Bookmarks tagged with #opinions.
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Taste Is All That's Left | Blog
On what is left to do once the machine can make anything, and why taste is the last craft worth keeping.
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on: 2026-08-07
Eight Myths on Software Engineering and GenAI - ACM Queue
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on: 2026-08-05
The Human-in-the-Loop is Tired
On reward functions, dopamine, and what it actually feels like when the code starts writing itself
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on: 2026-07-17
LLMs are eroding my software engineering career and I don't know what to do
I'm a software engineer, completing 10 years of professional experience this year. I started my career as a web frontend engineer (it was easier for me to de...
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on: 2026-06-07
The Cost of Safetyism
What we lost when we stopped letting kids leave the front yard.
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on: 2026-05-26
Using AI to write better code more slowly
A lot of people seem convinced that the point of AI coding is to write low-quality code as fast as possible. Spew out barely-passable slop, open massive PRs, and merge them unvetted. Ship it! But t…
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on: 2026-05-26
Vibe coding and agentic engineering are getting closer than I’d like
I recently talked with Joseph Ruscio about AI coding tools for Heavybit’s High Leverage podcast: Ep. #9, The AI Coding Paradigm Shift with Simon Willison. Here are some of my …
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on: 2026-05-07
Appearing Productive in The Workplace — No One's Happy
AI can produce work that looks expert without being expert. The failure arrives in two shapes, and both are reshaping the workplace.
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on: 2026-05-06
Your website is not for you — Websmith Studio
A note from a developer who keeps watching good design die in boardrooms.
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on: 2026-05-01
Drunk Post: Things I’ve Learned as a Senior Engineer
Everything your mentor wants to say but HR won't let them
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on: 2026-04-22
Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people
I spend a lot of time negotiating this in the software world:
And if you're wondering why this happens, it's normally because:
1. people aren't talking to people
2. people aren't listening
So lots of designers and product people have leapt onto 1, basically trying to turn talking to people
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on: 2026-04-20
The AI Vampire
This was an unusually hard post to write, because it flies in the face of everything else going on.
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on: 2026-02-11
The Singularity will Occur on a Tuesday
src={alwaysHasBeen.src} alt="Always has been astronaut meme" / "Wait, the singularity is just humans freaking out?" "Always has been." Everyone in
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on: 2026-02-11
AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It
Aruna Ranganathan and Xingqi Maggie Ye from Berkeley Haas School of Business report initial findings in the HBR from their April to December 2025 study of 200 employees at a …
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on: 2026-02-10
AI Makes the Easy Part Easier and the Hard Part Harder for Developers
AI handles writing code but leaves the hard work: investigation, context, validation. Why vibe coding has limits and AI assistance can backfire.
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on: 2026-02-09
Nobody knows how the whole system works
One of the surprising (at least to me) consequences of the fall of Twitter is the rise of LinkedIn as a social media site. I saw some interesting posts I wanted to call attention to: First, Simon W…
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on: 2026-02-09
If you've got nothing to hide... · Jacques Mattheij
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on: 2026-02-05
A Step Behind the Bleeding Edge: Monarch’s Philosophy on AI in Dev
This is a memo I published internally to my team at Monarch. I’m sharing it more publicly in case it helps other software engineering teams that are managing the crazy times we’re exper…
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on: 2026-01-31
Code is cheap. Show me the talk.
Linus Torvalds once said, 'Talk is cheap. Show me the code'. That is no longer the case.
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on: 2026-01-31
The future of software engineering is SRE | Swizec Teller
When code gets cheap operational excellence wins. Anyone can build a greenfield demo, but it takes engineering to run a service.
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on: 2026-01-26
Your App Subscription Is Now My Weekend Project · Roberto Selbach
Random thoughts
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on: 2026-01-23
The challenges of soft delete
Exploring alternatives to the archived_at column pattern: triggers, application events, and WAL-based change data capture.
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on: 2026-01-21
21 Lessons From 14 Years at Google
Lessons learned from 14 years of engineering at Google, focusing on what truly matters beyond just writing great code.
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on: 2026-01-05
Privacy is Marketing. Anonymity is Architecture.
Privacy is when they promise to protect your data. Anonymity is when they never had your data to begin with.
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on: 2025-12-20
Fifty Shades of OOP | Lesley Lai
This post talks about the many different aspects under the umbrella term OOP
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on: 2025-11-25
Your URL Is Your State
A deep dive into how thoughtful URL design can enhance usability, shareability, and performance. Learn what state belongs in URLs, common pitfalls to avoid, and practical patterns for modern web apps.
