Welcome to my PinkLetter. A short, weekly, technology-agnostic, and pink newsletter where we cultivate timeless skills in web development.
My Ramblings This Week
What itches of yours did you scratch building software?
For a long time, I coded for others. Sometimes it was for money, sometimes to volunteer help at scale. Some other times programming was my fav mental masturbation tool.
However, it took me a surprisingly long time to realize I could deploy code to solve my own problems—well, at least some of them.
Rictionary was born for that reason almost two years ago according to GitHub: I was tired of opening several tabs to search for Polish translations, declinations, images, and examples so I built my own dictionary. And I’ve been using it every. single. day.
Last Friday, I was caught in public, working on a React Native (Expo) app to help diabetic folks (like me) with basal testing.
As you probably know, people affected by diabetes need insulin to “digest” food. Most don’t know that we also need basal insulin to keep our blood sugars on a flat line all day (and night) and I’m trying to help people find the right dosage.
Elsewhere on the Web
📼 Micro SaaS Products - Are They Actually Profitable? by Rob Walling
Should you build a micro SaaS product? And will your micro SaaS idea actually be profitable? This video walks you through everything you need to know about new and emerging micro SaaS business models so you can decide if it’s right for you!
Riccardo: Are you working on a SaaS?
📼 Why some of us don’t have one true calling by Emilie Wapnick
What do you want to be when you grow up? Well, if you’re not sure you want to do just one thing for the rest of your life, you’re not alone. In this illuminating talk, writer and artist Emilie Wapnick describes the kind of people she calls “multipotentialites” – who have a range of interests and jobs over one lifetime. Are you one?
Riccardo: My exploration of the generalist vs specialist rabbit hole continues.
📕WHY YOUR WEBSITE SHOULD BE UNDER 14KB IN SIZE by Nathaniel
What is surprising is that a 14kB page can load much faster than a 15kB page — maybe 612ms faster — while the difference between a 15kB and a 16kB page is trivial.
Riccardo: If you want to dig deeper, I highly recommend reading High Performance Browser Networking.