Software Unscripted: Type System Complexity ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Along with Rust, TypeScript, SemVer, open source ecosystems and maintenance, and more!

Unmeasurable Costs and Benefits—JOURNAL

One major reason standard advice about “demonstrating value (or impact)” does not work well for foundational software, including (but not only) open-source library code.

Hierarchical systems—LIBRARY

Tools for Thought, Not Shortcuts for Thinking—LIBRARY

Writing and Prestige-Building—A Reply to Will Larson—JOURNAL

On “infrequent, high-quality content” as a tactic.

Analytics for Sites With Tech-Savvy Audiences—JOURNAL

I compared Netlify’s numbers with Fathom’s. They are… very different.

Just Keep Climbing—JOURNAL

Or: how to make progress.

Stay Curious About Your Tools—JOURNAL

I have lately enjoyed digging further into Unix and macOS fundamentals—and it has reminded me to stay curious about my tools!

the establishment of fellowship—LIBRARY

Webster on “revelation” as more than imparting information: as being God’s very presence.

boundary-drawing and system design—LIBRARY

Notes from Thinking in Systems which I find particularly applicable to software.

Unsafe—JOURNAL

On a common meme: “Rust would not help because we would have to use a lot of unsafe”.

Reflections on a Month with BBEdit and Nova—JOURNAL

What works, what doesn’t, and where did this experiment lead me in the end?

Extended Time Off Report—JOURNAL

What I got up to over the past month! Because I relax by learning and doing.

My Current Mac Stack—JOURNAL

The software I use every day, with commentary.

Stocks, Flows, Resiliency, and Layoffs—LIBRARY

The costs of decreasing a business’ capacity to absorb change.

Quitting the Big Five—A Reply to Brad East—JOURNAL

On the basic structure of my tech choices these days. Briefly.

Is TypeScript Good?—A Reply to Rach Smith—JOURNAL

Taking a thoughtful post as an excuse to discuss software system dynamics through the lens of TypeScript.

Je ne sais quoi—JOURNAL

Programming languages, cameras, computers, and other technologies—and feel.

Fog and Bird—PHOTOS

One of those delightful surprises.

Trying BBEdit and Nova—JOURNAL

I am taking some time off, and this seems like a great time to mess with alternatives for my software stack.

On Ember’s New Major Version Cadence—JOURNAL

Not just how this one specific process for one JavaScript framework is changing, but why—and why I hope it will be useful to other projects as well!

running / patience—LIBRARY

Sermon Notes—JOURNAL

Specifically: why I do not take them.

Sanctification—LIBRARY

Writing Tools—JOURNAL

Obsidian, Bear, high-quality native apps vs. cross-platform Electron apps…

Be a quality detector.—LIBRARY

Is GitHub Copilot Any Good?—JOURNAL

Betteridge’s Law applies, but the details of why I think so might still interest you.

About My Licensing Choices—JOURNAL

Why MIT and Creative Commons Attribution? Why so much consideration of this at all?

Did Not Start—JOURNAL

A little bit of running history from 2011.

dimension change/code review—JOURNAL

Competencies—JOURNAL

An observation on the dynamics of (sufficiently) large organizations.

blossoming—PHOTOS

spring evening—PHOTOS

Questions Posed—LIBRARY

Autumn Sunset—PHOTOS

Eagle on the Neighbors’ House—PHOTOS

Fanfare for a New Era of American Spaceflight – Live Recording! ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Last summer, I hired the Budapest Scoring Orchestra and recorded my fanfare. And now: you can listen to the recording!

❡ Length: An Observation —JOURNAL

Blog posts, like essays (published online or in magazines) tend (I think!) to differ from books in just how long they let their paragraphs run.

Fork Software More—JOURNAL

Not everything needs to be centralized and standardized.

People, Strategy, Execution—LIBRARY

A few choice quotes from Phil Rozenweig’s The Halo Effect.

Feature Idea: Week-Level Smart Training Plans —JOURNAL

Training (at my level, anyway) is less about individual day-to-day work and more about what I do each week. The tools should support that!

Blog-Gardening in Public—JOURNAL

Build Yourself Small Tools—JOURNAL

Initial Notes on Elicit—JOURNAL

Playing around a bit with the ML-powered research tool from the folks at Ought.org.

Special Null Syntax vs. Types and Functions—JOURNAL

Why does Maybe.map feel better than ?? and friends to me? A sketch.

Product Idea: Meal Tracking for Athletes —JOURNAL

All of the existing tools need broader design vocabularies.

An Orchestra in My Pocket—JOURNAL

Well, in my bag anyway. Close enough. And astonishing.

Generative Work and Productive Puttering—JOURNAL

They sometimes feel similar, but they aren’t the same. (And both can be good!)

Goal-Setting—JOURNAL

On setting goals I might not meet—and adjusting them proactively throughout the year.

2022 in Review: The Rest of life —JOURNAL

Less than I wanted of music, running, etc.; but some good things on the financial and spiritual fronts.

old truck—PHOTOS

2022 in Review: Professional —JOURNAL

My fourth year at LinkedIn: odd, and challenging—with some failures!—but not bad.