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on: 2025-11-03
Vibe engineering
I feel like vibe coding is pretty well established now as covering the fast, loose and irresponsible way of building software with AI—entirely prompt-driven, and with no attention paid to …
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on: 2025-10-08
Use One Big Server
A lot of ink is spent on the "monoliths vs. microservices" debate, but the real issue behind
this debate is about whether distributed system …
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on: 2025-09-01
To be a better programmer, write little proofs in your head
This is a brief write-up of a trick I learned that helps me write code faster and more accurately. I say "trick", but it's really something I started to do without noticing as I moved further into my career.
When you're working on something difficult, sketch a proof in your head as you go that your code will actually do what you want it to do. A simple idea, but easier said than done: doing this "online" without interrupting your flow takes a lot of practice. But once you get really good at it,
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on: 2025-07-16
How I build software quickly
Know how good your code needs to be for the task at hand. Start with a rough draft. Try to soften requirements if you can. Don't get distracted. Make small changes. Practice specific skills.
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on: 2025-07-14
So Long, Figma. Thanks for Everything.
This is your future self. I know it’s weird, but I wanted to send a note back in time to you. Don’t ask me how I did it…let’s just say “It’s complicated.” Now I know you’re scared. I remember the…
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on: 2025-06-09
Vibe Coding Is Fun—But Vibe Refactoring Pays the Bills - Dawid Makowski
So let’s flip the script to something that actually compounds: vibe refactoring. Same spontaneous energy, but aimed at shrinking technical debt and sharpening your architecture instead of amping up the commit count.
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on: 2025-04-29
DSHR's Blog: Archival Storage
I gave a talk at the Berkeley I-school's Information Access Seminar entitled Archival Storage . Below the fold is the text of the talk with...
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on: 2025-03-18
Software development topics I've changed my mind on after 10 years in the industry
Software development topics I've changed my mind on over the course of a decade
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on: 2025-02-06
In Loving Memory of Square Checkbox
History of checkboxes and radio buttons in user interfaces
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on: 2025-01-29
The future of htmx
In this essay, Carson Gross and Alex Petros discuss htmx's future direction and philosophy. They explain how the project aims to emulate jQuery's success through API stability, minimal feature additions, and quarterly releases while continuing to promote hypermedia-driven development and support the broader web development ecosystem.
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on: 2025-01-07
Unsolicited advice to my younger designer self - Microsoft Design - Medium
Last summer was my 3rd year working as a product designer in Microsoft. Before Microsoft, I worked as a graphic designer across a variety of different companies and thus, came in with some…
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on: 2024-12-06
The 70% problem: Hard truths about AI-assisted coding
A field guide and why we need to rethink our expectations
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on: 2024-12-06
Getting Over Not Being A Good Enough Programmer
Here’s the truth about feeling like you’re not a good enough programmer…
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on: 2024-11-26
How I ship projects at big tech companies
What I think about when I'm lead engineer on a project
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on: 2024-11-12
Methodology is bullshit: principles for product velocity | SSOReady
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on: 2024-11-08
I Attended Google's Creator Conversation Event, And It Turned Into A Funeral | GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT
I recently attended a funeral. It was called the Google Web Creator Conversation Event and took place on October 29, … Continue reading "I Attended Google’s Creator Conversation Event, And It Turned Into A Funeral"
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on: 2024-10-31
How I write code using Cursor: A review
A personal review of Cursor, an LLM-powered coding tool.
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on: 2024-10-29
How Google took my job — and how yours could be next
As you may know, up until this month, I was editor-in-chief of GGRecon, a small but growing publisher in the UK focusing on gaming and esports. In August last year, we hit record numbers of visitors…
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on: 2024-10-20
Practices of Reliable Software Design
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on: 2024-10-09
A Post-Google World
Another Google antitrust trial starts on Monday. If Google loses, it'll be three strikes. At some point, they will give up and realize that the writing is on the wall for their current business model.
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on: 2024-09-08
You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites
I always thought I was too dumb to understand math. During my school years, it was evident to me that for some kids math was easy, and for others like myself: painfully difficult.
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on: 2024-08-25
I don't write code the way I used to - stitcher.io
A blog about modern PHP, the web, and programming in general. Follow my newsletter and YouTube channel as well.
