Episode 238: Julia Evans and Wizard Zines

Guest Julia Evans Panelists Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari Show
Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer and co-host
Amanda Casari talk to Julia Evans, a zine artist and programmer
from Montreal. The discussion delves into Julia's journey in
creating educational zines about technical topics like strace,
Bash, and Git. Julia shares insights into her unique approach to
making complex tools more accessible, how she uses feedback and
beta readers to refine her work, and the importance of writing
about stable technologies. The episode also touches on Julia's
balance between art and sustainability, her collaborative work with
her team, and highlights the significance of community-driven
knowledge sharing. Press download to hear much more! [00:01:44]
Julia explains her approach to creating zines, starting with the
desire to simplify the usage of complex tools like strace.
[00:03:14] Julia discusses her background as a programmer and the
thematic focus of her zines, including making technical topics like
Bash scripting more approachable. [00:04:54] Amanda praises Julia’s
method of demystifying technical concepts through zines. Julia
shares the challenges of creating zines on complex topics like Git,
discussing how user feedback helps refine content. [00:07:14] Julia
details the iterative process of creating zines, including using
beta readers and feedback tools to enhance the clarity and
usefulness of her guides. [00:11:50] The discussion shifts to how
Julia selects topics for her zines, focusing on technologies with
strong backward compatibility guarantees, ensuring that the content
remains relevant and accurate over time. [00:15:59] Richard
questions Julia about her preference for creating zines over other
formats like video tutorials or classes, despite the potential
reach and educational impact of those mediums. She explains her
preference for zines, highlighting her affinity for print and
writing, and he challenge with video formats. [00:19:13] Julia
discusses her transformative experience at the Recurse Center,
which greatly enhanced her understanding of computer systems,
inspiring her to help others feel like “wizards” who fully grasp
their tools. [00:21:39] Julia mentions co-founding “bang bang con,”
a conference focused on short, insightful talks about programming,
and confirms the availability of these talks online. [00:22:46]
Richard asks Julia about “weird stuff” she likes to do with
computers. She describes creating a DNS server that open shares
queries, reflecting her passion for making the invisible aspects of
computing visible. [00:24:43] Julia reveals how she funds her
zine-making and educational endeavors through sales, which has
allowed her to focus full-time on this work and even hire help to
manage operations, enhancing sustainability and enjoyment of her
work. [00:26:05] Julia reflects on the unpredictability of her
success, expressing hesitation to offer advice on replicating her
business model due to its unconventional nature. [00:27:47] Julia
shares her approach to team building and sustainability, focusing
on treating and paying her collaborators well to endure ongoing
successful partnerships. [00:28:44] Find out where you can purchase
Julia’s zines and find her online. Quotes [00:02:19] “I would have
all these questions, what are people using this tool for?”
[00:02:45] “I wanted to show people that this is not that big of a
deal.” [00:06:26] “This is what I wish someone told me when I
started using this tool.” [00:17:08] “I don’t usually want to learn
a book’s worth of information about a topic. I’m a generalist.”
[00:17:40] “My dream when learning about something is I just want
to talk to someone who’s really, really smart for two hours and
they’ll tell me everything I need to know.” [00:21:11] “You can do
weird stuff!” [00:24:07] “I just thought it would be cool to make
it, so I did.” [00:26:34] “Once I saw that I was working, I started
to ask, is it sustainable? What do I need to learn about marketing
to make it a sustainable business?” [00:28:29] “I try to be the
last client to get fired. That’s my dream.” Spotlight [00:29:43]
Amanda’s spotlight is she finally got to attend csv,conf,v8.
[00:30:40] Richard’s spotlight is Rafik Draoui. [00:31:26] Julia’s
spotlight is Atuin, a really nice way to search your shell history.
Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS
Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Open
Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
(https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials
(https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Amanda Casari
X/Twitter (https://x.com/amcasari?lang=en) Julia Evans Blog
(https://jvns.ca/) Julia Evans Mastodon
(https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk) Julia Evans X/Twitter
(https://x.com/b0rk) Julia Evans GitHub (https://github.com/jvns)
strace (https://strace.io/) Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick
(https://writeusefulbooks.com/) Space Jam
(https://www.spacejam.com/1996/jam.html) Recurse Center
(https://www.recurse.com/) Sustain Podcast-Episode 146: Anjana
Vakil on the Recurse Center, Outreachy, and Learning to Code
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/146) !!Con 2024 (bang bang con)
(https://bangbangcon.com/) Gazouilli by Rafik Draoui
(https://github.com/rafikdraoui/gazouilli) Wizard Zines
(https://wizardzines.com/) Wizard Zine on strace
(https://wizardzines.com/zines/strace/) New zine: How Git Works! by
Julia Evans
(https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/04/25/new-zine--how-git-works-/) Mess
with dns (https://messwithdns.net/) Csv,conf,v8
(https://csvconf.com/) Rafik Draoui GitHub
(https://github.com/rafikdraoui) Atuin
(https://github.com/atuinsh/atuin) 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 Guest: Julia Evans.