Work with the garage door up
by jxmorris12 on 4/21/2026, 5:13:29 PM
https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Work_with_the_garage_door_up
Comments
by: mattkevan
Genuinely curious where the best place online to do this is today.<p>Until recently my reflexive answer would have been Twitter, but [gestures vaguely at the state of it].<p>Would it be Substack, Bluesky, Mastodon, a personal blog, or somewhere else?<p>Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it's hard to know where to get started.
4/23/2026, 2:24:50 PM
by: mapontosevenths
I very much agree with this author, and the sort of open source ethos it embodies.<p>However, as a corporate stooge I have a hard time balancing my natural desire to work with the garage door up and my "neighbors" (legitimate) need for me to turn my terrible garage band music down and only show up after practice is over (when I have a nice deliverable).<p>Does anyone have any tips for finding the right balance? What is the professional development teams version of working with the garage door open?
4/23/2026, 1:29:10 PM
by: dmos62
How do you learn to share what you do, when you're not used to sharing at all? Should one accept that noone will read 99% of what one shares and just use sharing as a way to record and reflect on own process?
4/23/2026, 12:28:36 PM
by: endymion-light
I like the concept of this, but it does feel horrific to share on most social media. I already share a lot of work I do in local dev chats etc - but there's something about the X algorithm that makes sharing anything feel terrible.<p>Although weirdly i've found youtube to be really good in terms of getting audience for smaller works, and annoyingly linkedin seems to actually share inside your network.<p>There's just something about Twitter/X that is a complete shout into the void when posting about in-progress dev work that feels awful.
4/23/2026, 1:28:21 PM
by: BoostandEthanol
Goes both ways. I had a phase of trying this and found I had to invest as much or more effort figuring out how to document stuff for the eyes of an outside observer as I did on the actual task. Guess maybe the answer in my case is to not make it accessible, but does that defeat the purpose?
4/23/2026, 2:25:26 PM
by: dcchuck
I enjoyed the sentiment, thank you for sharing.<p>Came to post about the site. My first reaction to the layout was "Oh, must be optimized for mobile." Then I clicked a link in one of the articles and it opened alongside it. Very slick. I enjoy this! It enables that "wiki deep dive" style of browsing. I suddenly want to read all your notes.
4/23/2026, 1:40:16 PM
by: singpolyma3
This is one of the core spirits of open source
4/23/2026, 1:18:56 PM
by: booleandilemma
I don't know if I trust this as much as I did in the past. There's lots of competition out there. Lots of AI companies that want to slurp up data. It's a nice warm and fuzzy thing to say but I don't think it helps you, it just helps competitors get the jump on you.
4/23/2026, 2:11:43 PM
by: tristor
I'm kind of disappointed that this is about social media presence and not the physical world. I am a big proponent of working with your garage door up, quite literally, and I make it a point to do projects in my garage or my driveway, visible to my neighbors. I also make it a point to interact with my neighbors if they're doing a project and offer a hand or company (if they're interested in either). This is part of how I've built community around me in the places I live. Doing things like helping someone replace a valve cover gasket and spark plugs at 11PM so they could get to work in the morning when they were already too deep in fixing their only car; baking bread and running my smoker in the driveway and then offering BBQ sandwiches to my neighbors; setting up my jobsite table saw and miter saw in the driveway when doing home improvement projects, only to find out a neighbor is a tiler and can help me finish out my shower after I do the framing; etc.<p>I have found a lot of value in being open to other people, when I'm actively engaged in something. It's not even about displaying competence or showing off (which is how I look at people doing the same on social media), it's about doing your own thing in a way which is inviting rather than offputting, so if somebody wants to ask questions, give a helping hand, or just feel comfortable doing their own thing in a way that's inviting, you help create that sense of community and ambience around you. This is a stark contrast to many places around, at least the US, where something as simple as working on your car in your driveway might be punished. Community is built, and we're all part of it, and working in the open is one of the best ways to help build community.<p>To that point, though, there /used/ to be a place to do this online in an honest way, which was niche forums. I wrote and posted many of the how-to guides for one of the popular cheap enthusiast car platforms I used to own on the niche webforum for that platform, in part because there wasn't much material out there so I knew I'd actively be helping others to document and photograph my work for sharing online. But now those forums are mostly gone, replaced by Facebook groups, and across the net the signal to noise ratio is completely skewed. Trying to work in the open online is screaming into the void, and if someone does notice it is actively offputting because it comes off as insincere and self-aggrandizing. It is absolutely not the same as literally working with your garage door open.
4/23/2026, 2:43:36 PM
by: throwpoaster
I recommend running this by legal if you are funded, however, I am not a lawyer.
4/23/2026, 1:37:01 PM
by: jdrormdj
Could someone from california explain "garage door up" reference? Is it like pretending to be early apple or HP, and starting chip factory on backyard reference? Or some sort of open door policy?<p>I just do not get it. If you own a house, you have $1m capital to deploy towards business. You do not have to invite random people and dogs from street, to steal or pee on your expensive equipment.<p>If you actually have serious workshop like restoring cars or building something, rent a warehouse. HOAs have strict rules about chemicals, noise and vans parked on drive way!<p>And if your goal is to reach people, there is much better way to do that!
4/23/2026, 2:04:34 PM