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Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

babeljs.io

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Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#581

Post by R0b0t1 »

djrconcepts wrote: post #498

Savage of Sebastian to call out Henry like that on twitter. Are you on drugs or something? https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 Publicly accusing Henry of not actually working on the project seems short sighted. Only looking at a one year slice of contribution rather than the lifetime of the project masks the full picture of Henry's contributions. Also in Henry's defense, the past year has been a ter…

He is levying accusations that money is, effectively, being stolen. That is not polite but if he genuinely believes it to be true, you are suggesting he remain quiet instead?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#582

Post by morelisp »

barbazoo wrote: post #346
NiekvdMaas wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the the commit activity of some maintainers, that seems to be correct: 7 commits in a year: https://github.com/babel/babel/commits?author=hzoo&since=202... $110k invoiced: https://opencollective.com/left_pad/transactions

I would expect an outrage here if someone suggested evaluating someone's work performance based on the number of commits the same way we consistently criticize evaluation based on number of lines of code or hours spent in the office.

Still, it's difficult to do even 'soft' work on a GitHub project without producing some kind of trail.

Few commits? Well, OK, lots of reviews and PR handling.

Not too much of that either? Ah, issue triage!

Oh, not that either. Well, they're the most senior dev. Strong technical direction and forward-thinking research! Maybe mailing lists instead of the issue tracker or wiki.

... but Babel's usefulness is at an all-time low as browsers adopt new features regularly, core-js now handles all the polyfills, and non-Babel transpilers and non-JS languages add all the interesting features and performance improvements?

Well, obviously advertising the project, helping with fundraising... for what's majority their own salary... Hrm. Mitchell Baker, is that you?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#583

Post by tgv »

Aeolun wrote: post #569
tgv wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 100K, you can write your own version. It's not hard.

> It's not hard. Maybe not, but it is still a major PITA.

Not pleasant, but from then on you'd save $100k/month (according to user varispeed). If it's really that amount (which I doubt), every larger web company would spend it.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#584

Post by tckr »

ValentineC wrote: post #580
akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

> >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 I can't seem to see this tweet any more. Did it get deleted?

Yes.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#585

Post by vardaro »

bfrog wrote: post #342
ChrisRR wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I thought the reason that US developers are so highly paid compared to everywhere else in the world was to offset the high cost of living in silicon valley. $132,000 is almost double my salary is the UK. They could easily get 2 full time UK devs for that, or even more in many EU countries with lower cost of living

The valley you'd be make closer to 300k

That's TC though, can't think of a company that pays this much in base.

130k base salary is comparable to a new grad or mid level SWE in the bay.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#586

Post by ValentineC »

tootie wrote: post #522
nicolo-ribaudo wrote: post #254

Babel maintainer here (one of the two contributors going from $2k/month to $6k/month). It's the first time I write on HN. I saw different comments (here and on Twitter) about how Henry was getting $11k/month from our funds but wasn't doing much for the project, and so I want to share my view of the story. Be careful when you try to evaluate how much someone is working: even if Babel is open source and almost everythi…

Soliciting donations is an entire profession unto itself in the non-profit world. Ironically the practice is also called "Development". So, Henry could have the joint titles of Lead Developer and Lead Developer.

> Soliciting donations is an entire profession unto itself in the non-profit world. Ironically the practice is also called "Development".

I've always just known it as "fundraising".

Maybe there's a joke somewhere that flew over my head.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#587

Post by jrochkind1 »

danielsju6 wrote: post #524
jrochkind1 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's somewhere in between. Taxes, healthcare, and retirement are big in the US. And keep in mind that self-employment taxes (operative here) are more than the taxes taken out as an employee. But $11K/month * 12 == $132K. To roughy back-of-napkin equalize for higher self-employment taxes, let's say that's equivalent to $100K salary if you were an ordinary employee. (I just made that up, I don't know how accura…

Back of the napkin to me: say $25.5k pre-tax retirement / college savings for child, 30% federal, 15% state, $3200/mn to rent an apartment in a mid sized city in the US, $400 month for car and gas, $1k for food, $1k for healthcare, $160 for utilities, leaves them with $288/mn. Not enough to ever own a home, build wealth, travel; better hope they have a spouse that is employed & has employer subsidized healthcare.

And yet, regardless, it's still more than 85% of incomes in the USA. That seems striking.

Is 85% of the USA living on subsistence peanuts, not even enough to survive? Possibly.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#588

Post by szhu »

ValentineC wrote: post #586
tootie wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soliciting donations is an entire profession unto itself in the non-profit world. Ironically the practice is also called "Development". So, Henry could have the joint titles of Lead Developer and Lead Developer.

> Soliciting donations is an entire profession unto itself in the non-profit world. Ironically the practice is also called "Development". I've always just known it as "fundraising". Maybe there's a joke somewhere that flew over my head.

I don't think that part was a joke. It's business development, as opposed to software development.

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#589

Post by matwood »

cuu508 wrote: post #551
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus. Maybe I am old-school, but if you have a disagreement or someone isn't holding themselves to a standard, you don't take it to Twitter to signal to in-crowd. Yes, even when it's a publicly funded open-source dev-tool. Just the usual immature behavior of super-genius developers who have no concept of professionalism since any company in the world will write them a yearly check of infinite money. Out-of-touch, kn…

> Jesus. Maybe I am old-school, but if you have a disagreement or someone isn't holding themselves to a standard, you don't take it to Twitter to signal to in-crowd. Not saying I disagree, but, in your words, what's bad with taking it to Twitter?

Going to Twitter is akin to having a disagreement at work, standing up and shouting across the whole office at the person you disagree with. I haven't been in an office in awhile, is that what people do nowadays?

Re: Babel is used by millions, so why are we running out of money?

#590

Post by bastardoperator »

akmittal wrote: post #105

See what creator of Babel has to say >Babel used by millions, so why are we running out of money? Bluntly: Because funds were misallocated for years, and the project has been too slow to improve. >The reason there's no money is because someone took a $130k annual salary and didn't actually work on the project. https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1392019586833387522 - So donating money because of this post may not be a…

Commit count or lines of code is not a valid method for measuring value. Everyone knows this...
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