428 Photos and videos
I'm more active on Bluesky these days — it's a rapidly growing, fun platform, without a lot of the negative aspects of X, so it's well-worth checking out. Follow me there at bsky.app/profile/jdlien.com
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My MacBook Neo review:
webartisan.info/jd-s-2026-ma…
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JD Lien retweeted
Jan 28
Excited to share something I've been working on.
3 years of color tools. 2 months building this.
Supa Colors generates palettes where every shade looks balanced — visually, not just mathematically.
Really proud of it.
🔗 supacolors.studio
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That's my story in a nutshell. I left a job I was good at and enjoyed to go freelance. It was scary (maybe more so for my wife), but I've got plenty of work now—and when I work hard these days, I actually earn what I'm worth.
8 Nov 2025
My coworker got promoted over me.
He was worse at coding. Better at politics.
I wrote better code. Fixed more bugs. Shipped faster.
He talked in meetings. Took credit. Played the game.
He got the promotion. I got "keep up the good work".
That's when I realized: corporate rewards politics, not performance.
Six months later I quit. Started freelancing.
Now I make 3x his salary. No politics. No credit-stealing. Just solving problems and getting paid directly.
The best developers rarely get promoted. They get used.
Companies optimize for compliance and communication. Not competence.
If you're technically great but politically terrible, you'll never win at corporations.
Leave. Build your own thing. Get paid for your actual value.
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JD Lien retweeted
18 Feb 2025
Wanna make your first contribution to open-source, but don't know where to start? 🤔
You don't have to PR a huge feature that's going to revolutionise the world.
It can be something as simple as updating documentation, or fixing a typo (like I did with the `laravel/cashier-stripe` upgrade guide)!
No matter how small a PR like this might be, they contribute to the bigger picture.
It's also a great way for you to get used to the flow of contributing to open-source and build your confidence 😄
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JD Lien retweeted
14 Jan 2025
The Web Dev's Guide to Freelancing is now available to buy! 🎉
👉web-dev-freelancing.com
Learn tips, tricks, and strategies you can use to launch your freelance career! 🔥
20% discount code: FREELANCE20
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Looking for work in the tech industry these days has gotten rough. I seriously underestimated this situation when I left my job with no plan last year. @theo made a pretty solid video talking about this that resonates with me.
youtube.com/watch?v=2PiM2e4R…
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If you work with databases enough, you’ll eventually need to migrate a database from one RDBMS to another. This can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be!
My latest article for @aarondfrancis covers planning migration of a DB from SQLite to Postgres.
masteringpostgres.com/articl…
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JD Lien retweeted
7 Jan 2025
It's official!
I'm releasing "The Web Dev's Guide to Freelancing" next week on Tuesday (14th Jan 2025) 🎉
👉 Pre-order: webdevfreelancing.com
There's also an audiobook version that's been recorded by @jdlien! Let me tell you now, it sounds amazing! 🔥
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It's that time of year when we look back at all the things we've done to remind us that maybe we've actually come further than we think we have.
Here's my 2024 year in review going over a bunch of the crazy things I've done this year!
webartisan.info/jds-2024-yea…
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After three painful days of configuring AWS and a full-stack legacy web app to deploy it a cloud hosting environment, tell me again how AI is going to replace me so I can get back to playing video games all day. Can’t wait for it—but it ain’t this year, that’s for sure!
Every “Programming is dead” take I’ve seen so far is coming from people who have no clue about programming.
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I’ve gotta say, the man makes a good point.
All the other things are just tools, they aren’t taking software engineering jobs as much as they are augmenting them.
In 1994, people told me programming was for nerds and that I should become a doctor or a lawyer instead.
10 years later, they told me that someone from India would take my job for $5/hour.
Then, no code was going to doom my career.
In 2021, Codex, then Copilot, then ChatGPT, then Devin, then OpenAI o1...
People keep yelling that "Programming is Dead," and yet the demand for good Software Engineers has never been higher.
Stop listening to midwit people. Learn to build good software, and you'll be okay.
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If you've wondered whether SQLite or PostgreSQL would be a better choice for you or want to understand the differences between these popular (but very different) RDBMSes, here's my latest article for @aarondfrancis' DB courses with a nice explainer: masteringpostgres.com/articl…
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Hey, fellow database nerds! 👋🤓 I've got a fresh new article out for the blog at @aarondfrancis' Mastering Postgres course.
Today's topic: PostgreSQL vs. MySQL. You've heard of both and wondered what the differences are. I go deep in the article, but here's a teaser: 🧵
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There is a lot more juicy detail in the article, so if you want to know more, check it out here: masteringpostgres.com/articl…
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