Adam and Jerod are joined once again by James Long. He was on the podcast five years ago discussing the surprise success of Prettier, an opinionated code formatter that’s still in use to this day. This time around we’re going deep on Actual, his personal finance system James built as a business for over 4 years before recently opening it up and making it 100% free. Has James given up on the business? Or will this move Actual(ly) breathe new life into a piece of software that’s used and beloved by many? Tune in to find out. Join the discussionChangelog++ members get a bonus 27 minutes at the end of this episode and zero ads. Join today!Sponsors:InfluxData – The time series platform for building and operating time series applications — InfluxDB empowers developers to build IoT, analytics, and monitoring software. It’s purpose-built to handle massive volumes and countless sources of time-stamped data produced by sensors, applications, and infrastructure. Learn more at influxdata.com/changelog Square – Develop on the platform that sellers trust. There is a massive opportunity for developers to support Square sellers by building apps for today’s business needs. Learn more at changelog.com/square to dive into the docs, APIs, SDKs and to create your Square Developer account — tell them Changelog sent you. Honeycomb – Guess less, know more. When production is running slow, it’s hard to know where problems originate: is it your application code, users, or the underlying systems? With Honeycomb you get a fast, unified, and clear understanding of the one thing driving your business: production. Join the swarm and try Honeycomb free today at honeycomb.io/changelog MongoDB – An integrated suite of cloud database and services — They have a FREE forever tier, so you can prove to yourself and to your team that they have everything you need. Check it out today at mongodb.com/changelog Featuring:James Long – Website, GitHub, XAdam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XJerod Santo – GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, XShow Notes: Actual’s website Actual’s Discord Actual on GitHub Open-sourcing Actual You Need a Budget Dave Ramsey’s EveryDollar The Broken Window Theory Absurd SQL on GitHub Tauri Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

In this episode, James Long, creator of Actual Budget and Absurd-SQL, discusses building Actual Budget, implementing syncing solutions, transitioning to different platforms, and bringing SQLite to the browser. Topics include using SQLite in Electron apps, collaboration in local-first apps, challenges in desktop-mobile app integration, and navigating async issues in WebAssembly. The conversation also explores the evolution of web development, programming models, and the role of React.