Episode 56: Dominic Tarr on Coding What You Want, Living On A Boat, and the Early Days of Node.js

Panelists Allen "Gunner" Gunn | Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman |
Richard Littauer Guest Dominic Tarr Show Notes Hello and welcome to
Sustain! Our special guest today is Dominic Tarr, an open source
sailor hacker person, calling from his boat in New Zealand. He’s
been instrumental in the early JavaScript scene. Dominic tells us
how he got into open source, coding, and how he got involved in
JavaScript and Event Stream. We will also learn what Dominic is
doing now and how does he envision open source going forward. How
does Dominic fund his life living on a boat? Download this episode
now to find out! [00:01:35] Dominic tells us how he got into open
source, how he got into coding, how he ended up where he is today,
and how he got involved in JavaScript. [00:06:45] Richard informs
us that Dominic was in a group of influential people in Node JS who
made a bunch of modules, one of them being Event Stream, which is
Dominic’s. He also tells how many modules he’s written for NPM.
Dominic also talks about how he initially dealt with the “fixing
the bug” issues, since he was making these modules in his spare
time and coding for fun. [00:10:00] Justin wants to know how
Dominic got 700 modules and how did he manage it for as long as he
did. [00:12:02] Richard wonders what Dominic is doing now and how
does he envision open source or JavaScript going forward if it’s
not fun to work on. [00:14:07] Eric wants to know if Dominic has
any reflections or thoughts around the shift in the overall view of
NPM over the years. [00:20:19] Richard wonders how Dominic’s funds
his life because he lives on a boat. [00:24:55] Where can you find
Dominic on the internet? Find out here. Spotlight [00:25:16] Eric’s
spotlight is called Mind Stream. [00:25:47] Justin’s spotlight is
EthGasStatio.info. [00:26:15] Gunner’s spotlight is signal desktop.
[00:26:48] Richard’s spotlights are Scuttlebutt and Patchwork.
[00:27:11] Dominic’s spotlight is the Project Gemini. Quotes
[00:11:13] “We had this one SquatConf where we just had our own
conference, and we kind of timed it with some other, like more
boring conference that would fly people in and then we would be
like, okay, now we’re all in this place and let’s just have our own
thing.” [00:14:17] “So, for a long time, I guess before it became a
corporation, I believe incorporated, before that it was very much
open to everybody contribute and then it became a business, which
obviously there’s good reason for it to become a business.”
[00:23:13] “I’m not a terribly big fan of schemes to pay open
source developers, especially the ones that are like based on some
kind of charity thing. Either they’re like straight forward charity
things like Gratipay, then you never got very much money or you
have strings attached or something.” Links Dominic Tarr Twitter
(https://twitter.com/dominictarr?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
NPM (https://www.npmjs.com/) Mindstream
(https://www.mindstreaminteractive.com/) EthGasStation
(https://ethgasstation.info/) Signal (https://signal.org/en/)
Scuttlebutt (https://scuttlebutt.nz/) Patchwork
(https://www.electronjs.org/apps/patchwork) Project Gemini
(https://gemini.circumlunar.space/) 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 at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Dominic Tarr.