Archive

Modeling an initiative as a distributed trace — epics, stories and pull requests as nested spans — to see where the calendar time actually went, plus a ridgeline plot for tracking WIP.

A simple framework for scoring technical debt so you know what to do now versus later

At medium-sized companies, the low-hanging fruit is just sitting there. How basic profiling and boring fixes got an ecommerce search service to 3x peak traffic before Black Friday.

MCPs are useful, but often overused in my opinion. This is how I think of each one.

One in four deploys failed — not because the code was wrong, but because the pipeline couldn't be trusted. Here's how we fixed it.

How I built a persistent personal AI agent in 2000 lines of Go that uses my Claude subscription instead of API keys, runs sandboxed via nono and talks to me on Telegram; Learnings about what seems to matter.

Using a personal knowledge base, we can use embeddings to diff a book against your current knowledge to find novelty.

A dusty design doc from 15 years ago finally happened thanks to agentic coding's low implementation costs.

You can use playwright to generate demo videos for your features or applications.

When building out a council of agents for review, recommendations can be very helpful.

AI generated code fails when we give it ambiguous requirements. Humans do too. This is how I'm thinking about addressing this problem.

Announcing agent-chat, a tool which presents a slack-like interface into agent-to-agent communication

Dan Lorenc's attempt at an orchestrator takes a more focused approach than Gastown. These are my initial impressions.

When we look forward to what life as a 'fully-optimized agent orchestrator' could look like.. what might we see?

An 8-stage model describing how developers evolve from skeptical AI-assisted coding to orchestrating fleets of autonomous agents.

Steve Yegge released Gas Town and it's a mad scientists lair.. but I see the promise.

Sharing claude code sessions is a pain, but it's the only way to learn how someone really uses it. Hopefully this tool helps.

How we use Backstage's catalog-info.yaml labels to automatically enforce SOX and PCI requirements via GitHub org rulesets.

Fixing a consul cluster stuck in a raft quorum loop using peers.json to remove a bogus peer.

The open source strategy at many companies is rooted in security and compliance. I think that a data-driven, risk-management approach may offer an interesting framework for driving a broader open source strategy.

Conference notes from SREcon 2023: favorite talks on Kafka scaling, ultra-low-latency trading, and Network Error Logging.

I read an Etsy engineering article that was over my head. After a bit of research, this is my new understanding.

A brief explaination of the differences, as I see them, of feature flags, dynamic config and experimentation

An example of what deploying on push looks like for self-hosted git repos

A response to someone's concerns with using emacs for Zettlekasten.

Designing what I think an ideal pipeline would look like.

A few of my current thoughts on crypto so I can look back on my position.

Notes for my future self: How to solve this error

Large enterprises talk a lot about governance, but stewardship may be a better model.

There are a few operational concerns when moving to GraphQL. Here are the ones I know.

A framework for postmortems: blameless, timely, understandable to outsiders, reviewed, and with accountable action items.

Distinguishing between first-order metrics (customer outcomes) and second-order metrics (leading indicators) at Walmart.

Examining the ethics of web scraping: its legitimate uses, when it crosses ethical lines, and why it will likely increase over time.

Converting kitchen scraps into methane gas via anaerobic digestion, with open questions about implementation.

Step-by-step guide to packaging a font (Microsoft's Cascadia Code) as a Debian package and uploading it to an Ubuntu PPA.

Building a Raspberry Pi setup to automatically photograph our kitchen whiteboard and upload it to a website.

Exploring the relationship between binary, machine code, and assembly, and how quantum computing's qubits may change the lowest level.

Demystifying the term 'algorithm': it's simply how you go about doing something, whether in data structures or user registration flows.

Parsing the formal mathematical definition of Big-O notation and why dropping constants makes sense, with visual examples.

A 48-mile intro bike camping trip from Portland to Stub Stewart State Park via the Banks-Vernonia trail.

Why software development lacks the formal QA standards found in nuclear or mechanical engineering, and what to do about it.

