I have my qualms with Janet. Mostly, it's lack of package management versioning and lack of libraries in general (advanced HTTP routing, etc).
I do LOVE that Janet can create binaries with JPM, scripts, and is very portable. I once put the Janet programming language on the Playdate game console as POC.
I actually do enjoy writing Janet, but every time I do people think I created the language (I did not).
I've been bitten by the ops hellscape of microservices and various tech many times throughout my career, and it's definitely shaped how I think about designing and building software now.
I'm using a PaaS, so I didn't want to pay the extra money for a cron job. Maybe not a wise a choice, but here we are.
Totally agree about the issues I might face. I'm glad that the Clojure REPL is a thing, so I can test out all of a job's functionality before sending it off to async land.
Start smaller. You have to walk before you can run. I might be biased because I've tried and failed at a few startups, but this is what I'm doing:
Try building smaller / easier businesses first. Try freelancing or try selling something, anything, like a course. I think there's a very strong correlation between who can make it as freelance and those who can make it with a startup. The market is validated, and you'll get experience in selling, branding, marketing, etc.
Unless you live in Thailand or Bali, I don't see much option for mitigating risk here. Having a freelance/consulting business is going to do wonders for your entrepreneurship career. It'll give you more control over your work schedule, so you can keep making bigger and bigger bets. Just make sure you get high-value clients so you can make margin. Otherwise you'll be hunting for work all the time.
Last piece of advice: don't listen other people (LOL). Everyone has an opinion on how to be an entrepreneur and what 'true' entrepreneurship is. Focus on yourself and where you want to be and how to build a life where you can keep taking shots at the goal.
I've been self-employed for nearly three years as a freelancer / consultant.
Though, I have a course I've pre-sold during the recent work drought. These pre-sales have been paying the bills. So there's lots of pressure to deliver on them while still trying to line up freelance/consulting work.
I started doing this because I had big indie hacker dreams. Now I just think that I'm partially unemployable. What matters most to me is controlling my own destiny and Intellectual Property rights. Writing code is what fills me up, and It needs to be protected. Otherwise, I feel trapped, growing bitter and angry over time. So I'll keep doing this until I have more products.
My ultimate goal is to create a portfolio of products to pay the bills. I have no particular biased towards what. They could be courses, ebooks, or even games. 2023 was a special case in terms of cash flow (business cycle goes down), but I'm hopeful for the future, and my course sold decently well, so I think I'm getting the hang of this entrepreneurship thing.
Context is very important in these kinds of use cases. If you work with something niche, I think these tools are less valuable because the training data becomes sparse.
For example, GPT-4 produces Javascript code far better than it produces Clojure code. Often, when it comes to Clojure, GPT-4 produces broken examples, contradictory explanations, or even circular reasoning.
https://blog.janetacarr.com I write a lot about Clojure and software developer with Clojure. I only have like a dozen posts though, but people seem to like them (mostly).
I try not to toot my own horn, but I wrote this little quadtree library that tickles that elegance part of my brain. I try very hard to write elegant code. I have other Clojure repos, but they suck. :P
I think the best advice I got on this subject was "the first five minutes are the hardest". I forget where I heard this, but I took it into my remote working jobs and into all of the self-employed stuff I want to do. It could be simple and small, whatever it is. Sometimes it's just writing comments or tests for my existing code. Eventually the flow takes over and craves more intensity, so at that point I just go with the flow.
I agree with you, but I also never said it's snobbish about pure functional programming. The way I see it, pure functional programming, like anything, is just a tool in the belt to help think about solutions in a different manner.
I do LOVE that Janet can create binaries with JPM, scripts, and is very portable. I once put the Janet programming language on the Playdate game console as POC.
I actually do enjoy writing Janet, but every time I do people think I created the language (I did not).