Biased, but hard to beat Graphite for stacking! 🥞
28.04.2025 18:06
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Biased, but hard to beat Graphite for stacking! 🥞
Either way, we’re witnessing a shift. Teams that can’t stomach Electron’s overhead might jump to Tauri - or just build native like ChatGPT. Others will swear by the “just ship it” approach. Unclear if Electron keeps its crown moving forward.
smalldiffs.gmfoster.com/p/what-happe...
Now, Tauri enters the ring: It’s Rust-based, leans on the native WebView, and can cut app sizes from 100MB+ down to under 1MB. Is it a game-changer? Possibly. But as always, the real question is: how much do folks value memory efficiency over dev convenience?
v2.tauri.app
In fairness, Electron made cross-platform desktop apps feel as easy as spinning up a React project. Gone are the days of separate Objective-C and C++ codebases. Startups love that velocity. Purists hate the bloat. It’s a classic speed vs. efficiency standoff.
Electron turned “write once, run anywhere” into a reality for desktop dev - but it also brought “ship an entire Chromium with every app.” If you’ve got Slack, VSCode, AND Discord open right now, that’s practically 3 browsers running in parallel. No wonder your laptop's become a jet-engine 🚀
5/5: Hard work doesn’t have to be joyless. If you inject playful moments - pranks, offsite hacks, bar tabs, or silly traditions - you’ll build resilience. The best way to not quit is to actually like what you’re doing. How do you make work fun?
4/5 During the pandemic, my cofounders and I learned to play starcraft to break up the neverending work days. We got destroyed, but had fun while doing it.
3/5: In my startup, we once snuck a cartoon weasel onto our site - only our CEO could see it. A silly prank, but it lit up the team’s mood, broke the stress, and boosted creativity. We still pulled late nights, but we wanted to because the journey felt worth it.
2/5: Look at some icons: Apple’s early Mac team raised a pirate flag in the office; Pixar has hallway scooter races; Atlassian hosts “ShipIt Days” to build anything people want. They all work insanely hard and have fun - fueling innovation and avoiding burnout.
1/5: The biggest risk to your startup isn’t running out of money - it’s you giving up. If the grind is miserable, burnout creeps in and kills momentum. But there’s a powerful antidote: fun. Here’s why making your work enjoyable can keep your vision alive:
Yes, you’ll miss writing code at times. But if you want to shape decisions, amplify others’ impact, and steer the whole ship forward, engineering management can be incredibly rewarding. It’s tough—but absolutely worth it.
smalldiffs.gmfoster.com/p/the-most-i...
My core lessons as an EM:
• Trust first: people share crucial insights only if they believe you genuinely care.
• High-stakes calls: timely interventions can shift entire projects/careers.
• Be the heart of the team: circulate context so everyone stays aligned and focused.
As an IC, success is about shipping features and PRs. As an EM, it’s about absorbing the big-picture—roadmaps, product goals, team morale—and applying that context at the right moments to guide the team.
3 years ago, I went from coding every day to managing an engineering team—and I had no clue what I was doing at first. The biggest realization? My core “deliverable” was no longer code. It was context.
[7/7] In tech and in life, there’s value in exploring extremes—but also in acknowledging that the best results often come from a balanced, sustainable approach. Here’s to learning from those who push the boundaries and sharing the lessons!
[6/7] Ultimately, shipping product is just a means to an end: creating something meaningful. Hustle culture without purpose (or health) is a sure path to burnout, not success.
[5/7] Thank you, @bryan_johnson, for reminding founders that optimizing for longevity—in health and in business—means balancing ambition with healthy, sane practices. It’s a better way forward for everyone.
[4/7] In the doc, Bryan talks about his previous grind culture, how it led to deep depression, and the perspective he gained afterward. That really resonated. Sometimes you have to see the edge to know how far not to go.
[3/7] At our startup, Graphite, we’re trying to find that sweet spot: healthy optimization. We measure PR size, shipping speed, CI time, etc.—but not at the expense of team well-being or delivering real value.
[2/7] On the surface, chasing more PRs, faster deployments, and endless metrics can feel like an obsession. But watching Bryan’s journey also highlights a key principle: explore the boundaries without destroying your mental or physical health.
[1/7] “Don’t die. Don’t grind yourself into burnout.”
I’ve been reflecting on the lessons from @bryan_johnson's Netflix documentary—where he relentlessly experiments with slowing aging. It reminds me of engineering teams pushing productivity to the extreme.
So next time you see a giant bottleneck, ask: “What if we did this in one-tenth the time?” That’s high-impact engineering at its core: rapid alignment, bold moves, and tangible results. Just be prepared to handle the fallout—and clean up afterward.
It’s not about “being 10x.” It’s about choosing the biggest, scariest obstacle and straight-lining your way through it with creativity and calculated risk. Know when it’s worth it, and recognize that sometimes a methodical approach is best.
That said, there are drawbacks. Moving at warp speed can create technical debt, annoy coworkers, and risk burnout. The key is balancing aggression with respect—aligning the right stakeholders so you’re not stepping on toes without consent.
High-impact engineers don’t necessarily code faster; they deliver faster. They’re the ones who say, “I’ll stay late, push a risky but well-thought-out fix to prod, and check logs at 2 a.m.” They see friction as a solvable problem, not an immovable barrier.
Break the problem into first principles. Ask “Why?” at every step. If a vendor says you need specialized movers, do you really? Maybe you can rent a truck and do it in a weekend—with proper planning and a united team.
You don’t need to be a billionaire or set your hair on fire. High-impact work is about questioning constraints, not blindly ignoring them. Think: “Does it really need six months? Can we do it in three weeks with some risk mitigation?”
Consider Elon Musk’s data center move at Twitter. He literally hopped on a plane around Christmas, rented a Corolla, and hauled thousands of pounds of server racks by hand. Chaotic? Yes. But from a pure results standpoint, it slashed months off the schedule.
smalldiffs.gmfoster.com/p/how-to-be-...
Let’s talk about high-impact engineering—the kind of work that blows away normal timelines and delivers massive results. Sometimes it gets called “10x,” but the name doesn't matter: it’s about finding the biggest problems and tackling them with ruthless focus.
