

1:14:34

of the possibilities. So yeah, it doesn't

1:14:36

integrate with everything perfectly, but it's a

1:14:38

separate thing. Like you treat it separately

1:14:41

and it handles all its own stuff.

1:14:43

But is it better to get that

1:14:45

type of thing into droopal than to

1:14:47

wait until it's perfect in five years?

1:14:50

Yeah. Well, like things like project browser.

1:14:52

I don't know what the remaining blockers

1:14:54

are for project browser, but I feel

1:14:56

like project browser has been in a

1:14:59

state where it's generally working. I know

1:15:01

one of the big blockers was package

1:15:03

manager was just going to have been

1:15:05

working on that over two years. It's

1:15:08

been longer than that. But I think

1:15:10

package manager has been the blocker, right?

1:15:12

You can't have a core module that

1:15:14

relies on a contribute module, right? So

1:15:16

I think that that has it, but

1:15:19

like that type of thing, like the

1:15:21

fact that like, it's been generally ready

1:15:23

as a proof of concept for that

1:15:25

long. is stifling. I'm sure it's demoralizing

1:15:28

to the team that's been working on

1:15:30

it that like they've been mostly ready

1:15:32

for so long. And it's just waiting

1:15:34

on this one final thing. And like

1:15:37

we just need to find a way

1:15:39

to like better target those types of

1:15:41

things. And I think StarShot is an

1:15:43

attempt at that. I think it's been

1:15:46

mostly successful. I don't know if it's

1:15:48

succeeded everywhere. It'll be interesting to see

1:15:50

the final post, you know, post-mortem once

1:15:52

it finally comes out. But. I think

1:15:55

that's the biggest thing. Both of the

1:15:57

barrier to entry for contributing to core.

1:15:59

And I don't know how to do

1:16:01

it. Not making it so difficult to

1:16:04

get things through is kind of what

1:16:06

you've said. Like I said, with the

1:16:08

caveat that I know that that's not

1:16:10

a perfect solution. I know that there's

1:16:12

exceptions. And that's part of the problem

1:16:15

is that if you were to bring

1:16:17

that up and discuss it, that discussion

1:16:19

just becomes like, well, where do we

1:16:21

draw the line? Right. And you can't

1:16:24

just leave things up in like there's

1:16:26

a. There's an issue right

1:16:28

now that I think it would

1:16:30

be really good to get through

1:16:33

for for core contribution that is

1:16:35

Right now you have to have

1:16:37

comments on all parameters on functions

1:16:39

in core for new functions, right?

1:16:41

Unless it's a constructor if you're

1:16:43

if one of your parameters is

1:16:46

something like the entity type manager

1:16:48

You're required to have a detail

1:16:50

so you're in what ends up

1:16:52

happening is like entity type manager

1:16:54

type manager description. This is the

1:16:56

entity type manager That's useless doesn't

1:16:58

help anybody, doesn't provide any information.

1:17:01

The issue right now discussing and

1:17:03

removing that requirement is almost 110

1:17:05

comments. It's been going on for

1:17:07

three years, I think. But, and

1:17:09

most people agree that we can

1:17:11

just remove it. A lot of

1:17:14

the discussion around it though is

1:17:16

like, okay, where exactly is the

1:17:18

line? How do we make this

1:17:20

an automatic test? Because if you

1:17:22

just leave it up to the

1:17:24

developer looking at it at the

1:17:26

developer looking at it at the

1:17:29

time, you'll miss so many cases.

1:17:31

something like that. And heuristically, it's

1:17:33

really easy as a human to

1:17:35

look at it and be like,

1:17:37

yeah, in this case, we need

1:17:39

it. In that case, we don't.

1:17:42

From a testing standpoint, that's not

1:17:44

as easy. And it also depends

1:17:46

on the level of the developer.

1:17:48

If somebody's really familiar with core

1:17:50

and droople, all that stuff, that

1:17:52

description might not be helpful at

1:17:55

all. For somebody new to droop,

1:17:57

it might be. Although that example,

1:17:59

I can't imagine, like this is

1:18:01

the entity type manager. probably not

1:18:03

helpful for anybody. But there you

1:18:05

have it. That's Nick. 30 second

1:18:07

answer to. That was really 10

1:18:10

minutes. I think that was 10

1:18:12

minutes because I think you said

1:18:14

30 seconds. It was 119. It's

1:18:16

currently 128. Oh, Nick. So, thank

1:18:18

you so much for joining me.

1:18:20

I'm glad you agreed to, and

1:18:23

I didn't think you would, but

1:18:25

I'm so glad that you agreed

1:18:27

to do a show that you

1:18:29

opened up a little bit about

1:18:31

your personal life and business life.

1:18:33

And for those listeners who wanted

1:18:35

more Nick Laflin, boy, you got

1:18:38

a good dose today. Thanks so

1:18:40

much, Nick, for coming on. Is

1:18:42

there anything that you wanted to

1:18:44

mention today that you didn't get

1:18:46

a chance to? No, I appreciate.

1:18:48

I just want to thank you

1:18:51

for everything you're doing behind the

1:18:53

scenes too. I don't think we

1:18:55

say it enough on the show,

1:18:57

but you're, you're, you're not. you

1:18:59

know hosting the show anymore but

1:19:01

you are always participating always commenting

1:19:04

in when you can you're listening

1:19:06

to the show live while we're

1:19:08

recording it and adding to it

1:19:10

still so and I appreciate you

1:19:12

taking you know these two this

1:19:14

is the first two week break

1:19:16

I think that we've we've done

1:19:19

so yeah I'm looking forward to

1:19:21

the break and I appreciate you

1:19:23

taking on the editing I know

1:19:25

how much work it is but

1:19:27

yeah no I I still love

1:19:29

the show I'm I'm There are

1:19:32

so many things that I wish

1:19:34

we had found earlier, but obviously

1:19:36

iteration is part of it. Like

1:19:38

I wish we had come to

1:19:40

guest host sooner. I wish we

1:19:42

had come to, you know, you

1:19:44

know, splitting up the responsibility sooner.

1:19:47

Like so many things I wish

1:19:49

we'd done sooner. Yeah, live and

1:19:51

learn though. I'm proud of where

1:19:53

we are. Thank you. So if

1:19:55

you have any questions of feedback

1:19:57

you can reach out to Talking

1:20:00

Jupil on Twitter with the handle

1:20:02

Talking Jupil or by email at

1:20:04

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1:20:06

also connect with the hosts and

1:20:08

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1:20:10

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1:20:13

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1:20:15

Jupil. You can learn more at

1:20:17

Talking Jupil.com/TD promo. You can also

1:20:19

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1:20:21

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1:20:23

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1:20:25

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1:20:28

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1:20:30

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1:20:32

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1:20:34

And we do have articles posted

1:20:36

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1:20:38

that's at talkingjupil.com/newsletter. And a special

1:20:41

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1:20:45

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1:20:47

button on Talkingjupil.com to learn more

1:20:49

about that. Nick, if anyone wants

1:20:51

to get in touch with you,

1:20:53

how would they do that? You

1:20:56

can find me at Nick's Van,

1:20:58

NICXVA and pretty much everywhere. And

1:21:00

you can find me Stephen Cross

1:21:02

at Stephen Cross. If you've enjoyed

1:21:04

listening, we've enjoyed talking. See you

1:21:06

guys the next week. watching!