2025-08-29
You no longer need JavaScript
lyra.horse/blog/2025/08/you-dont-need-jsAn overview of what makes modern CSS so awesome.
2025-07-03
A Higgs-bugson in the Linux Kernel
blog.janestreet.com/a-higgs-bugson-in-the-linux-kernelWe recently ran across a strange higgs-bugson that manifested itself in a critical system that stores and distributes the firm’s trading activity data, called Gord. (A higgs-bugson is a bug that is reported in practice but difficult to reproduce, named for the Higgs boson, a particle which was theorized in the 1960s but only found in 2013.) In this post I’ll walk you through the process I took to debug it. I tried to write down relevant details as they came up, so see if you can guess what the bug is while reading along.
2025-06-26
The plan-execute pattern
mmapped.blog/posts/29-plan-execute.htmlI feel uneasy about design patterns.
On the one hand, my university class on design patterns revived my interest in programming.
On the other hand, I find most patterns in the Gang of Four book to be irrelevant to my daily work;
they solve problems that a choice of programming language or paradigm creates.My litmus test of a good design pattern is its cross-disciplinary applicability.
I’m more likely to accept an idea that pops up in fields beyond software engineering.
And the most convincing patterns are the ones that help me in everyday life.This article describes a universal pattern that billions of people rely on daily, but software engineers rarely discuss—the plan-execute pattern.
Box combinators
mmapped.blog/posts/41-box-combinators.htmlIn functional programming,
combinator libraries refer to a design style that emphasizes bottom-up program construction.
Such libraries define a few core data types
and provide constructors—functions that create initial objects—and combinators—functions that build larger objects from smaller pieces.Combinators enable the programmer to use intuitive visual and spatial reasoning
that’s vastly more powerful than linear language processing.
As a result, solving problems with combinators feels like playing with lego pieces.
2025-06-12
Always do Extra
www.bennorthrop.com/Essays/2021/always-do-extra.phpExtra is different than More. Extra is finishing those two screens, but then researching a new library for form validation that might reduce the boilerplate code. Or it's learning ways to protect against common security vulnerabilities from data entry. These little off-ramps from the main highway of Normal Work could be dead-ends and not have any practical value to the project. But they might also be important contributions. And that's the thing with Extra. While the tangible value to the project is uncertain (it could be nothing this time or it could be something), the value to you is real.
2025-05-15
Speculation in JavaScriptCore
webkit.org/blog/10308/speculation-in-javascriptcoreThis post is all about speculative compilation, or just speculation for short, in the context of the JavaScriptCore virtual machine.
2025-05-06
Debian installation with encrypted BTRFS
chaos.tomaskral.eu/guides/debian-encrypted-btrfs-root2025-04-04
Pitfalls of Safe Rus
corrode.dev/blog/pitfalls-of-safe-rustWhen people say Rust is a “safe language”, they often mean memory safety.
And while memory safety is a great start, it’s far from all it takes to build robust applications.
Memory safety is important but not sufficient for overall r…
2025-01-21
Algebraic Effects for the Rest of Us
overreacted.io/algebraic-effects-for-the-rest-of-us2024-10-24
Rust Prism
registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/rust-prism2024-09-19
Blogging in Djot instead of Markdown
www.jonashietala.se/blog/2024/02/02/blogging_in_djot_instead_of_markdown2024-09-16
Technical Writing One introduction
developers.google.com/tech-writing/one2024-07-05
JavaScript-Free Sidenotes in Hugo
danilafe.com/blog/sidenotes2024-07-02
A write-ahead log is not a universal part of durability
notes.eatonphil.com/2024-07-01-a-write-ahead-log-is-not-a-universal-part-of-durability.htmlA write-ahead log is not a universal part of durability
2024-06-20
Why does SQLite (in production) have such a bad rep?
avi.im/blag/2024/sqlite-bad-rep2024-06-18
Understanding a Python closure oddity
utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/python/UnderstandingClosureOddity2024-06-13
Category Theory for Programmers: The Preface
bartoszmilewski.com/2014/10/28/category-theory-for-programmers-the-prefaceAPI Tokens: A Tedious Survey
fly.io/blog/api-tokens-a-tedious-surveyComparison between types of API tokens.
2024-06-11
Self-serve dashboards
briefer.cloud/blog/posts/self-serve-bi-mythSales pitches are the only place where “self-serve dashboards" work. In the real world, it's a different story.
Why "business" people don't use metabase/power-bi.
2024-06-10
soju IRC bouncer
soju.imsoju is a user-friendly IRC bouncer. soju connects to upstream IRC servers on behalf of the user to provide extra functionality. soju supports many features such as multiple users, numerous IRCv3 extensions, chat history playback and detached channels. It is well-suited for both small and large deployments.