2022 in Review: Public Speaking —JOURNAL

One conference talk, a couple podcasts, and—unexpectedly—a bit of YouTube-ing.

2022 in Review: Writing —JOURNAL

Getting published in print, and a year to at least match last year for my normal blogging and open source work!

2022 in Review: Reading —JOURNAL

I read a lot less than I wanted, but I still made my goal of 22 books in the year. I’ll take it!

The Leica Q2—ESSAYS

Mulling on a remarkable camera (that isn’t for me).

well, dang—PHOTOS

OPML Files as… Annotated Bibliographies? —JOURNAL

What if feed readers let you you make these old XML files into blog rolls, too?

cold (2)—PHOTOS

cold—PHOTOS

Patterns for “Smart” Components in Ember—JOURNAL

…which generalize to other frameworks pretty well, too.

Wacky Tricks We Use in Publishing TypeScript Types (for Ember.js)↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

A walkthrough of the shenanigans we have to do to make TypeScript understand how to import @ember packages from ember-source.

Supernote, Dropbox, and Transmit—JOURNAL

A handy little flow for getting documents onto and off of the SuperNote via Dropbox… without having Dropbox installed locally.

A UML Comeback?—JOURNAL

Because the tools are positioned for sketching, now?

Reasoning About Reference Cycles—JOURNAL

Rust’s lifetime types are challenging, but they bring a capability I miss all the time in other languages.

Journaling, One Day Along—JOURNAL

A progress report: It had the desired effect. I like it!

Journaling—JOURNAL

But in a very specific way.

John Cook and Brief Notes—JOURNAL

A Note on Life Stages—JOURNAL

A few reflections on parenting, hobbies, and time.

creation, incarnation, art, vocation—JOURNAL

Writing Down What I Do—In Obsidian—JOURNAL

An update on my years-long habit, with a new tool.

Dorico Tip: Solo Parts in String Sections —JOURNAL

This was a bit subtle, so I'm writing it down for myself in the future (and maybe others, too!).

Organizing Many Software Projects—JOURNAL

How I lay out my file system and how I tweak Git for working on literally dozens of different repositories.

plane wing—PHOTOS

necessarily simple abstractions—LIBRARY

walking back to the hotel—PHOTOS

(in Midtown NYC)

NYC, Looking Up—PHOTOS

Cloud tops—PHOTOS

Outbound from Denver to NYC. Loved the view as we came up out of the clouds.

Obsidian—JOURNAL

A reply to an acquaintance’s question about what Obsidian is doing for me.

October Sunset—PHOTOS

Autumn on the Front Range (2)—PHOTOS

Autumn on the Front Range—PHOTOS

Inversion—PHOTOS

Trade-offs—JOURNAL

They are real; but too often offered as an excuse to avoid thinking rather than a reason to think harder.

Marco’s Rule of Software Stacks (Expanded)—JOURNAL

On being the biggest user of a given technology.

Long and Short—JOURNAL

The value of different kinds of writing.

The Great Unmooring↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

At Mere O, on Richard Sennett’s The Corrosion of Character and Warzel and Petersen’s Out of Office, on work.

The Man from the Future—LIBRARY

An interesting study in the life of a profoundly influential man.

Garden of the Gods—PHOTOS

We’ve lived here for almost five years and hadn’t been till friends visited a couple weeks ago.

Announcing the Official TypeScript Types Public Preview↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

the possibility of being caught off guard—LIBRARY

Open Source—JOURNAL

Notes on the sheer scale of recently-completed open source efforts of mine.

Flow State—JOURNAL

Maybe it’s less important than we like to think?

What Can I Do With 10 Minutes?—JOURNAL

What can I do when I do not have long stretches of time to give deep attention to a task?

Turning on Some Apple Accessiblity Preferences—JOURNAL

Because it makes for a better UI experience!

The Lord’s Prayer—ELSEWHERE

The manuscript for a sermon on Luke 11:1–13.

Thinking Out Loud on “Trauma”—LIBRARY

Some musing and notes after reading the first fifth of The Body Keeps the Score

On the Ember Blog: Plain Functions as Helpers ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Making sure people understand a new feature we shipped which is a big deal.

Some Thoughts on Zig—JOURNAL

A positive framing (of one part at least!) from someone who is distinctly not here for what the language is selling.

RFC: Evolving Ember's Major Version Process ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

A Pleasing Symmetry in Rust—JOURNAL

Appreciating how Rust enum variants are mirrors of its kinds of structs.

Rustacean Station: New Rustacean with Chris Krycho ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Chatting about Rust, LinkedIn, and WebAssembly—and my past, present, and possible future with podcasting!

The Tamron 35-150mm 𝑓/2–2.8 Di III VXD—JOURNAL

Notes from a week at Disney World with this remarkable (mammoth!) lens.

The Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm 𝑓/1.8 ZA—JOURNAL

Notes from a week at Disney World with Sony’s workhorse of a lens.

