The Software Lounge

Software engineering blog for devs and managers. Read it at

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

The best advocate for your next performance review, pay raise discussion, or promotion is yourself. You prepare for this throughout the year by keeping a brag doc. Learn the why and how:

https://t.co/0VHAh6LQUE

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@jasonfried Sorry, not fully familiar with how the team works. Can you explain what happens between the pitch being made and someone starting work on it? Who does the author need to convince to get work started? Do folks ever get frustrated because their pitch never sees the light of day?

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

Wrote about my top 10 tips for conducting an interview:

https://t.co/lpo3Z4pGhA

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@Carnage4Life And I think it’s clear this is not clickbait if you actually watch the video. Marques really, really disliked this thing and is honestly telling his audience to avoid it.

https://t.co/gTZBeEiSIW

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@dvassallo Genuine question – did you watch the whole video? He even talks about the title he chose. From watching the whole thing, it seems clear (to me) that this is his honest view of the product. He really, really did not enjoy this and does not want his audience wasting money on it.

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@dvassallo Genuine question – did you watch the whole video? He even talks about the title he chose. From watching the whole thing, it seems clear (to me) that this is his honest view of the product. He really, really did not enjoy this and does not want his audience wasting money on it.

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@matthewcp Anecdotally, I can confirm that this is common. I’ve met a lot of devs who don’t use the terminal outside of their IDE and specific projects. Seeing it more with younger devs.

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

https://t.co/o6FOXFTKFC

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@dhh I usually hate sports metaphors in business, but this one felt spot on!

[roon @tszzl]

don't even talk to me like I’m the same person I was before the eclipse

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

https://t.co/woGgIp7Z5u

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

https://t.co/mxlbkTwPjV

[Daniel Vassallo @dvassallo]

There's been big drama about this technology recently.

Back in 1999, a man named Steve Gass invented a system that sensed flesh and allowed the blade to stop and retract before it could cut into hands and fingers.

This wasn't some gimmick. It actually worked. 40,000 people in the US alone end up in the ER because of table saw injuries. When a human makes contact with a 2lb blade spinning at 5000rpm, the outcome is never a couple of stitches and a bandaid. This is when you go to hospital with your fingers in a zip bag and beg doctors to reattach them. Or when the blade goes between your fingers and bifurcates your hand in two. Nasty catastrophic injuries.

Gass' invention fixed this. The brake worked fast enough to prevent almost all these bad injuries. What could be a major catastrophe turns into a small scratch and a $150 brake and blade replacement.

And it was commercially viable too. The tech worked with any regular metal blade, and the brake mechanism could be made for under $100. The brake was just a consumable item that could be replaced quickly with no tools.

Initially Gass tried to license this technology to all the major saw manufacturers. But they all turned him down. The speculation is that manufacturers couldn't afford to put this on their low end saws because of the added cost of the brake and the need to make the saw sturdy enough to support the energy absorbed from the brake. Some low end saws retail for $150-$300, so even though the brake was cheap, it would have made that product segment unviable. And if manufacturers chose to put the brake only on their higher end models, they were afraid they'd open themselves up for lawsuits if they possessed the safety technology and intentionally omitted it on the cheaper models. So they didn't want anything to do with this.

Then Gass went to the government and lobbied for regulators to compel the use of this technology. But back then there was no appetite for that kind of intervention and Gass got a lot of bad PR for trying to impose this on the public.

So Gass decided to go with the free market approach, and started a company called SawStop which made table saws using this technology. And he proved that a lot of people were willing to pay an extra $200 to save their fingers. Who knew?

In time, the other manufactures lost almost all market share to SawStop for the medium to high end saws. Almost any new saw sold in the US over $800 was a SawStop.

And miraculously, the manufactures had a change of heart! Now they wanted this technology. So a few of them began developing their own versions. Almost none managed to bring anything to market, but at one point Bosch developed a similar technology called Reaxx and started selling these saws in the US. But SawStop sued them for infringing on their patent.

In the end, the court ruled that Bosch couldn't sell these saws in the US, and this ticked consumers off because they said this was further proof that SawStop was more interested in money than safety.

But shortly after SawStop won that lawsuit, they changed their mind. They gave Bosch a free license to use their technology. But Bosch still didn't bring back their Reaxx products. Some say that Bosch never managed to implement a reliable solution and they realized their solution would be compared to SawStop's and it would harm their brand if it didn't work as well.

Fast forward to today, 25 years after Gass invented this system. The political situation is very different, and now it's looking very likely that SawStop technology will be mandated for all new table saws sold in the US.

SawStop still have a patent for this technology until 2033, and if this regulation passes the other manufactures would theoretically have to pay license fees for every saw they sell in the US.

But in a shocking move, SawStop said that if the regulation passes, it will release the patent for free to the public. The US public safety commission, prepared for a fight, was baffled by this news. When the news sunk in, they concluded that at this point there are no more barriers for any other company to match SawStop safety.

This means that SawStop will give their rivals permission to use their technology. It doesn't mean that it will sell the parts to them, but they are not going to sue anyone who tries to make their own version. They are basically giving up their monopoly on this technology.

But the manufactures are still unanimously opposed to this regulation (except SawStop of course). They claim that this will put them out of business and that cheap affordable saws are going to be a thing of the past. The cheapest SawStop table saw costs $899, while most manufactures sell saws under $300. Since they're not selling any high end saws anymore (SawStop took all of their business), the low end is what's making them money at the moment, and now this regulation will force them out of the market completely.

If this regulation passes, we're likely not going to see saws on the market for under $700 anymore. And this will be a real obstacle for people looking to get started in woodworking, carpentry, and other construction trades that need to buy table saws. The regulation will also likely incentivize manufacturers to recall all the old saws, and that would make it hard for consumers to find cheap used saws without this safety feature. (This already happened with Craftsman's radial arm saws in the early 2000s.)

But what about the saved fingers? 400,000 catastrophic injuries and amputations over the next 10 years could be saved if this regulation passes. That seems substantial. This feels like progress. This is what an advanced society does. The end consumer will ultimately pay for it, but would you want the cabinet maker of your next kitchen remodel risk fingers and permanent catastrophic injury just to save a $100 part? Hell no!

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

10 tips on conducting an interview like a pro!

https://t.co/lpo3Z4pGhA

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

How I use Obsidian for work:
https://t.co/mPgvNTJMNz

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@Pinboard Last few years felt super cringe, but this time around I feel like corps toned it down a bit. Or just did a better job of muting/blocking them…

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

Joined Mastadon, trying to figure out how it works :D

https://t.co/djuqiwgZFu

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

@CloudflareDev That’s really coo! I’ve not has a chance to use Cloudflare professionally yet, but this is becoming so good it’s hard to ignore.

[Cloudflare Developers @CloudflareDev]

It's no joke - stateful, full stack apps are now easier than ever.
🎉D1 & Hyperdrive are now GA.
📊Workers Analytics Engine moves into early access.
⏰Queues now has pull-based consumers and new message delivery controls.

👇check the thread for details
https://t.co/Q1Zjit2oaA

[Nikita | Scaling Postgres @nikitabase]

When building system software you get to build up a ton of intuition of how fast things should be. But adding two and two and running through a profiler is A+ level of competence.

[The Software Lounge @_softwarelounge]

Learn about Enums in #typescript with this in-depth guide

https://t.co/i3plToly8x