TL;DR
Johanna Larsson, a seasoned programmer, discusses her ongoing passion for building personal projects, emphasizing the joy of creation over commercial goals. Her latest project is an uptime monitoring service built with Elixir and Clickhouse, exemplifying her love for coding.
Johanna Larsson, a software engineer with 14 years of experience, shares her ongoing passion for building personal projects driven by joy, exemplified by her latest uptime monitoring service at https://larm.dev.
Larsson’s journey into coding was unconventional, starting with limited internet access and self-taught skills through books. Her passion for creating has persisted throughout her career, focusing on personal projects rather than open source contributions or commercial success. Her current project, an uptime monitoring service, uses Elixir, PostgresQL, and Clickhouse, emphasizing reliability and cost-efficiency. She highlights that her motivation remains rooted in the joy of building, not profit or fame.
Larsson notes that her projects are often toy or experimental in nature, with minimal marketing efforts. Her current work involves complex design decisions to balance reliability and operating costs, aiming to offer the service for free to most users. She plans to share learnings and open source components from this project, illustrating her commitment to continuous creation.
Why It Matters
This story underscores the importance of intrinsic motivation and joy in software development, challenging the notion that commercial success is the primary driver for programmers. It highlights how personal projects can foster skills, satisfaction, and innovation, influencing broader industry perspectives on work and passion.
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Background
Larsson’s journey reflects a broader trend among developers who prioritize personal fulfillment through coding. Her approach contrasts with more commercial or open source-focused motivations, emphasizing the value of building for oneself. Her current project exemplifies modern tools like Elixir and Clickhouse, showcasing how personal passion can lead to technically complex and innovative solutions.
“The joy that I felt building that first website has never left me. I’ll keep building things that are useful to me.”
— Johanna Larsson
“It’s so much fun to build! I’ll be writing some posts about learnings from the project, and I’m working on splitting off some open source libraries.”
— Johanna Larsson
Clickhouse database management tools
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What Remains Unclear
It is not yet clear how widely adopted her uptime monitoring service will become or how her open source efforts will evolve. The long-term sustainability of her personal projects remains uncertain, as does the broader impact of her approach on the developer community.
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What’s Next
Larsson plans to publish posts detailing her learnings from the current project and to release open source libraries. She intends to continue building projects driven by joy, with potential future updates to her uptime service and other personal initiatives.
uptime monitoring service tools
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Key Questions
Why does Larsson focus on personal projects instead of open source contributions?
She prefers creating things that belong to her and finds joy in building for herself rather than contributing to open source, which doesn’t align with how her brain works or her motivation.
What is Larsson’s current project about?
It is an uptime monitoring service that uses Elixir, PostgresQL, and Clickhouse, designed to be reliable and cost-effective, with features like multi-probe voting and granular response metrics.
Will Larsson commercialize her current project?
Her goal is to keep the service free for most users by optimizing reliability and costs, focusing on personal satisfaction rather than profit.
How does Larsson see her approach influencing others?
She advocates for building out of joy and intrinsic motivation, suggesting that personal projects can be both fulfilling and innovative, potentially inspiring others to prioritize passion in their work.
