The phone should just be a web viewer. Why is it not? What's the closest setup (hardware, software, manufacturer) that looks like this? My phone should just be a smart browser. My spps, largely running on devices I control, or via the same from friends I trust.

A thought experiment in the form of a simple question that has been yielding lots of weird but useful ideas for me... What if personal computing truly was personal, in the sense that it was completely tuned to what you need without having to worry about anyone or anything else... how might you […]

If you've got a personal website where you blog, share your learnings, or do other cool stuff, drop it in this thread. It doesn't even need to be software development specific (but if it's not, mention the theme in your reply) The open web of "people doing cool stuff" is something worth […]

People who build software often think of software as an asset or an artifact, regardless of what terms they use for it. But that is increasingly feeling like a flawed mental model. The idea of a "program" is the actual asset, software is just a building material. Seeing it that way isn't at […]

Real personal computing would probably mean getting rid of applications and services entirely in the traditional way. You'd have your home "computer" -- you'd connect to it from whatever other devices you wanted that are all thin clients to it. And that computer would read/write messages over […]

a second personal computing revolution is about the only way other than throwing all electronics into the sea that world will ever heal from the damage tech bros did and continue to do.

Thinking of starting up a "Rapid Application Development" meetup group in New Haven CT. Inclusive of various forms of tech and mostly just seeking to explore the question of "How do we put real working software in the hands of people who benefit from it as quickly and safely as reasonably […]

Shear layers to get a better mental model of things you often take for granted. For example, right now I'm building a rapid prototyping tool that so far I've not introduced a database into, it uses direct reads/writes to files instead. This immediate brings some concurrency fundamentals as […]

Something I've been thinking a lot about is the idea of "Digital Self-Reliance" If that idea resonates with you or sparks some thoughts, feel free to reply (or send a private message) I'm still working out what it means to me, but I feel like I'm tapping back into the roots of what got me into […]

One of the best exercises you can do in Ruby to expand your understanding of web development better is to try to build some small toy projects directly on top of Rack. It may seem unapproachable at first, but you'd be surprised. Excellent practice for anyone at least comfortable at an […]

Pretty much every web framework I've ever used is not even remotely structured like a web, and I'm increasingly finding that weird. In fact, they're not even web-focused in their architecture. They're organized around databases, assets, dependency management, etc. A web framework should look […]

I don't really think much these days about methodologies, whether it's Agile, Lean, or whatever. Instead, I mostly follow some universal principles: -- Cost of Delay (Value and urgency over fixed costs and dates) -- Pareto Efficiencies (Asymmetric bets over micro-optimizations) -- Kaizen […]

Today I stumbled across a fun way to debug things when you may have come across a library or framework bug. I usually assume problems are in my code, and they usually are. But in some cases, dependencies are indeed the source of bugs and I'll typically read their source to diagnose. But then I […]

Absolutely recommend checking out Alpine.js even if you don't intend to use it in production. Incredibly strong abstractions without sacrificing simplicity. Hope sooner or later something like this is built into the browser. https://alpinejs.dev/

Alpine.js

A rugged, minimal framework for composing behavior directly in your markup.

alpinejs.dev

By the end of 2026 I want to write at least 32 short essays on a range of topics... but mostly about how we build things and the human experience of building things. I'll post each essay to this thread when it's ready to share.

Things I did in 2025 which I don't regret one bit: 1) Learned Hanami well enough to build a useful side project. 2) Donated to the Python Software Foundation to become a voting member. 3) Started building my own rapid prototyping tool that is language and framework agnostic. All three of […]

Update: @rubycentral has finally released their bylaws. https://rubycentral.org/ruby-central-bylaws/

Ruby Central Bylaws

Ruby Central BylawsRuby Central Bylaws.pdf334 KBdownload-circle

rubycentral.org

Happy to announce that Gem Fellowship applications are now open! If you're a Ruby open source maintainer, this grant program is for you. 💎 https://gem.coop/fellowship/

This feels like a starting point that can put Ruby in the right direction over the next five years. https://gem.coop/fellowship Setting up sustainable governance and stewardship is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Having targeted funding to move things forward with direct decision making […]

Going to occasionally post #TIL type things in this thread about #hanami. Will find a better home for them evenutually, but until now it gives me one place to put them that others can see!

Today I became a supporting member of the Python Software Foundation. It costs $99/year, which feels well worth it to support F/OSS with strong governance and clear principles they stand for. https://donate.python.org

Has anyone tried out Alpine.js with Hanami? It seems like they might be a good match for each other! (I'm quite new to both but increasingly enjoying things that are minimalistic but still well abstracted)

Strongly recommend subscribing by RSS or email to the posts from @timriley if you have even a passing interest in Hanami. To me the way he shares is F/OSS done right. Simple progress reports, giving credit where due to people who are helping out, and giving everyone else a bit of a look behind […]

"Human in the loop" is not enough. We need the human at the steering wheel, and in control of the break and the accelerator. The machine is in the loop to support the human, no more, no less.

RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@johncarlosbaez/115559260956688871 Ecological systems are wild.

The free and open web is a more important concept than free and open source software. I'm still trying to process what that means in practice, but I believe it's true.

Some time in the next few weeks I'd like to put together an informal Hanami project day. I'd get together a few folks in a Matrix chat for a async-ish day of sharing learnings with each other and helping each other out as we tinker with our own projects. I'm new to the framework but plan to […]

Sometimes a thought will pop into my head which I know is likely to be true but don't know what it means and suspect it may take years to figure it out. This morning's coffee thought along those lines was... "Programming begins with the subdivision of space."