A 14-mile lollipop backpacking loop in Oregon featuring mossy forests, huckleberries, and a glacial lake.

A comprehensive introduction to Google's Guice dependency injection framework for Java, covering modules, bindings, scopes, and testing.

Using Apiary and Dredd to validate that your API documentation actually matches your implementation.

Why I chose MIT over startups, and how to find meaningful tech work in non-profits, government, and education.

Highlights from MicroConf 2015, including talks by Patrick McKenzie and Steli Efti on building self-backed startups.

Setting up live-updating code coverage reports using Istanbul, npm-watch, and browser-sync so you see coverage change as you write tests.

The benefits of having a software foundation for a programming language community, inspired by discussions in the Node.js ecosystem.

Understanding explicit vs implicit inputs and outputs, pure functions, idempotence, and why these concepts make code more testable.

How to use setuptools entry_points to create a plugin system for your Python package, with examples from imhotep.

Reflections on what makes someone a member of a programming community, prompted by writing JavaScript daily but not feeling like a JS developer.

Code review discussion on why composition beats mixins for clarity, testability, and encapsulation.

Introducing Imhotep, a tool that automates coding standard enforcement by commenting on GitHub pull requests with linter violations.

Highlights from PyCon 2014: my Big-O notation talk, Hynek's SSL presentation post-Heartbleed, and Gary Bernhardt on JavaScript's future.

How using a standardized pull request template helps reviewers understand changes and speeds up the code review process.

Reflections on mentoring at NodeConf 2014 and how the Node community's fearlessness in tackling hard problems inspired me.

Does automation put people out of jobs? Why efficiency gains tend to grow businesses rather than shrink workforces.

Building a cssauron AST selector visualization tool during Node Knockout, including solving the multi-range string insertion problem.

Using the page object pattern to write cleaner, more maintainable Selenium tests by representing pages as objects with well-named APIs.

A review of Ryan Roemer's book on testing Backbone.js apps with Chai, Mocha, and Sinon.JS. Focused and practical.

Using falafel and AST manipulation to programmatically refactor JavaScript code, with an example converting underscore conventions.

Teaching database concepts through the familiar metaphor of Excel files, sheets, and columns.

A critique of GitHub's code review features and a 5-item wish list for improvements including side-by-side diffs and better context.

A pricing strategy for ebooks where early buyers pay less in exchange for taking on more risk, with price increasing as the book nears completion.

A step-by-step guide to calculating Big-O by counting operations and simplifying to the dominant term.

Programming and math topics that feel intimidating: compilers, assembly, security, 3D graphics, and everything past arithmetic.

An accessible introduction to Big-O notation for self-taught programmers, covering O(1), O(n), and O(n²) with Python examples and graphs.

Introducing Pisces, a Python web framework designed for testability by using dependency injection instead of Django's tightly-coupled patterns.

How to add a custom test command to setup.py using distutils when setuptools isn't available.

Using PyAtom to generate Atom feeds for a static blog with readable Python code.

Using PyAtom to generate Atom feeds for a static blog with readable Python code.

A bash script to find JavaScript files that aren't imported anywhere in your RequireJS project.

Guide to encrypting email with GPG using Mail.app and GPGTools, covering encryption, signing, and trust concepts.

Priorities as shifting ratios over time, not a simple work-life tradeoff. Everything in moderation, including moderation.

Using namedtuples and value types to write faster, more testable Django code by pushing ORM usage to the edges.

Migrating GitStreams from MySQL to Postgres using py-mysql2pgsql, cutting storage from 8GB to 3GB.

Treating programming projects like MMORPG quest groups: let beginners specialize to lower the barrier to meaningful contribution.

Choosing Abrahms after marriage, inspired by the story of Abraham leaving the familiar to seek something better.

An exploration of Gittip, an anonymous recurring donation service for open source developers, and what it could mean for the future of sustainable software.

Getting unlimited data and texts for $30/month using T-Mobile prepaid and Google Voice number porting.

