Daniel D. Beck
@ddbeck.com
I write documentation and I program, so I know lots of ways to use a semicolon. Also, I am making bread, learning Dutch, and doing other normal human activities. 🇺🇸 in 🇳🇱
The syntaxes jq uses for extracting an object’s keys, values, and entries are confusingly dissimilar. One of them is not like the others. A brief note with examples.
jq object entries, keys, and values
The syntaxes jq uses for extracting an object’s keys, values, and entries are confusingly dissimilar. One of them is not like the others.
ddbeck.com
google's "why don't you want to use our documentation chatbot" survey offers a pretty good list of reasons not to use their documentation chatbot
Spec fiction or that which was specified but never implemented
Spec fiction
Spec fiction is that which was specified but never implemented.
ddbeck.com
It's the first of the month, which is a great time to document something you haven't documented before with a README file
GitHub - ddbeck/readme-checklist: A checklist for writing READMEs
A checklist for writing READMEs. Contribute to ddbeck/readme-checklist development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
I finally added video of my talk "Stop chopping onions and extend Markdown without tears" to my site. It's my guided tour of a few little-used extension points in Markdown.
Stop chopping onions and extend Markdown without tears at FOSDEM 2026
A tour of Markdown's hidden extension points.
ddbeck.com
With Git, I sometimes check out a single file, such as a shell script, from another branch. I didn't know how to do this with Jujutsu, so I took notes on how, plus why jj's equivalent confuses me.
Copy a file from another revision with jj
With Git, I sometimes check out a single file, such as a shell script, from another branch. I was not familiar with how to do this with jj (J…
ddbeck.com
The most mysterious thing about writing to me is paragraphs. I produce them fairly reliably, but without thinking about them. When I do think about them, when not writing, I feel as if I'm on the edge of a terrible chasm full of secret knowledge.
the struggle of having ever moderated any online community is you now cannot go through any community without being like, oh, they should ban this person. this person hasn't done anything wrong yet but the vibes are off and you should ban the shit out of them.
they published 2,118 RFCs before going "we should define what 'should' means"
Had to reset the clock for "time since hearing a dick joke made on stage at a tech conference" which was standing at years 🙁
I took some notes on @hilton.org.uk's prescriptions for solving the team tech blog problem and suggest one of my own
Solving the tech blog problem
A software development team decides to start a tech blog. After a burst of enthusiasm, it soon goes dormant. Why?
ddbeck.com
english isn't for cowards. if you're not saying 'torpify,' that's a skill issue. there's no Académie Française telling you what to do. if you try to type 'pallific' and freak out when you see a little red underline, maybe you're not ready to roll with the big dogs.
I deal with PDFs more regularly than I prefer, but I don't mind too much because I have some go-to tools. A new note dusted off from my drafts folder
Taming PDFs with Poppler, Pandoc, and friends
When I’m working with PDFs, the tools I turn to most frequently are Poppler’s pdftotext and pdftohtml and Pandoc, with support from OCRmyPDF and (rip)grep.
ddbeck.com
It's the first of the month and you know what that means: time to document something with a README file
GitHub - ddbeck/readme-checklist: A checklist for writing READMEs
A checklist for writing READMEs. Contribute to ddbeck/readme-checklist development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
Good summary of models of funding in OSS! The article is focused on docs, but these payment options are common across all OSS work. Regarding commissions: if you want commissions, you should consider copying examples like Geomys, which make it easier for corporations to pay you for OSS work.
Geomys
Geomys is an organization of open source maintainers, founded by Filippo Valsorda.
geomys.org
Daniel D. Beck@ddbeck.com · 2mo agoSerious open source docs work has a cost. I wrote down every way that I know of that gets docs authors and maintainers paid.
Serious open source docs work has a cost. I wrote down every way that I know of that gets docs authors and maintainers paid.
Open source docs: where does the money come from?
Open source docs don’t come for free. So who’s paying for it?
ddbeck.com
I cleaned up some disused dotfiles (and worse, code to manage to said dotfiles) and ended up taking some notes on some software I really like: Stow.
Stow and dotfiles
GNU Stow has a new-to-me --dotfiles option.
ddbeck.com
The `jj` version control system generates branch names that leave something to be desired. I took notes on an alternative template.
Better generated branch names with jj
The jj version control system generates branch names that leave something to be desired. Here’s my alternative.
ddbeck.com
Computer science is the art of preventing computers from doing things. Big NO notation is used to formally specify how many things you have prevented the computer from doing.
Looking forward to working with @yanthomas.dev to devote some love to the @biomejs.dev docs so they better serve the entire community: readers, contributors, reviewers, and maintainers!
Biome@biomejs.dev · 3mo agoBiome invests where it matters. @sarah11918.rainsberger.ca and @yanthomas.dev will join to improve our docs! biomejs.dev/blog/collabo...
Last year, I wrote about waking up a sleeping computer remotely. I took some new notes on how I've made it much more convenient.
Revisiting remote Wake-on-LAN
I’ve written previously about using Tailscale to wake a PC remotely. I’m now using Home Assistant to wake it in fewer steps.
ddbeck.com
I think my call to action here is to pay for no-vc non-public small business made software and cut them a little slack on downtime because it’s where your favorite expensive big guys are headed anyway
Every time I see someone talk about Claude I think about how they switched from female to male names as soon as they wanted the robots to seem like experts vs personal assistants.
The fish shell's `set_color` command taught me a little lesson about output streams, escape sequences, and things that aren't magic. Plus, I got a tiny change into the fish docs.
The fish shell set_color command prints invisible characters
The fish shell set\_color command writes escape sequences to standard output. At least in fish, color text in your terminal isn’t a special trick of…
ddbeck.com
The fish shell's `set_color` command taught me a little lesson about output streams, escape sequences, and things that aren't magic. Plus, I got a tiny change into the fish docs.
The fish shell set_color command prints invisible characters
The fish shell set\_color command writes escape sequences to standard output. At least in fish, color text in your terminal isn’t a special trick of…
ddbeck.com
I will go to my grave hollering IF YOU TEACH PEOPLE WELL WHILE TREATING THEM WELL THEY CAN LEARN
It's the first of the month and you're no fool. Why not share what you know by writing a README file?
GitHub - ddbeck/readme-checklist: A checklist for writing READMEs
A checklist for writing READMEs. Contribute to ddbeck/readme-checklist development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
I think people took this thread to be about not using LLMs to replace user research, and sure. But it's really about talking to people and caring about them and what they need when we make things for them.
Erin Kissane@kissane.myatproto.social · 5mo agoI sat in on a session awhile back where mostly-developers were trying to figure out how to boost mass adoption of [an open source thing], and the furthest they got was asking ChatCPT to make up Types of People and why those people would love [the open source thing], and they wanted to work from that