Aja Hammerly

Hey Devs,

Stop blaming yourself when things are hard to setup. Dev tools can and should have good UX and be easy to setup and work with.

You aren't a bad dev because you end up banging your head against a library for tool for 3 hours. In almost all cases, the tool could be better.

*knocks on wood*

I think I just did a major OS version update on my personal laptop and none of my dev tools broke? Maybe?

At least the stack I use for my blog is working. I should really make a Firebase Studio workspace for that.

Pretty much always.

My ability to break things in weird ways that no one else can continues.

I'm the opposite of "works on my machine".

Today's very software moment when you are at a summit, and the guest speaker wrote one of your college textbooks.

There are phone apps that make this easy. I've been told photoshop has a simulator built in.

Switching to grayscale isn't sufficient. Red-Green deficiencies come in several kinds and we frequently use red/green to convey meaning.

Auntie Aja presentation tip:

Use a color vision deficiency simulator tool on your slides before presenting.

I have both family members and dear friends who have forms of color vision deficiency. Over the years I've become pretty ok at choosing colors that work, but I still check.

A friend introduced me to the Eurovision Song Contest today. I knew of the existence of Eurovision but I didn’t fully appreciate this experience.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ would brunch again.

Speaking in front of a group ✅
When I was 15 or 16 I gave a 10 minute talk at the donor luncheon for my local Girl Scout council about all the opportunities I'd had in scouts. It wasn't the only place I learned and practiced public speaking, but it was one of the places I learned.

Planning for an event ✅
I planned a weekend camping trip for 200ish Girl Scouts when I was 17. Yes planning a workshop or tech conference is different, but the basics are the same and adults are way less picky about refreshments than 6 year olds.

I was reflecting this weekend about how many of my DevRel skills I learned in Girl Scouts.

Working a booth ✅
Staffing a booth at a tech conference is a piece of cake compared to selling cookies at a downtown Seattle bus stop at rush hour.

Announcing Gemini 2.5 in Firebase Studio News, tutorials, and updates from the Firebase team.

We've been busy improving Firebase Studio based on community feedback. Improved UI generation, improved experience building on mobile, and support for Gemini 2.5 in the app prototyping agent.

firebase.blog/posts/2025/0...

Just once I'd like a website or app to notice when I change my billing address and ask if I'd like to change my default shipping address as well. Just once.

Sometimes success is "we get more information".

After I have an idea of what success looks like, or we have a shared idea of what success looks like if its a group project, then we go to the metrics to see what helps us quantify our success.

In my experience most folks can answer the question "Did the project go well?" after its complete.

With a bit of time to think, usually folks can describe what would need to happen for us to continue or expand a project in a "start, stop, continue, expand" exercise.

Measure impact in DevRel is hard and we often use the same, easier to get metrics.

Instead of starting with the numbers I have I like to start with questions:

How will I know if this project is a success?
If ______ happens I'll want to spend more time and money on this project.

Showing your work in middle school math class isn't training you for Calculus and beyond.

Its training you to write documentation of your work as an adult.

Manager me: "If you didn't write it down, it didn't happen"

IC me: ✨ Vibes ✨

Old habits are hard to break.

In ~20 minutes the app dev spotlight at #GoogleCloudNext starts. It is jam packed with non-stop nerd/geek demos. So much code.

If you are at Next come up to the Spotlight room (Mandalay G) and watch.

I'll be backstage crossing fingers to hopefully keep demo gremlins away.

Firebase Studio Firebase Studio is an entirely web-based workspace for full-stack application development, complete with the latest generative AI from Gemini, and full-fidelity app previews, powered by cloud emulator...

I can finally talk about what I've been working on since August.

Introducing Firebase Studio! firebase.studio, now in preview.

Firebase Studio is an environment for creating applications. It supports both AI first app development and traditional code first app development.

Lovingly handcrafted like our video series.

By the way. Season 2 is about agents. I hear those are popular right now.

youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Maaaaaybe

A collection of colorful cartoon dinosaur enamel pins on a gray background. Some of the dinosaurs are carrying books or have books for spikes or other body parts.

About half of them are book themed. That wasn’t on purpose and I’m delighted.

I have my reasons.

Do I need 100 dinosaur enamel pins?

No.

Are 100 dinosaur pins being delivered to my house today?

Maaaaaybe.

Quote of the Day:

"I'm not rolling my own auth with vibe coding."

I spend a lot of time collaborating with the AI while I code, but I need to remain in the driver seat.

I'm in Seattle too and we have a pair in our neighborhood. They're loud and really seem to like pounding on gutters, flashing, and other man-made surfaces that make a racket.

Assuming you are in the US that’s a Northern Flicker. If outside that area probably another type of flicker.

But first, the Bell Riots

I’ve installed an app on my phone to force me to take 15-30 seconds before engaging with social media or news.

Trying to install the Kindle habit but it’s not taking.