My personal values: environmental stewardship, frugality, doing things the hard way, minimizing suffering, and pursuing knowledge.

Using org-babel's tangling feature to write prose-first documentation that exports to executable dotfiles and config.

Practical tips for using EasyMock in Java without the brittle verify() dance, plus how to capture method inputs for assertions.

A comprehensive guide to configuring Vim for Python development, including plugins for file browsing, code navigation, snippets, and linting.

A high-level introduction to Django for managers: its benefits for fast development, excellent documentation, and built-in admin interface.

How to use Emacs org-mode's export functionality to build a static site generator with tramp-based remote publishing.

A shell hack that automatically activates the correct virtualenv when you cd into a project directory.

My setup for using Vim as a full IDE: NERDtree, NERD_commenter, color schemes, LodgeIt, snippets, Taglist, and VCS integration.

A screencast covering visual mode, visual block mode, and text object selection in Vim.

A quick screencast demonstrating how to record and use macros in Vim for repetitive editing tasks.

A 7-minute screencast covering modal editing basics, movement, editing modes, cut/copy/paste, and saving files in Vim.

The % operator in Vim: jumping between matching braces and using it in Ex mode to reference the current file.

Using git submodules with restricted access to version production settings containing secrets while keeping the main repo public.

How to use Python test generators in nose and unittest2 to avoid repetitive test code when testing many similar cases.

Gotchas when using database views with Django and South: handling test setup, avoiding deletion errors, and invalidating foreign keys.

My favorite bookmarklets: jQuery injection, URL shortening, Amazon wishlist, Instapaper read-later, and Django admin tools.

A bash function to quickly checkout any Google Code project with a single command.

Quick fix for psycopg2's 'current transaction is aborted' error: ensure your database uses template_postgis.

Quick tip: pass BuildBot commands as a string instead of a list when you need shell features like output redirection.

How to fix a broken setuptools installation that throws a 'log is not defined' NameError.

A snapshot of my daily software toolkit: Firefox, irssi, Emacs, Adium, Gmail, and various Mac utilities.

The two /opt paths you need to add to PYTHONPATH when using MacPorts-installed Python packages like pycrypto.

A guide to setting up JS Test Driver for JavaScript unit testing, including headless browser execution and CI integration.

How poor documentation in wxPython and dabo made me appreciate Django's excellent docs and why good documentation matters for open source.

What I learned after my Google account was suspended for 2 days: backup your email and have contingency plans for cloud dependence.

How to fix Django fixture loading when your models are in a subdirectory instead of a single models.py file.

Key insights for vim users switching to Emacs: the Meta vs Ctrl distinction, modes, and how Emacs shortcuts work in bash.

A brief Emacs history and guide to choosing, installing, and adding packages with package.el or manual installation.

Essential Emacs navigation and editing commands to get you productive: movement, killing, yanking, and the kill ring.

Fix for using Emacs as Transmit's external editor by enabling backup-by-copying.

Django middleware that sets the language based on domain, enabling i18n for .com vs .fr sites from a single codebase.

Fixes for deploying Django on IIS with PyISAPIe: signals changes, path_info, and multi-part form issues.

A quick tutorial on implementing Reddit-style voting in Django using the django-voting reusable app with AJAX.

A pointer to Wilson Miner's excellent guide for building a reusable Django portfolio application.

Why personal branding matters for anyone with an online professional presence, and how consistency across platforms builds recognition.

A reference to a talk I gave at django-nyc on customizing Django form multiwidgets, with example code on GitHub.

Bash functions for extracting archives, grepping processes, showing git/svn branch in prompt, and more.

Useful bash aliases for ls, grep, git, and common tasks like serving files from the current directory.

Customizing your bash prompt and adding color to ls output for a more informative and readable terminal.

Lessons learned while packaging pyvcs and django-vcs: find_packages, multiple authors, versioning requirements, and including templates.

Why I switched from vim to Emacs, early configuration struggles with CEDET and CarbonEmacs, and getting started.

Download link for a Getting Things Done Excel spreadsheet template.