Story: Full-Time Open Source

Story: Full-Time Open Source

Author: Adam Gordon Bell - Software Developer August 2, 2021 Duration: 46:15

Today's show: How to Quit Your Job and Work on Open Source Full Time.

This story has it all, balancing open source work and full-time employment, building up enough supporters and enough savings to leave your job. The hardest part to me which is explaining leaving your job to your significant other and to your family and friends.

And also what do you do if your project succeeds, and then someone forks it and builds a commercial business around it? There's a lot more as well dealing: with hacker news feedback, how to improve upon the C programming language and how to be super ambitious without seeming arrogant.

Sponsor the podcast:

If you go to patreon.com/adamgordonbell, you can find the Patreon page for the podcast, and if you are enjoying these episodes and want me to keep putting more time into them, think about setting up a recurring donation.

Links:

Andrew's personal website

Zig


In CoRecursive: Coding Stories, host Adam Gordon Bell sits down with software developers to explore the human narratives woven into the technology we build. This isn't a technical interview focused on syntax or best practices, but a deeper dive into the pivotal moments, creative struggles, and personal insights that shape how code comes to life. Each conversation reveals the context behind decisions, the stories of failure and breakthrough, and the often-overlooked human elements that define our craft. As a software developer himself, Adam guides these discussions with genuine curiosity, pulling out anecdotes and reflections you won't hear anywhere else. The podcast lives in the intersection of News, Education, and How-To, but through the lens of lived experience. You'll hear about the origins of influential projects, the rationale behind unconventional solutions, and the personal journeys that lead developers to their philosophies. Listening feels like pulling up a chair with thoughtful peers, offering a richer understanding of the profession that goes far beyond the screen. This is where the abstract becomes concrete, through the stories and people behind the code.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

CoRecursive: Coding Stories
Podcast Episodes
Story: The Aging Programmer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:52
Kate Gregory has been writing C++ for over forty years. Books, keynotes, a consulting firm she built from the ground up. At sixty-three, she's one of the most experienced programmers alive. She surveyed hundreds of softw…
From Hacker News to TikTok - How Algorithms Learned to Hook Us [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:32
Corey told me about his AI cat reel problem. He found these AI-genearted cat videos hilarious. Who makes these? He kept sending them to his wife. Then he tried to stop watching and he couldn't. So I went down the rabbit…
Notes: The Universal Paperclip Clicker [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 11:05
Multiple VS Code windows. "Agent stopping" in a robot voice. A laptop stand on the treadmill so Claude can keep working while I run. The Big Rich sitting unread by the fireplace while I check if the migration's done. Som…
Story: Godbolt's Rule - When Abstractions Fail [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:13
What do you do when your code breaks and the only fix is to dig into the runtime below? Matt Godbolt lives for that. Tile-based renderers, color-coded scanlines, zero-copy NICs—each story is a clue that leads past the ab…
Quick Update [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:52
A quick update from Adam about the podcast's current state, consistency challenges, and what's coming next. Episode Page Support The Show Subscribe To The Podcast Join The Newsletter
Coding in the Red-Queen Era [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:24
What do we risk when we let AI do the heavy lifting in our coding? Are we giving up the thinking that makes us good at what we do? And as expectations keep rising to match productivy gains, is all this speed really helpi…
When AI Codes, What's Left for me? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:51
I've always found meaning—and a lot of strength—in building things. Now, with AI coding agents changing the way we work, it's easy to feel threatened, like something essential might get taken away. But honestly, that cre…