Episode 172: Maintainer Month 2023 with Sarah Boyce & David Blass

Guests Sarah Boyce | David Blass Panelist Richard Littauer Show
Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about
sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast
and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month.
We’re interviewing actual maintainers of open source code to talk
about what they do, how they like it, and what they need to keep
going. Today, we’re very excited to have two guests joining us. Our
first guest is Sarah Boyce, who’s a Backend Developer at CheMondis
and member of Django’s review and triage team. She talks about her
role, her contributions to Django, her experiences on the review
and triage team, and shares advice for those contemplating becoming
a maintainer. Our second guest is David Blass, who’s a full-time
JavaScript open source developer and Founder of ArkType, which is a
TypeScript validation system. David discusses community feedback,
improvements in the new release, the potential monetization of the
project, and the TypeScript market and potential for growth of
ArkType. Press download to hear more! Sarah: [00:01:13] Sarah tells
us about her work with Django, ways it overlaps with her work at
CheMondis, and her journey doing open source work and getting
involved in Django. [00:03:04] Sarah talks about her contributions
to Django and the Python ecosystem, as well as her experiences
being on the triage and review team. [00:04:35] We hear about the
supportive and friendly community of Django. [00:07:07] Despite
being unpaid, Sarah explains how her open source work has helped
her gain personal and professional benefits. [00:09:54] We learn
how Sarah manages her time effectively with all the extra volunteer
work, badminton, painting, and work. [00:11:34] Why Django? Sarah
fills us in on why Django was interesting to her. [00:12:26] Sarah
tells us what she’s looking forward to, such as meeting other
contributors and maintainers of Django. [00:13:26] The hardest
thing for Sarah was the anxiety around doing the first jump and
raising the first PR. Also, dealing with people who disagree and
get contentious can be challenging. [00:15:09] Her advice to
someone contemplating becoming a maintainer is to do some research
first, double-check that the repository has a code of conduct, and
check the vibe of the conversation before jumping in. [00:16:59]
Find out where you can follow Sarah on the web. David: [00:19:07]
Joining us now is David Blass. He tells us about ArkType, which is
a validator for runtime data that mirrors TypeScript’s syntax for
defining types. [00:20:50] David explains TypeScript and how it
offers a developer experience. [00:24:51] We learn about David’s
passion with ArkType and his community of contributors. [00:26:50]
David discusses the funding model, how he’s looking for VC funding
and is open to other funding models that allow the project to
continue as a purely open source project if that’s viable.
[00:27:52] David has another core maintainer that work with him,
and he tells us what he does. [00:29:10] ArkType is still at the
alpha stage and has not been broadly adopted in production yet, but
David plans to make a push in the next couple of months. [00:32:26]
What is the goal of ArkType? [00:34:09] Richard and David discuss
the TypeScript market and the potential for growth of ArkType.
[00:35:58] David shares some final thoughts about the potential
monetization of the project, such as using the validation system
for instrumented code that checks code that checks code execution
for validity and suggests that investors could contact him if
interested. [00:37:34] Find out where you can follow David on the
web. Quotes Sarah: [00:05:26] “Everything we do is very much in the
open and we want to keep it as much in the open as possible, so we
don’t have a group of people who have access to information that
other people don’t have access to.” [00:11:39] “Django found me; I
didn’t find Django.” [00:15:25] “Before you make your first PR,
double check that they have a Code of Conduct. It’s a good sign if
it is there.” [00:15:46] “[Before contributing], I would look on a
couple of the issues or PR’s and check the vibe of the
conversation.” David: [00:21:37] “The more you scale a project the
more important it is to have static types and clean interfaces.”
[00:26:10] “Just to have people who are so deeply engaged with what
you’re doing and invested has been such a rewarding thing for me.”
[00:26:23] “It’s one thing to know that something’s theoretically
important, but it’s another to just have the day-to-day sustenance
and engagement you need to feel like you can give it your all.”
Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
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SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS
Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Richard Littauer
Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Sarah Boyce LinkedIn (https://de.linkedin.com/in/svboyce) Sarah
Boyce GitHub (https://github.com/sarahboyce) CheMondis
(https://chemondis.com/) Django (https://www.djangoproject.com/)
DjangoCon Europe 2023 (https://2023.djangocon.eu/) David Blass
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ssalbdivad) David Blass
GitHub (https://github.com/ssalbdivad) David Blass Twitter
(https://twitter.com/ssalbdivad?lang=en) David Blass Email
(mailto:david@arktype.io) ArkType (https://arktype.io/) ArkType
GitHub (https://github.com/arktypeio/arktype) TypeScript
(https://www.typescriptlang.org/) Credits Produced by Richard
Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guests: David Blass and Sarah Boyce.