The 500 Club: Jordan Harband on Maintaining ALL THE THINGS (and Training Cats with Air Dusters)

Everyday Heroes

In this premiere episode of Everyday , we're coming in HOT with JavaScript royalty Jordan Harband - the absolute madlad who maintains 500+ open source projects while somehow finding time to serve on TC39 and train his cat to respect keyboard boundaries.

Key Highlights (because we know you're skimming):

• That time Jordan accidentally landed a TC39 spec change that made Object.assign like 100x faster (NBD)
• The secret origin story of teaching Excel to teachers...in 8th grade
• Why being the company "sweeper" is actually the coolest job (if your company gets it)
• A passionate defense of gasp light mode that might actually make sense
• The ultimate guide to hacking your own ADHD with strategically wrong clocks
• A surprisingly deep dive into NaN boxing (yes, there are 32,000 different NaNs and yes, Jordan made an npm package about it)

Plus: Three absolutely chaotic games including "Fork, Star, or Deprecate" where Jordan bravely takes controversial stances on tabs vs. spaces, dark mode, and the true value of meme-driven development.

Find Jordan online:

• GitHub: @ljharb
• X/Twitter: @ljharb
• Bluesky: @jordan.har.band
• Or literally anywhere else because this man is EVERYWHERE

Bonus: We settle the eternal peanut butter debate (creamy vs. crunchy) and Jordan shares the one-word git commit message he'd send to every maintainer in the world.

(Spoiler: It's not "YOLO" or "¯\_(ツ)_/¯")

A big shout-out to HeroDevs, which allows Hayden and Wendy the ability to spend hours of their work week talking to awesome people from all over the world. If you are running end-of-life (EOL) open source and need it to stay compliant while also getting ACTUAL vulnerability remediation (because let's be real, no one wants to choose between new features and security - that's like choosing between pizza and tacos, just WRONG), HeroDevs has your back. With over 800 clients who trust them to handle their unsupported open source, they're basically the superhero team your code deserves. Whether you need help with SOC2, HIPAA, FedRamp, or any other acronym that keeps your legal team up at night, they've got you covered.

Visit Herodevs.com to learn more (and yes, this is totally a shameless plug, but hey, good content isn't free, and neither is Hayden's peanut butter Snickers addiction).

• (00:00) - Jordan Harband: Prolific Maintainer and TC 39 Member
• (00:00) - Chapter 2
• (04:42) - From Startups to Open Source: A Journey
• (00:00) - Chapter 4
• (07:14) - Inefficiency in ES6's Object Assign Behavior
• (00:00) - Chapter 6
• (10:32) - Brightkite's Check.in: Pioneering Centralized Check-ins with HTML5
• (00:00) - Chapter 8
• (15:25) - Emerging Importance of OSPO Roles in Companies
• (00:00) - Chapter 10
• (17:56) - Herodevs: Enhancing Software Security and Compliance
• (00:00) - Chapter 12
• (21:47) - Performance vs. Precision: The JavaScript NaN Debate
• (00:00) - Chapter 14
• (23:42) - Choosing Meme-Heavy Content Over Browser Extensions
• (00:00) - Chapter 16
• (26:15) - Evolving Partnerships and Strategy: A Serendipitous Role
• (00:00) - Chapter 18
• (31:46) - The Perils of Assuming Your Way is Best
• (00:00) - Chapter 20
• (35:43) - "Git's Core Concept: Essential for Developers"
• (00:00) - Chapter 22
• (38:54) - The Lasting Impact of Guy Fieri's Commit
• (00:00) - Chapter 24
• (39:48) - Spreading Kindness Online: Exploring Guest Stories