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A realpolitik view of tech only holds under the assumption that any new technology is good technology. It allows nothing to balance or sustainability, and I believe the trajectory …

Or to put it in other words: browser technology is asked to do so much that they had to go invent a new language to keep up. So that they could serve ads. For us ordinary folks try…

Dynamic types, OO with some extension for functional style, inherited Algol syntax with some homegrown innovations, batteries-included design. Where they differ, it's largely in wh…

Get yourself into a classroom again. It doesn't have to be an ambitious course. It's a familiar structure and you've been out of it long enough that it'll seem refreshing. While yo…

Or in other descriptive terms, Forth could be called "point-free" or "tacit". There is no structure given by the code's context, no named arguments to describe what is in scope - a…

I've cottoned on to the idea of focusing on feedback loops instead of "practices" lately as a way to deal with the kinds of evolutionary changes projects tend to go through. Practi…

The two common BTC loss stories: 1. I left in the hands of other people 2. I failed to keep it accessible to myself It's easy to lean too far in one or the other direction by leavi…

I believe the main size optimization here comes from having only teletype and batch processing interfaces. When you do that, the surface area of the UI, and hence the amount of sup…

Dreaming up new analogous phrasings to easy != simple now. Fun > easy > simple?

I keep a minimal form of journal for all life events. I briefly describe a thing I did or a thing that happened, and how much energy it took me to go through it on a 0 to 4 scale, …

Fix ordinary problems. That is to say, there are probably hundreds of things, off the top of your head, that bother you and probably bother others. To the best of your ability choo…

Just wanted to say that I admired GalaXynth when it came out. I still have the demo and mean to give it another go sometime. As you're probably well aware the justifications to buy…

For clients, JS runtimes offer a more polished experience on average than Java. That's not because of anything really intrinsic to the languages or platforms - it's just worked out…

My number one piece of programming advice is that you can always find a simpler way - and if you have R&D time to sink into simplifying your problem, doing so is a good idea - but …

I think the main point to focus on is not the relative condition of liveliness, but the mechanism of its generation - which is to have and engage with difficult life problems, stru…

It's a tough nut to crack. Open source contributors tend to want to dive in and make the one patch they want without engaging in any design or feedback process. Installing that pro…

What else is "scripting" but that act of making a very small automation of a business function? Is a customized spreadsheet a tool? There's always going to be demand for tools of m…

It barely registered for me at the time that Python had changed. But using it back then, it felt quite a bit similar between late 1.x and early 2.x, just with creature comforts gra…

Python, because it's the rare combination of "wildly popular" and "keeps you out of trouble". Ruby has always had a one-framework-town kind of feel to it, with Rails being the one …

I ended up making a custom data structure and query language around this kind of notation. Not in Python(am working in Haxe) but easily generalized. The structure is either array o…

No, with the sole exception of interviewing for a research position where new algorithm variants on the sliding window might be developed. What an interviewer focusing on specifics…

Now imagine the world where Microsoft became Adobe's direct competitor and cut their oxygen supply.

Will it kill bug infestations?

All the distinctive elements of LA have been packaged and sold to you through Hollywood films, to the point where it's actually a bit shocking to see some of the landmarks in perso…