It’s refreshing to see Mattt’s reasoned take amidst all the attention-seeking headlines this week:
As it turns out, going fully remote wasn’t merely good enough — it was, in many ways, superior to the original thing. […] Sessions are tight and well-paced. Rather than stretching or cramming content into a fixed time slot, they’re as long as they need to be.
This definitely echoes my impressions. As someone who mostly followed along from home in the past, not only did I not miss much this year, but I got treated to a much improved remote experience.
Mattt also brings up the topic of Excitement—or hype, as I often call it—and productivity:
Here’s the thing about excitement: It’s kryptonite to developers. Excitement messes with our ability to focus on one thing, which is already a big struggle for a lot of us (myself included). When you’re excited, it’s almost impossible to get anything done.
This is true for any endeavor, but especially so for software development.
There are plenty of voices in the community who are echoing this excitement. I can’t add anything to that discussion. And besides, that’s not really where my head’s at right now.
The official Apple content generates enough sense of FOMO as it is. Combining that with a firehose of What’s new in X blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, and tweets doesn’t help much as far as I am concerned.1
It’s been an exciting week, so take a moment to collect yourself. Go on a walk. Take a hike. (Be safe about it.) Do whatever you need to break free of the “reality distortion field”. Once you do, you’ll have the necessary distance to determine what new technologies you should pay attention to and what you can ignore for now.
Solid advice, WWDC or otherwise.
- I published my personal notes throughout the week, but my audience is infinitesimally tiny. Not to mention that I usually publish these things primarily for my future self.↩