If it weren't hard enough being a freelancer, some crazy people like myself choose to be a true 'one man show' and develop entire platforms themselves rather than just a piece of a platform (eg front end, back end, design, etc) and/or relying on others to develop the other parts of the system. Obviously this requires prioritizing various sources of information.
For example, I used to read programming books years back but that simply doesn't cut it anymore - the information is way too linear and in-depth, and if I kept doing that I'd be reading for the next 100 years. So I had to find more non-linear, abstracted sources of information that would allow me to pull together many things quickly and coherently and then sort out the hard-core engineering specifics as they arise.
My question to the community is this: if you had to point to one source of information (other than stack exchange obviously) that you could say "yeah, without that I simply would not be where I am now" with respect to taking on as much as possible, what would it be and why?
Some things to think about that I think myself and others would find interesting when answering why are:
What has helped you increase your independence / reduce dependence? Increase the amount you can take on / agency?
What specifically about the source is so helpful? Ie, is it tools? Some kind of architectural pattern/s? A specific stack and/or ecosystem? Concepts? Etc?
How has it affected your personal network? Positively? Negatively? Trade off? For that matter, has it in any way redefined how you think about the idea of "network" or "networking"?
Has it helped you in terms of resilience? Why?
The opposite of all of this: what is the one thing you could point to and say that it is the biggest hinderance / barrier / most useless source that may be popularly perceived as helpful? (I'm reminded of this study which is also highly relevant to those doing all of this)
I ask this because I want to get different perspectives so that maybe I can learn something myself. However, the much more important reason is that I would really like to help out others in the same situation, and I feel like the entire world is so focused on collaboration and anti-individualism that there are hardly any pointers for those who choose to go it alone or just step outside of traditional hierarchies. I figured this is as good a place as any to start.
Although I'm asking about platforms, this could also just be about taking on the most you personally can in whatever form that is, so if you're a non-technical freelancer I'd love to hear from you too.
I also understand that this question could be considered subjective, but I really don't think it necessarily has to be if addressed properly.
What I mean by that is I can personally explicitly link an architectural pattern that I use, which came from the kind of source that I'm referring to, to the number of people that are now not needed anymore and compare that to a more popular architectural pattern that absolutely necessitates more people needed. How many more or less is subjective (I personally am down to 0), but the reduction with respect to a specific goal (building and maintaining a platform by one's self) is simply a fact, which is also in fact linked to the source. Hence, it is possible to give at least a semi-objective answer, and the answer that makes the clearest linkage wins and/or probably upvoted ;)
