Arnold Ho

FAANG dev by day, indiehacker by night

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

There are what we call special cases

For example:
The define keyword assigns data or procedure into the environment (somewhere in memory)

Conditionals evaluate true or false statements

If is a special case condition that evaluates only 2 cases

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

Starting the book sicp and thought to put some learnings here as I go along

Learning 1: Functions are black boxes where the output will always be the same for the same input

E.g: f(x) = 2x + 5
If x = 3, output will always be 11

#sicp #learninpublic

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

Normally in scheme, the evaluation order is as follows:
Evaluate all of the operands, and apply the operator to all of its operands

E.g (+ 2 3) => we first evaluate the operand 2 gives value 2, 3 = 3, and operator + adds those 2 up to be 5

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

However if sub procedures are not functional (i.e given input x it doesn’t generate the same output each time), then the results for applicative vs normal order evaluation are different

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

There’re general two types of evaluation order:

1️⃣ applicative order: “evaluating all operands and traverse up the evaluation tree”

2️⃣ normal order: “expand all procedures until you get to a primitive procedure, and evaluate”

If procedure is functional, results would be same

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

half an hour here, an hour there plus the help of chatGPT and google, I was able to create the first feature of a product I'm envisioning (ignore the ugly UI).

Even without a lot of spare time. With consistency, things slowly comes together.

#buildinpublic #indiehacker

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@ScottPlusPlus Another thing to add is that I don’t consider only products as side projects

For instance, I am also thinking of brushing up my frontend skills with a few frontend mentor projects from https://t.co/8j6mC1uQba

I’d hold the same rules for those

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

There’s are two rules I am going to follow this year and see what happens

1️⃣ ship code regularly for my side projects, ideally a few sessions per week

2️⃣ finish one project before moving on to the next

Let’s see what happens in a year!

#buildinpublic #indiehacker

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@ScottPlusPlus To the point where its feature complete, deployed in a usable state by other people

My general idea is to create MVPs get them tested by potential users (either online or from my network) and get feedback as quickly as possible, even before the product is fully out

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@bzagrodzki Congrats!!

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

I tend to overestimate how much I can get done in a day and underestimate how much I can get done in a week

When not hitting my daily goal its easy to lose motivation

That’s why writing down my weekly achievements have helped me stay focused

#buildinpublic #indiehacker

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@bzagrodzki @nalenb That's impressive!!! I have a follow up question. How do you come up with what to post and do you "recycle" your posts?

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

When building LLM wrapper app, you might want the response to be a JSON with specific attribute.

You can add `response_format: {"type": "json_object"}` in your open ai API request body and specify the json attributes in the prompt. Try it out!

#buildinpublic #indiehacker #LLM

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

I don’t have much energy after a long day of work. So the goals that I set for my side projects per day are normally so small that I’m sure I’ll be able to do in less than half an hour

Once I get through that initial hurdle, motivation usually comes
#indiehacker #buildinpuic

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@davidlovejoyx Haven’t hit 6 months yet 😂

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@ScottPlusPlus For example, maliciously abusing your open ai chat integration to use up your open ai credits, abusing your S3 uploads to rack up your aws bill etc

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

What are the kind of ways we can limit the possibility of denial of wallet attack on your saas?

Off the top of my head I’m thinking an auth model with rate limits for free tier customers and unlimited usage for paid customers

What do others think?

#buildinpublic #indiehacker

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

It takes discipline to be consistent in working on your side project and not be distracted by other ideas

It also takes a lot of discipline to not work when you’re supposed to rest and recharge

#indiehacker #buildinpublic

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@adrianatortja Read the doc

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

To not burn out from side projects, showing up consistently and doing little commits is better than hacking for a long period of time imo

It's already difficult to juggle a full time job with life outside of work, don't make your side project something you dread

#buildinpublic

[Arnold Ho @_Arnoldho]

@itzmsk10 Let’s connect!