Andrew Timberlake

New blog post: Shorthand, the library I’ve used in every Elixir project for six years but never promoted—until now andrewtimberlake.com/blog/2024/11/s… #MyElixirStatus

@theseoguy_ I think this already happened with local chat groups. People ask the group who they recommend and go with the strongest recommendation. If you aren’t loved by your local group, you don’t get to quote.

Most local business owners don't realize that AI is going to kill the "get 3 quotes" mentality. Think about how people buy services right now. They search Google. They find a few options. They call 3 companies. They get 3 quotes. They pick the one with the best price or the best vibe. This is how it's been for decades. AI is about to destroy this entire process. When someone asks an AI for a recommendation, they're not asking for options. They're asking for an answer. "Who should I hire to replace my roof." Not "give me 3 roofers to call." Who should I hire. The AI is going to give them one name. Maybe two. And the consumer is going to trust it. Why would they call 3 companies when the AI already did the research for them. Why would they spend an hour getting quotes when the AI already told them who the best choice is. They wouldn't. And they won't. This is a massive shift in consumer behavior that nobody is talking about. The entire home services industry is built on the assumption that you're competing against 2 or 3 other companies for every job. Your close rate is based on that. Your sales process is based on that. Your pricing is based on that. What happens when you're not competing anymore. Either you're the one the AI recommended or you're not in the conversation at all. There's no second place. There's no "we were a little more expensive but they liked our reviews better." You either got the recommendation or you didn't exist. The winners are going to have insane close rates because every lead that comes through already decided to hire them before they called. The losers are going to wonder why they never hear from customers anymore. The 3 quote model is dying. AI is going to pick the winner before the customer even picks up the phone. Make sure you're the one getting picked.

Announcement: elixir-lang.org/blog/2026/01/0… TL;DR: sound gradual type system with type inference that finds bugs for free (mostly) without changes to the code.

Exceptionally good article on UI design, using Tahoe's regressions as examples of what not to do. Lots of side-by-side examples making the abstract obvious. tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-ico… Via @daringfireball.

Company lock-in is not just about keeping you as a customer, it’s also about being able to provide shoddy service knowing the customer is unlikely to move—until they do.

This is great web design

@ryanwinchester I thought the book was excellent. I’ve done plenty of network programming in Elixir and I still found it useful. @whatyouhide does a great job of walking you through the concepts.

Will I learn anything new? y/n

@MrPitbull07 I remember when typing was a class for “other” people in high school.

Is there anyone here old enough to remember when typing was a class in high school?

@Matt_Pinner West Wing

What is the best?

@JLarky @Saadeghi I think it’s a stricter subset. I read an article about it quite a while ago but can’t remember where. See noyaml.com

@ATimberlake @Saadeghi Won't you get the same edge cases with kson if it's yaml compatible?

YAML > JSON

@Saadeghi But we did have to A/B test 41 shades of blue

Back then we didn't have to install 46 NPM decencies and import 380 kb of JS to make a button blue.

@cjbell_ Interesting. Thanks

I really like Zod, so I'm happy to see Zoi (hexdocs.pm/zoi/readme.html) gaining traction in the Elixir ecosystem.

@theandreboso I was rooting for you to get well. Now I hope you remain sick for at least 10 more days ;-)

I created the first 5 days of a 15-day marketing challenge while stuck at home with the flu. The initial feedback was pretty good! One of the most interesting insights I got from the handful of new founders who are testing it was that it gave them the push they needed to take action. They knew they had to do certain things but never actually did them. Unfortunately as I started to feel better and life went back to normal with all its other priorities my progress started to slow down. But the other day I went for a hike even though it was cold and now I’m sick again. I’ll take it as a sign that the universe really, really wants me to launch it 😅

@PierreDeWulf For Mailcast, our confirmation email confirms the account on reply. Most people just reply but occasionally I an interesting reply that sparks a conversation with a customer.

~ once a week someone reply "I confirm." …to our "confirm your account" email. It’s been 5 years. To this day I still don't know if it's pure trolling, cute, or just brain-bug. Maybe all three.

@XHandles marketplace looks like a great idea. @github you next?

…and requested indexing for all the pages in Google Search Console

Added some use-case specific landing pages to Mailcast. Day 4 of the Marketing Challenge from @theandreboso

@rqobela VBscript

Programming language you learnd but never used again is...?

Added an "Email on your domain in under 5 minutes" video to the Mailcast home page with a live sign up and configuration. Day 3 of the Marketing Challenge with @theandreboso youtu.be/QwjbQBcU7R0

Day 2 of the Marketing Challenge by @theandreboso Promotional post to Reddit It’d be great if you’d upvote and add your comments to the post #indiehackers #buildinpublic reddit.com/r/indiehackers…