David Purdy @davidmpurdy

Video, images, words, and code electup.com Seattle, WA Joined May 2009

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

5 months ago

There's a tendency of smart people to try to overfit technology to a situation. Sometimes a technology should impose structure of its own. And sometimes it needs to intentionally not rigorously address a use case or it becomes inflexible and people just work around it

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

5 months ago

One of the hardest product lessons for me to remember to this day is that just because something is a good solution to a problem doesn't mean it's a good product. And vice versa.

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

5 months ago

Open source software never ceases to feel like a super power. You mean someone else had this same need, solved it, and just… let’s anyone use and adapt it?

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

5 months ago

I'm happy to announce that as a counterpoint to "build in public" I've decided to build in secret. I will stock up on supplies, retreat to a cave, and only emerge when the product is built and winter is over... Oh. Hibernate - what I want to do is hibernate.

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

5 months ago

I've been meaning to find this quote I think about in relation our information ecosystem: ""Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? ... He grows a forest to hide it in ... A fearful sin" - G. K. Chesterton

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

5 months ago

I wish there were better real world answers to open source sustainability. As much as I believe in the benefits and don’t like being a gatekeeper, I’ve often chosen not to open source things I’ve built that I use in my business… but I don’t always feel great about that decision

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

5 months ago

I often build small, niche APIs (usually 1-2 “glue” flows). So with all the advice about premature optimization in mind, I built a toolkit to cover stuff I do over and over. Still deciding whether it’s an internal tool or something to share. Obligatory: xkcd.com/1205/

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

You mean it’s not enough to just build something useful? I have to tell people it exists too??

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

What’s the great AI work being done in narrowly constrained domains? I get that “code anything!!” is a huge market, but I’m really interested in using LLMs for more accessible interfaces on things like build processes that are testable and also represent a barrier to entry

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

It’s been too long since I used a screen reader for an afternoon. Best practices are a convenient shorthand, but there’s nothing like actually trying to get things done in a modality you’re not used to

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

One of my first memories of web development was delight that I could just save a few lines out of a text editor and have a working page. I fully appreciate modern web build pipelines, but I wonder what we lose when we abstract away some of that “tactile” directness

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

As a parent I’ve learned that attention == good, and “negative” attention, while sometimes necessary, isn’t the consequence I think it is. I wonder if there are any parallels there with journalism and communication….

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

I think there’s scope for some AI in analytics, but let’s not forgot that the most important step is *what questions you ask.* And that fundamentally can’t be automated, not because our tech isn’t smart enough but because it ends up not being about information, but what we value

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

If you want to get ahead, sometimes you have to grind and just *make* time for progress. Work late, get up early. Does it feel good? No. Is it compatible with maintaining your health? No. But do you get things done in that time? Also no. I guess I’m saying take care of yourself

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

When I hear praise for uncompromising high standards, not only do I make a judgement about life circumstances that enable that outlook, but I also wonder about lack of imagination of how things could be even better. Everything is a compromise (done is better than perfect, etc.)

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David Purdy @davidmpurdy

6 months ago

I worry clients will wonder why I'm posting to social when I owe an email or a platform feature, so let me assure you: posts made from 100% recycled, otherwise unproductive time: most recently, lying behind the couch wondering if my son has forgotten we're playing hide and seek