Connecting the Disconnected
Or why HalfStack and Living Spec, two seemingly disconnected things, are connected segments of my journey.
Background
Many years ago I learned that I had an usual skill for seeing relationships between things that others often did not see, such as patterns hidden in plain sight or similarities that others did not notice.
During my university days, I discovered this knack to be particularly useful in my Chemistry and Mathematics majors, and I’d later learn how useful it could be in computer science, data science, and more.
Organic Chemistry
For example, in organic chemistry you’re often shown two molecular structures and asked to determine if they are the same, if they were enantiomers (non-superimposable mirror images), or diastereomers (non-superimposibable, not mirror images). Most students would make molecular models to solve these problems, but I would just see the patters in my head.
Abstract Algebra
In abstract algebra, mathematics presents concepts such as group theory with groups, rings, fields, and vectors. You can think of this as a study of symmetry and similarity between things. Group theory for example provides the foundation for solving Rubik’s cubes because each item in a group follows the principles of closure, associativity, invertibility, and identity.
Movies
An early real world example I remember occurred after watching the movie My Cousin Vinny. I explained to my confused friends that while it was an enjoyable movie, that we had already seen this movie and it was called “Home Alone”. (I did not realize at the time that they shared directors and music composers, which actually makes it even more true).
How were they the same? Both movies give you the same emotional arc or journey, where the hero (Kevin in Home Alone, Billy in My Cousin Vinny) start by just kind of meandering along, then find themselves in an unexpected position of defense. All hope appears lost, and then a miracle occurs, their world gets saved, and all is right in the world.
The rough pace of the emotional arc is very similar, as is the use of music. Years later I would think that the first Harry Potter movie was quite similar. And again, same director and music composer and rough emotional arc.
Some would also argue that Star Wars Episodes I, II, III, IV, and VI are roughly the same story, with the Empire Strikes Back being the lone Lucas variant!
HalfStack
For many years I’ve spoken at tech conferences, but by 2014 I found myself mostly burnt out on the experience. I was still mostly enjoying meetups, but conferences less so.
So in 2015 I set out to create a conference experience for the JavaScript and web ecosystem that I would enjoy. I started by thinking of everything I disliked and started subtracting:
- Vendor pitches: terrible talks that I don’t want to hear
- Tech shaming: talks where the speaker presents one right way to do something, where you’re an idiot if you don’t immediately embrace their solution, open source or not
- Talks that could be blog posts: code heavy presentations that are better read and explored, or offered as a workshop, rather than a conference presentation
- Excessive queues/lines: Think the opposite of WebSummit
- Selling attendee info to sponsors: Even before GDPR this was not cool
- Emailing on behalf of sponsors: Just what everyone wants, a flood of emails before and after an event selling you someone’s products
- Exhibit halls: They’re not useful for smaller events. Instead offer sponsors a place to give away swag at the start of the day and then invite them to join the event. Or give them a fun demo station if they bring a truly unique experience.
- Multi-track conferences: To have meaningful conversations, everyone needs to attend the same sessions, not be busily racing around. Also it sucks for speakers when they are slotted at the same time as the trendy topic of the day and have an empty room
- Formality
What you are left with is a relaxed, fun, creative celebration of the JS and web ecosystem. Sessions focus on the possibilities of the platform, or telling stories, or other fun ways to share information with the audience. Because we’re not queuing as much, we can fit more into the day, and if you’re extroverted, you can meaningfully meet everyone in attendance during the day.
Living Spec
Living Spec tries to solve all of them problems we faced as developers and product leads over the years. We strive to create an easy to use, low friction platform for tracking what you’re building and why, over time.
Most organizations write a spec in one system, then do the work in another system, resulting in a dead spec.
We believe that by connecting the workflow to the spec, and keeping things up to date, you end up with an easy to maintain history of what was built and why, which provides increasing value over time.
Most systems are too rigid and formal and fall apart after a few milestones of work, but people have been using Living Spec in its various early iterations for a few years now to build their products.
We describe Living Spec as “Your Brain in the Clouds” because it fills that gap between “great idea” and “profitable product”.
We’re super respectful of our users data and time. We seek to make things as efficient as possible, tell you more useful info about your work the more you use things. And as soon as we have a viable solution for AI that doesn’t involve leaking large amounts of your data to anyone else, we’ll offer more than the simple AI tooling we offer today.
So how are these connected?
HalfStack is a low-friction, relaxed, fun way to connect with other people in the web ecosystem. It’s a new way to run a conference that is truly respectful of making sure that everyone is having a great time.
Living Spec is a low-friction, less structured and fun way to connect your messy ideas together over time to help you build the right thing and remember why you built X and not Y. It’s a new way to collaborate that treats everyone on the team as useful and capable of contributing to a successful product.
Both HalfStack and Living Spec respect you and your data, and strive to do the right thing for you. Both aim for authenticity.
But both can also simply be fun.
For example at HalfStack one year I delivered a talk called Cats vs. Dogs. The premise was that the effort we made in choosing a framework was as arbitrary as our preference for cats or dogs, and then we voted on it with a ridiculous app that filled the room with meows and woofs.
In Living Spec, we’re big fans of the Crown, so in preparation for Season 6, we outlined seasons 1–5 in excruciating detail. If you create a free Living Spec account, you can review this free example to get up to speed on seasons 1–5 before watching Season 6.
Or, given how things are often connected, you can see that the plot of a complex TV show is similar in complexity to that of a software product, and use our Crown example as a fun way to visualize collaboration!
Helping out
HalfStack and Living Spec can both use your help.
For HalfStack, please get a ticket to the event near you. You can purchase a ticket, or a low monthly subscription to get a ticket each year. You can also propose a session via the HalfStack CfP, or sponsor one or more of our events in an authentic manner. Or watch some of our past sessions on our YouTube channel.
For Living Spec, create an account, give us your feedback, use it on your next product or use it on something fun. If you find value, pay for a subscription, join our community, and more.
If none of these options are useful for you, tell a friend who might find value.
And maybe someday I’ll explain how training to be a high-level soccer/football player is similar to creating a product using Living Spec.
