ex-mode VS Blazorise

Some years ago I was on a shitty job - not technically, but the company turned out to be inhumane - at a Ruby shop, and on the side I was toying with mini_racer and I just upgraded to some macOS beta where it failed to build. A shitty +1-1 hack† for a compiler flag later and it was back flying.

A month later I received a cold email from a CTO to chat a bit about that PR, turns out they were using mini_racer heavily and forked it for their own purpose, and also created PyMiniRacer for the Python side of things. Next thing I know I got hired. Two years later the company got acquired.

Of course conditionally adding a compiler flag wasn't what got me hired per se, it only got my profile noticed. Probably side projects such as porting go by example to Ruby by implementing a ~1:1 CSP channel API[1], an Electron desktop client for Mattermost basically on a dare[2], ex mode for the Atom editor so that I could have that frackin' `:w`[3], leveraging Blocks to bolt on object-oriented-ness onto C because "closures are a poor man's object"[4], or reverse-engineering the Xbox One USB gamepad and writing a kext to turn it into a HID device on macOS from scratch on a lonely 7+h train ride with passengers judgementally staring at me sideways[4] probably contributed to it a bit.

My takeaway: luck is when preparation meets opportunity; but don't to side projects to get hired, because if you don't get hired then that time is lost. Rather, of all things, scratch your itch, have fun, embrace whatever quirkiness you fancy; no one can take that away from you.

[0]: https://github.com/rubyjs/mini_racer/commit/2086db1bbf2b5de4...

[1]: https://github.com/lloeki/normandy

[2]: https://github.com/lloeki/matterfront

[3]: https://github.com/lloeki/ex-mode

[4]: https://github.com/lloeki/cblocks-clobj/blob/master/main.c

[5]: https://github.com/lloeki/xbox_one_controller

I made a Blazor component library for one of my personal projects that failed, but the component library lived on as an open-source project called Blazorise [1].

In late 2019, I got a well-paid job in a large local company because of the project reference. Unfortunately, COVID happened, and I lost that same job after a few months. So again, because of Blazorise, I got several other gigs as a freelancer.

But after a while, it was hard to do all the work on the projects and do freelance jobs at the same time. Not to mention that family time was also very limited.

So I decided to commercially license Blazorise to companies, and keep it free for individuals. Hopefully, the decision paid off. Today I run a small company and continue to work on Blazorise full time. We're still fully bootstraped without any external funds.

[1] https://blazorise.com/

https://blazorise.com is fully done on Blazor. Also the support forum https://blazorise.com/support

Da, vidi https://blazorise.com/

I am working on form that run dynamic sql query in database and populates the results in datagrid. I don't know how many columns will return by the query. So I populate my resuts in DataTable, but unable to display on datagrid. Relevant issue [Feature] Full featured work with DataTable in DataGrid · Issue #701 · Megabit/Blazorise (github.com) . Does anyone know workaround for this.

Making Blazor run on Linux was a lot of hard work. Mainly because there is no official support from Microsoft (but even that doesn't always help, as you will see in the next section about macOS). I tried to make it work with 3 different community driven projects: Electron.NET, Chromely and Photino. Electron is very bloated and very slow - it takes for ever to start debugging from Visual Studio. I also hated that it first opens a console window and then the Blazor window. I don't want to see 2 windows open. Chromely also first opens a console window and then the Blazor window. I couldn't make it work in Linux. That leaves Photino. It comes with a Blazor sample that works in Linux without a problem. But my project didn't work in Linux with Photino. I found out that the problem was loading content for https://github.com/Megabit/Blazorise from the \wwwroot\_content folder. I sumbitted a GitHub issue and the problem was fixed in Photino.Blazor v2.5.0

I did something similar with Blazorise, a personal project of mine, https://blazorise.com/. It started as a hobby project. After some time it grew too large that it took most of my time, not to mention the time I could spend with my wife and son. Things changed during the Covid when I was laid off. Then I started freelancing for a while, and last year I finally took a big step and went full-time with Blazorise. Switched to dual licensing, where larger enterprises must purchase a commercial license. It is working, and hopefully, it will continue to work. Or otherwise, my wife will rage on me :/

My guess is that they're using component libraries (like Blazorise) rather than write components themselves.