Hello. I'm Harrison. I wanted to be an artist when I grew up, but instead I became a software developer.

Parascene is my first attempt at exploring "social network" and "doom scroll" or "endorphine" patterns.

I just wanted to work on a project that people engage with. So I threw a bunch of ideas at the wall.

We have about 20+ users and I'd like to see what happens as that scales.

I'd like to hear from people who are genuinely interested in this same sort of thing. I'm less interested in this site being perfect for all people, but more I would like it to grow from the suggestions of those who engage with it.

All that aside, human connection can be great when it lands right. Feel free to connect if you are interested.

Public Schools. I think terror there is built as a feature, not a bug. So be afraid.

But keep in mind, it may have always been this way. God bless those few cool teachers in each school who are aware of this and work to rescue a few who need it.

Love changes everything. Good teachers matter.

So just have no fear? Then when should we have fear?

Fear is a natural response, one that in this case is perfectly appropriate imo. I don't fear for my life, but I'm not optimistic at the moment

Do what you want. I take it that it's a crime around hear to encourage people to not be afraid so shame on me.

It's a light-hearted reference to a quote from the Dune books/movies. I didn't mean it to invalidate your experience.

If anything, I was suggesting you take heart and be strong. But again, do whatever you think works for you.

Got to love this culture!

I didn't mean to set you off like that?

I was just making a counterpoint, because it's easy to just say "have no fear" but I think there is a real place for at least some fear, otherwise why would that feeling exist? if you get what I mean.

I try to not fear, and I try to take it easy, but I'm also privileged to live in a country where I don't need to doordash to make ends meet.

My bad. I don't think it was you that set me off. I was just butt-hurt for getting my Herbert quote downvoted. Not your fault, I think.

On a better day, I would have spoken with greater detail about why I think that fear is misplaced in this scenario.

Short version, if fear motivates you to adapt in some way then it's useful. Absent that, even if there is a solid cause for alarm, it makes no sense and can even lead to worse outcomes.

In the context of "I'm old and have lost my desire to code, but AI re-ignited that", I don't think there's a reason to fear that would lead to a useful adaptation. I wouldn't waste my time with it.

More to the point, I don't think "there is such a hurry to get rid of devs in the first place" because of AI. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe part of me is prepping for that, too. Maybe it's real and fear is a viable option.

Regardless, my response was misplaced on you, I think. Sorry.

No problem, I hear ya.

I think it's just such a big shift in mentality, where the field is being devalued and looked down upon, and that causes uneasiness

if I could turn off my fear response, I'd do it. But it's a thing that we can't always control, so while I try to minimize it and be optimistic, it'll always lurk there, especially when headlines constantly remind you of it.

Long-term, I think we'll be fine. Nobody will tolerate a run to the bottom where everybody just makes minimum wage and then there's a high class consumer class at the top. It doesn't make sense.

Reading you, I was debating on loving kick in the rear. Can't really do that these days and some people react negatively to it. Sounds like you are reasonably self-aware though, so...

Nobody can teach you to own and control you. But you had better. Use tricks, treats, magic, whatever, but get to the damned end or make for damned sure you know why you walked away (and live with that).

Your life matters. Your ideas matter. Birth them. It hurts. Push through. Don't look back at your life and wonder what it would have been like if you had stuck with it. It hurts. But do it.

Or do whatever you want, but this random stranger votes "getting over".

OMG that manual. VIC-20 was my first code experience. I look back and cannot understand how 7 year-old me was patient enough to make a jumping jack guy appear on screen. Joy of Coding? Hell, no. I wanted to see if I could make it work. (I did, and I had no clue how to save to tape)

Sounds like you had one at home? If so, I'm a bit jealous. But also, hello, brother/sister!

Yep, my origin story is more fun, I actually got left at my dad's boss' office and was bored so I found a computer book and started reading it and rebooted the computer and followed the instructions. When they came back I had a very simple program going and after getting into a bit of trouble my dad's boss' laughed it off and told my dad to get me a computer. He did (the vic-20). Several days later my parents turned it off and deleted my program and it took me a while to explain that I needed more gear to save my programs. Been stuck on the hardware acquisition loop since :P

Love the color that a real life story adds, and yours definitely is colorful. Thanks for sharing.

I moved recently. My hardware acquisition loop still has me in tangles. Where exactly am I going to put this retired enterprise-grade Dell server? Why am doing this to myself? But, wow, it's a thing of beauty.

+1 review the code

Screw {some number}x. Such BS. Those who can, do. Those who can't, write and spread pseudo-intelligent brain worms. Reject!

My knee jerk is that there are quite a few people who can't or won't snowmobile when needed and ski when needed.

That's where the analogy starts to break a bit. You can't mode switch between skis and snowmobile, but you sure can ai assist/not pretty quickly.

One more quick one - imagine skiers showing up to the snowmobile club hating on snowmobiles and vice versa.

I, for one, have still not properly got a grip on how tech enables this sort of a analogy-breaking reality.

Effing go ski then; there's even a club for that! (rhetorical, not directed at anyone in particular) And shame on me cause I show up to the ski club on a snowmobile with skis on my back.

Actually I think it still kinda works: - You could ski easy routes but snowmobile harder ones (not that anyone actually does this).

- Snowmobiles are loud and chew up the snow, analogous to AI flooding a repo with low-effort PRs?

I can guess that you like this exercise and you seem to be adept at it. I can't help but think you are my kind of people in that regard. Kudos!

51 here. I code professionally and as a hobby/side-projects.

I loved coding before and love it still now.

I'm with you on the liberation not just with building, but I've also learned so much and so fast with LLM's the past few years.

Kinda scary like a motor bike, too.

God speed, you! And meh the haters and pontificators.

Here's a word I learned yesterday, my gift should you chose to accept - occhiolism.

It's about time browsers start supporting something like this natively. Fingers crossed.

I'll be checking this out. Any chance you (or anyone) has had a run with this lib + web components? I'd love to hear about it.

I haven't tried it personally, but I don't see any reason why they wouldn't work well together. µJS manipulates the DOM via fetch and swapping, while web components live in the DOM like any other element. The only thing to be aware of is that if µJS replaces a fragment containing a web component, connectedCallback will fire again, which is the expected behavior. Would love to hear your feedback if you give it a try!

I certainly will. I already have this on my stack. Will feedback + thanks!

Here's one vote for just be the witch if that's what people need from you.

Just make it be what you want to say and how you want to say it. And when they come after you, shame them to the best of your ability or treat them like they are not there.

That strategy didn't work out well for the witches of the past...

So what? There's all kinds of things that didn't work in the past that at some point began to work.

It wasn't someone who was primarily motivated by fear of the past that made it work the first time.

A good general rule in life is that people get one chance to show why they're not worth communicating with, and that's it.

I had almost forgotten that one. Thanks for reminding me!