Ask me Anything

Around ten years ago, there was a burgeoning trend among people who write code: AMA repositories. Short for “Ask me Anything”, they seemed to pop up overnight on social media platforms. I even had my own, although it never received a single question (and I’m absolutely, definitely not bitter about it).

It was an exciting idea. Suddenly, it was possible to lob a question across the internet and have it land in the lap of someone you admired. No fanfare, no gatekeeping, just a simple digital exchange. For a while, it felt like everyone was opening their doors, inviting curiosity in.

Of course, I’m not really surprised that I never received any questions myself. After all, I’m just a random person on the internet. But some of the other random people on the internet who did this were actually really interesting people. And because they were creating Github repositories, they were exactly the kind of people I found interesting. They were developers, designers, and other nerdy types who were passionate about their work and eager to share their knowledge.

What I liked most about the format was its honesty. The best answers weren’t the most polished, they were the ones that admitted uncertainty, or that simply pointed to a neat trick someone picked up along the way. Sometimes, the most memorable responses were half-jokes, or gentle reminders that even “experts” were just making things up as they went along.

And I found some real nuggets of information amongst the questions and answers. New tools, new workflow ideas, new ways of thinking about problems. It was a great way to learn from people who were doing things I wanted to do, and it was all in one place.

There’s a certain humility in asking questions publicly. It’s a small act of vulnerability, both for the asker and the person answering. AMAs made that vulnerability feel normal, as if admitting what you didn’t know was a quiet marker of belonging.

The internet moved on quickly, as ever, and the initial rush of new repositories slowed, but the repositories themselves remain. The number of questions has dwindled, but the answers are still there, still relevant. And they still have a “New Issue” button.

So go ahead. Ask me anything.