Jan Ekholm

I was supposed to go to a local meetup yesterday. The two talks were about home automation with Go and about starting new embedded software projects in 2026. Both interesting.

But when I came to the place for the meetup I got a massive sense of impostor syndrome. Why should I be there and waste space, I know nothing about home automation nor embedded software?

Mar 19 at 9:22amWeb
Show threadJan EkholmMar 19

So when the door at the street level was locked and I would have needed to signal someone to come down and let me in, it was a convenient point to just bail out and go home. I had no business being there with real professionals. I don't even know any of the folks there.

Sometimes things don't work out.

Show threadJan EkholmMar 19
In other news, doing software is a terribly lonely profession if you're totally clueless and lack all forms of social skills. I miss some forum where one could chat about software and the sorry state of the tech world without the pressure of performing professionally. I don't have any form of external context like that. Fortunately my wife is also in software, but I can only bore her so much with my crap.
Show threadkOoLiNuSMar 19
@chakie this kind of chat is still available on "old style" communities that resists in form of newsgroups, mailing-lists and communities migrated from public forums to private groups on Discord, Slack or something similar…
Show threadJan EkholmMar 19

@koolinus Online communities are one thing and IRL ones a whole different beast. There are nice places online with interesting and kind folks (like Mastodon) where good chats can be had.

But one can not live purely online. At least I sometimes pretend to be a social beast that like to see other folks (in moderation, of course). I'm awfully awkward and don't do the social stuff too well so it gets lonely.

Show threadDimitri BouniolMar 19
@chakie I feel like the whole point of meetups like this is for people with that passing interest to get their feet wet for the first time, and start to grow into that new, shared interest! Hopefully imposter syndrome can check itself at the door next time so you can have the fun you set out to have 😊
Show threadJan EkholmMar 19
@dimitribouniol I don't know. To me meetups usually seem to be a place for people at the same level to connect. Sometimes I get arrogant and think I belong at that advanced level and enroll into things like this and then regret my decision later when reality hits.