Coding Blocks

We talk about the various ways we can get paid with code while Michael failed the Costco test, Allen doesn’t understand multiple choice questions, and Joe has a familiar pen name.

This episode’s show notes can be found at https://www.codingblocks.net/episode158, where you can join the conversation, for those reading this via their podcast player.

Sponsors

  • Datadog –  Sign up today for a free 14 day trial and get a free Datadog t-shirt after creating your first dashboard.
  • Linode – Sign up for $100 in free credit and simplify your infrastructure with Linode’s Linux virtual machines.

Survey Says

Do you want to run your own business?

Take the survey at: https://www.codingblocks.net/episode158.

News

  • Thank you all for the latest reviews:
    • iTunes: PriestRabbitWalkIntoBloodBank, Sock-puppet Sophist sez, Rogspug, DhokeDev, Dan110024
    • Audible: Aiden

Show Me the Money

Active Income

  • Active income is income earned by exchanging time for money. This typically includes salary and hourly employment, as well as contracting.
  • Some types of active income blur the lines.
  • Way to find active income can include job sites like Stack Overflow JobsIndeedUpwork, etc.
    • Government grants and jobs are out there as well.
  • Active income is typically has some ceiling, such as your time.

Passive Income

  • Passive income is income earned on an investment, any kind of investment, such as stock markets, affiliate networks, content sales for things like books, music, courses, etc.
  • The work you do for the passive income can blur lines, especially when that work is promotion.
  • Passive income is generally not tied to your time.

Passive Income Options

  • Create a SaaS platform to keep people coming back. Don’t let the term SaaS scare you off. This can be something smaller like a regex validator.
  • Affiliate links are a great example of passive income because you need to invest the time once to create the link.
  • Ads and sponsors: typically, the more targeted the audience is for the ad, the more the ad is worth.
  • Donations via services like Ko-fi, Patreon, and PayPal.
  • Apps, plugins, website templates/themes
  • Create content, such as books, courses, videos, etc. Self-publishing can have a bigger reward and offer more freedom, but doesn’t come with the built-in audience and marketing team that a publisher can offer.
  • Arbitrage between markets.
  • Grow an audience, be it on YouTube, Twitch, podcasting, blogging, etc.

Things to Consider

  • What’s the up-front effort and/or investment?
  • How much maintenance can you afford?
  • How much will it cost you?
  • Who gets hurt if you choose to quit?
  • What can you realistically keep up with?
  • What are the legal and tax liabilities?

Resources We Like

Tip of the Week

  • Google developer documentation style guide: Word list (developers.google.com)
  • In Windows Terminal, use CTRL+SHIFT+W to close a tab or the window.
  • The GitHub CLI manual (cli.github.com)
    • Use gh pr create --fill to create a pull request using your last commit message as the title and body of the PR.
    • We’ve discussed the GitHub CLI in episode 142 and episode 155.
  • How to get a dependency tree for an artifact? (Stack Overflow)
  • xltrail – Version control for Excel workbooks (xltrail.com)
  • Spring Initializr (start.spring.io)
    • You can leverage the same thing in IntelliJ with Spring.
Direct download: coding-blocks-episode-158.mp3
Category:Software Development -- posted at: 11:16pm EDT