Michael TharringtonIn this series, we shine a spotlight 🔦 on the different DEV moderators — Trusted Members and Tag Mods — who help to make DEV a kind, helpful place. Aside from spreading good vibes and helping fellow community members, these folks also assist us with removing spam and keeping posts well organized by adding and removing tags as necessary amongst other things.
If you want to learn more about what these awesome folks do, I recommend checking out our Trusted Member and Tag Moderation guides. There is information about how to apply in both guides if you're interested in joining up as a moderator.
Introducing Elizabeth Mattijsen 🙌
This month, we're putting the spotlight on long-time DEV member and moderator, Elizabeth Mattijsen. Liz regularly writes about the Raku programming language, curating various blogs on the topic each week in this awesome series. She also frequently reports spammers to us, helping us to rid the site of those relentless back-linkers and SEO builders... this behind-the-scenes work goes a long way to keeping our community tidy and as spam-free as can be. 🧹 Thank you, Liz!
The Interview
Michael Tharrington: Can you talk a bit about your developer origin story? How did you first get started in software development and what made you decide to pursue it as a career?
Liz: Wow. That's a long story. Involving many systems and languages that nobody knows about anymore (PLATO, TUTOR, PILOT, TenCORE to name but a few). If we're looking at the web, then I've started doing web development in 1994 as the co-founder of xxLINK, the first commercial web presence provider in the Netherlands. From 2000 to 2003 I was involved in several startups that all didn't make it, or can now live on their own without my interference.
From 2003 until 2012 I was involved in the backend development of Booking.com (nice description can be found in The Machine). Since those crazy days, and after recovering from a burnout, I've decided to dedicate most of my time on the development of what is now the Raku Programming Language.
Michael: You do a lot of behind-the-scenes modding for us at DEV, regularly pointing out spam to us (thank you!)... what’s your methodology for finding spammers or do you just stumble upon spam and report it when you see it?
Liz: The methodology is utterly simple: if I get new followers, DEV sends me a mail with the latest new follower whenever a day has passed and I got new followers. It has a link to the current list of followers. I look at that list and basically check all of the followers that did not add a photo, but some kind of logo. And if I think they look like spam, I report and block them. Fortunately, lately this has become a lot easier since many of them were already suspended by your spam recognition tools, it seems. So I just need to block them.
Michael: Also, what’s the goofiest type of spam that you’ve run into on DEV?
Liz: I'd have to go from memory, and I try to forget these as quickly as possible. And I don't have an email copy of those reports, so I can't really go through them to refresh my memory. But there were some weird ones indeed, clearly caused by a bot gone astray.
Michael: In your DEV bio, you’ve written “Mostly working on the Raku Programming Language. Born at 314 ppm.” For the uninitiated, can you give us a bit of background on Raku and talk about why it’s particularly interesting to you?
Liz: The Raku Programming Language is a new multi-paradigm programming language with a long history. Its first public release (as "Perl 6") was in December 2015. After many discussions it was decided to change the name to the Raku Programming Language in 2019.
It's interesting to me because its syntax fits the way my brain works, rather than needing to adjust my brain to a programming language. DWIM (aka "Do What I Mean") is an acronym often used in Raku. If something doesn't DWIM, it's usually considered LTA (aka "Less Than Awesome") and will need fixing.
Michael: Bonus points if you’d like to explain the “314 ppm” line too.
Liz: I worry about climate change, and the fact that CO2 levels in the atmosphere keep rising at an ever increasing rate, breaking worst case predictions time and time again. The current level is at 420 ppm, that's a 34% increase from when I was born. I'm leaving it as an exercise to the reader when that was!
Michael: You’re a really prolific writer, regularly sharing posts on Raku and Perl amongst other subjects. Any guidance for writers out there? (For example how to keep motivated and disciplined, choosing topics to write on, etc.)
Liz: One of the mottos of the Raku Programming Language is "Optimized for Fun" (aka -Ofun). I've been in the lucky circumstance that I've (almost) always have been able to do things I thought were fun to do, and make a living out of that. And if they weren't fun (anymore), I would find something else fun to do.
My guidance for writers would be: write about something that interests you and which you find fun to do. Don't expect any reward, other than the joy of writing, and learning from that. Everything else positive that comes out of that, is bonus. Everything else negative that comes out of that, is another opportunity for learning. And the lesson can be to just ignore the negativity.
Michael: Do you have any coding luminaries that you follow?
Liz: I used to, but they all stopped programming :-)
Michael: Likewise, any developer-focused organizations, blogs, or open-source projects that you’re keeping an eye on?
Liz: Nothing specific. I try to keep an eye on open source developments in general, and organizations such as the EFF and Bits Of Freedom.
Wrap up
Thank you for tuning in to hear about another one of our amazing mods. đź’š
Stay tuned for future mod interviews in this series!