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on: 2024-08-08
How I Use "AI"
I don't think that AI models (by which I mean: large language models) are over-hyped. In this post I will list 50 ways I've used them.
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on: 2024-08-08
Master the Change
When we upgrade a new project to the best version possible, the latest PHP and framework versions, it's not only about changing syntax sugar to a more fancy one.
It's about the vast focus shift in project management so far. It's a change to master. I want to share the basic rules we apply to make the "impossible" upgrades successful and steady.
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on: 2024-04-26
Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy
Why do startups typically fail? It turns out that "avoiding those things" is already a plan for success.
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on: 2024-04-03
PostgreSQL is eating the database world
PostgreSQL isn’t just a simple relational database; it’s a data management framework with the potential to engulf the entire database realm. The trend of “Using Postgres for Everything” is no longer limited to a few elite teams but is becoming a mainstream best practice.
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on: 2024-03-15
Infrequently Noted
Cupertino's attempt to scuttle Progressive Web Apps under cover of chaos is exactly what it appears to be: a shocking attempt to keep the web from ever emerging as a true threat to the App Store and blame regulators for Apple's own malicious choices. By hook or by crook, Apple's going to maintain its home screen advantage.
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on: 2024-02-26
Privacy Isn't Dead. Far From It. | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Welcome! The fact that you’re reading this means that you probably care deeply about the issue of privacy, which warms our hearts. Unfortunately, even though you care about privacy, or perhaps because you care so much about it, you may feel that there's not much you (or anyone) can really do to...
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on: 2024-02-23
Is something bugging you?
At first glance, Antithesis couldn’t be more different from FoundationDB (our last company), but it’s a continuation of that story in a funny sort of way.
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on: 2024-02-13
(Almost) Every infrastructure decision I endorse or regret after 4 years ru
Assortment of technology startup infrastructure recommendations
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on: 2024-02-10
3 Signs Your Project is Becoming Legacy - Arrays Creep
In [the first post](/blog/3-signs-your-project-is-becoming-legacy-and-how-to-avoid-them), we looked at the long-term effects of our decisions. Turning a legacy project into a fresh one is a matter of the "just do it" approach.
But there are 3 things we should take with care even if our project seems outside the legacy project category. First of those are arrays.
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on: 2024-01-09
An app can be a home-cooked meal
I made a messaging app for my family and my family only.
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on: 2024-01-05
10 reasons why Unpoly may be a better choice than htmx | Matteo Contrini
htmx and Unpoly are JavaScript libraries that add interactivity to multi-page applications (MPA). Here’s why Unpoly might be better choice.
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on: 2023-12-27
10 Dark Patterns in UX Design and How to Avoid Them
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on: 2023-12-02
Stop building databases
Join me as we take a look at common application data patterns, and how they relate to the inner-workings of databases. In this post, we discuss data caching, indexing, optimistic mutations, and recursive cache invalidation. We will see how life might be easier if we could just use a frontend optimized database like SQLSync instead.
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on: 2023-12-02
Why I Tend Not To Use Content Negotiation
In this essay, Carson Gross explores his preference for separating JSON and hypermedia APIs instead of using content negotiation, a feature in HTTP that allows clients to request different formats (e.g., HTML, JSON). He discusses the limitations of content negotiation in APIs, especially when mixing stable, versioned JSON data APIs with dynamic, UI-driven hypermedia APIs. Carson argues that by splitting these concerns into distinct APIs, developers can better maintain stability for data APIs while allowing flexibility for hypermedia APIs to evolve with user interface needs. He also highlights the challenges content negotiation introduces to API design and scalability.
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on: 2023-11-20
HTML Web Components
Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.
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on: 2023-11-14
The Negative Impact of Mobile-First Web Design on Desktop
Mobile-first web designs cause significant usability issues when viewed on desktop. Content becomes overly dispersed across long scrolling pages with expansive white space and enlarged images and fonts, making it difficult for users to consume and understand the information.
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on: 2023-10-27
There are two sides to an interview
and you're probably worried about the wrong half
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on: 2023-10-25
Career Advice
To my great surprise, young people now somewhat frequently contact me in order to solicit career advice.They are usually in college or highschool, and want to know what the best next steps are for a career in security or software development.This is, honestly, a really complicated question, mostl...
