Viewing profile — gisborne

Flutter builds pretty decent desktop apps these days.

Relevant analysis: https://guyren.me/2025/04/16/programming-in-the-age-of-abund...

I would develop a production-ready Datalog database system. I am convinced a better alternative to the execrable SQL would significantly raise developer productivity. http://frest.…

If you are asking for the most general-purpose technology around right now, I would say Dart/Flutter. Dart is a half-decent language, able to be used without excessive pain for mob…

At some point, I need to dig into how good a general UI environment I get with Godot. There appears to be something at least usable there.

I significantly prefer the Mac user experience over Windows (it’s bad, but Windows is abominable). Still, I use Electron apps that UI-wise are fine. Well-known examples include Dis…

If you really are doing this for yourself, Flutter has the best development efficiency and you can use animations and such pretty easily to make a slick product. But no-one hires F…

https://frest.substack.com I am working on better APIs driven by a better user interface experience. The better APIs are REST but relational. The better UIs are driven by an embedd…

No. There is a particular logic (“Classical Logic”) that people are usually thinking of when they mention logic. Many folks don’t know that there are many, many logics that have be…

Computer programs needn’t be Turing Complete. There are plenty of useful languages that are not, the Relational Algebra being example 1, which is equivalent to First Order Logic, a…

I’m puzzled why you equate “default state” with “nothing active”. If the default should be that thing the button says is on, then have the button default to being in the active sta…

Programmable APIs. A HTTP request is a function call with named arguments. What if the server had some endpoints that provide basic fp (map, fold, curry, …), and you let your users…

I would be very interested. How can I get in touch?

This is probably completely wrong. It is looking like fusion power will arrive sooner than most people realize. This will make energy virtually free, which will change _everything_…

This is true, but it’s not the only truth that matters. Public goods can be _very_ efficient, even if inefficient in their delivery. I would have trouble believing that an educated…

I reject this. I’ve given my two kids, now older teens, pretty much free reign to watch what they want and use the Internet as they want. I was certainly gifted with nice and preco…

You obviously haven’t read Dune.

Location: San Diego CA Remote: preferred Relocate: no Technologies: SQL particularly Postgres; logic/ontology; Ruby/Rails; writing/speaking/teaching Resume: linkedin.com/in/guyren …

Computing tools for non—programmers. In the early days of computing, we quickly came up with the spreadsheet and the user-friendly relational database (Access, FileMaker). Then we …

Spivak’s Calculus is the best-written textbook I’ve ever encountered and one of the more beautiful examples of book design also.

Most of the problems described in other posts concern trying to convert text programming paradigms into a visual representation. Let me suggest two ways visual programming might be…

Dune (and the sequels through God Emperor). I’ve never found a writer who could discuss humanity writ large — both in masses, and over enormous spans of time — like Herbert. Dune i…

Twitter. I was in an Austin Ruby meetup when these guys came in who had a music startup (this was when everyone and his dog had a music startup). They were hiring for the startup, …

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, is now a critic of many of their policies. Stewart Brand is another critic. Much of what they do is good, but it's clearly not dri…