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on: 2023-10-04
Absurd Success
So… I’ve had the most unreal week of coding. Zero exaggeration, I’ve halved the RAM requirements of the search engine, removed the need to take the system offline during an upgrade, removed hard limits on how many documents can be indexed, and quadrupled soft limits on how many keywords can be in the corpus.
It’s been a long term goal to keep it possible to run and operate the system on low-powered hardware, and so far improvements have been made, to the point where my 32 Gb RAM developer machine feels spacey rather than cramped, but this set of changes takes it several notches further.
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on: 2023-08-31
I'm betting on HTML
AI Use Disclaimer: I wrote this post and then GPT-4 fixed my grammer and spelling
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on: 2023-08-02
Two Kinds of Legacy Code Upgrade
I often speak with project owners or CTOs, who ask for help with legacy project upgrades. They typically want something like "upgrade to PHP 8.0" or "upgrade to Symfony 5.4". There are two ways to do that.
Which one is the best for you? Let's ask the important question first.
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on: 2023-07-15
Browsertech Digest: Figma is a File Editor
Hey folks, welcome to the digest! Today’s issue is about a pain point developers encounter when shipping desktop-class apps to the browser. File editors and...
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on: 2023-07-13
How to build a website without frameworks and tons of libraries | Koding Ki
A simple toolchain that Koding Kitty uses for building its web.
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on: 2023-07-04
Anything can be a message queue if you use it wrongly enough
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on: 2023-06-05
Clever Code Considered Harmful • Josh W. Comeau
As engineers, it can be really satisfying for us to implement clever, terse solutions to problems, relying on advanced tricks and techniques. As a result, we often write code that is hostile and inaccessible to the junior folks on our team. This article makes the case that we should strive to write simple, accessible code, using the dumb old primitives that everyone knows.
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on: 2023-05-30
The UX Research Reckoning is Here - One Big Thought - Medium
UX Research, layoffs, research needs to change its focus to stay relevant
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on: 2023-05-30
90% of My Skills Are Now Worth $0 - by Kent Beck
...but the other 10% are worth 1000x
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on: 2023-04-20
Superhuman: What can AI do in 30 minutes?
AI multiplies your efforts. I found out by how much...
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on: 2023-03-26
Web fingerprinting is worse than I thought - Bitestring's Blog
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on: 2023-03-22
I’ve been employed in tech for years, but I’ve almost never worked – Emmanu
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on: 2023-03-17
ChatGPT's API is So Good and Cheap, It Makes Most Text Generating AI Obsolete
Including OpenAI’s other text generating AI!
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on: 2023-03-12
Reliability: It's Not Great
The last four months have been rough. We’ve had more issues than we’re OK with. I’ve hesitated to share this because, well, I’m fighting a debilitating feeling of failure. Fear, too. If we don’t improve, our company ceases to exist, and I really like working on this company. One interesting problem we have is that we’ve exploded in popularity. It sounds like a good problem to have! But we’ve pushed the platform past what it was originally built to do. We’ve put a lot of work and resources into...
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on: 2023-03-07
Legacy Software Systems: How to Live with Aging Software Architecture?
Your guide to legacy software systems. How a software developer can be a good repairman when working on legacy software? Find our examples and experts' tips!
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on: 2023-03-06
Why I Migrated This Website From Symfony To Laravel | Tomas Votruba
It's been exactly a week since I migrated this website from Symfony to Laravel. I had never done such a migration before and feared the pitfalls waiting for me.
The migration itself was easy and swift. It took me 2 trips on Lisbon trains, one afternoon in a cafe, and a few hours at the hotel to finish. I'll talk about the process later, and it's a fascinating set of techniques.
**You kept me asking "why", so here it is.**
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on: 2023-03-03
Four Ways to Build Web Apps
Intro This is my opinionated list of four approaches to building websites and web applications. Publicly hosted on the internet, serving HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, etc over HTTP.
#1: Hugo Static Sites + Progressive Web Apps Static websites are boring. Vendors rarely talk about them because the margins are miniscule compared to flashy, compute-heavy services. It is seen as a table stakes offering. Though they have received more attention during the “JAM Stack” trend, my position is that they are still underappreciated and underutilized.
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on: 2023-02-21
Poor schemas, poor cataloguing: why music tagging sucks - the sporks space
One of the things that frustrates me with having a local music library is the tedium of tagging. While there are tools (like beets or MusicBrainz Picard) to make it easier, I feel there are fundamental issues with the design… Continue reading →
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on: 2023-02-19