The Sony α7 IV—JOURNAL

Notes from a week at Disney World with Sony’s latest full-frame camera body.

St. George’s Anglican Church—PHOTOS

In downtown Colorado Springs on a late May evening.

Whiskey, Web, and Whatnot: Bringing Types to Ember ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Chatting with the good folks at ShipShape about TypeScript, Ember, composing, whiskey, and more.

Conditional Modifiers and Helpers in Ember—JOURNAL

A handy feature you can use in recent versions of Ember.

Misusing TypeScript Assertion Functions for Fun and Profit—JOURNAL

A horrible (but very useful) hack I came up with yesterday for adding types to some old code.

SemVer for TS in Practice—JOURNAL

Showing how the recommendations from www.semver-ts.org can actually work in the real world.

The Road to TypeScript↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

My EmberConf 2022 talk (with, again, a lot of non-Ember interest).

Semantic Versioning for TypeScript Types 1.0.0-beta.1↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

After years of work, I’ve published the first beta of the spec for semantic versioning for TypeScript types!

One challenge to the new moral science—LIBRARY

Hunter and Nedelisky on the any kind of “moral science” which takes “social consensus” or majority preferences as the limit of actual ethical reasoning.

On Stationery—JOURNAL

…and unreasonable joys in small, real goods.

A quarter-of-the-year check-in——JOURNAL

Don’t Universalize from Your Own Experiences—JOURNAL

Snappy writing, careers in software development (and other fields), advice-giving, and over-generalizing.

Two Speaking Updates—ELSEWHERE

News about TypeVille and EmberConf!

Volume—JOURNAL

On my need to write, and writing here less lately. (Or: writing something because I needed to gain a sense of momentum about my writing goals, and writing about writing comes easily, which is why bloggers resort to it when they’re tired.)

through a small tree—PHOTOS

A question of authority—LIBRARY

On Brad East’s approach to Scripture and Tradition.

Announcement: Speaking at TypeVille 2022 —ELSEWHERE

On the subject of “Types as Tools for Thought”

Ember v4 TypeScript Support Update↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Notes on Exposure Notifications—JOURNAL

Literally just notes, from an essay I never managed to write.

Eternals—JOURNAL

Not a good movie, exactly, but an interesting one.

the heart of the life of the Church—LIBRARY

Don’t Sprint the First Mile of a Half Marathon—JOURNAL

On establishing a sustainable pace at the start of a new year.

Program modifications at low cost?—LIBRARY

Tentative 2022 Reading List—LIBRARY

The books I would like to get through this year.

Buy Me a Book—JOURNAL

Moving from Patreon to BuyMeACoffee for folks to support my writing if so inclined.

Reading Settings!—JOURNAL

A few notes on pairing prefers-color-scheme and user configurability, as well as adding a little reading mode switch.

Why you should fund Mere Orthodoxy↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

A heartfelt plea from me to you

Study—LIBRARY

A good word from John Webster to all students (not just of theology).

2021 End-of-Year Thoughts —JOURNAL

Another year behind, another reflection on what happened (and what didn’t!) in this latest circuit of the sun.

Courage—LIBRARY

how to sorrow/pilgrim knowledge —LIBRARY

“I cannot not be a creature made and called by God’s love”—LIBRARY

The incredibly good news about us of which Christ is the guarantee.

Small, Non-Trivial Projects for Learning—JOURNAL

For learning effectively, nothing is better than a real project which gives you a place to experiment and play.

2022 Colfax Half Marathon Plan—JOURNAL

Plotting my recovery from COVID-19 and my path to maybe, just maybe, managing another PR in May.

Request for Comments: First-Class Component Templates ↩︎—❈—JOURNAL

Given all the analysis from this series, a concrete proposal to move this forward!

a moral undertaking—LIBRARY

Reading “A Functional Programming Language with Versions”—LIBRARY

The first academic research I’m aware of which actually takes Semantic Versioning seriously!

Ember.js Template Imports: Part 6 —JOURNAL

Given the tradeoffs in the space, what is the best set of compromises we can make?

Ember.js Template Imports: Part 5 —JOURNAL

What about styles? (A bonus post!)

Ember.js Template Imports: Part 4 —JOURNAL

Keeping, and improving on, one of Ember’s fundamental commitments—and biggest strengths: its integrated testing.

Ember.js Template Imports: Part 3 —JOURNAL

Evaluating the tradeoffs of template language designs for tooling.

Anki and Spaced Repetition—JOURNAL

Notes on working with a new system, 5½ months along.

Ember.js Template Imports: Part 2 —JOURNAL

Which template imports design has the biggest set of wins for teaching and understanding components?

Ember.js Template Imports: Part 1 —JOURNAL

Introducing the series and walking through the formats.

…such is God’s mercy—LIBRARY

Reading for world-building—LIBRARY

Mall Sign—PHOTOS

The Sony α7C—JOURNAL

A mini-review after renting the camera and using it for almost a week back in July.

From the Visitor Center—PHOTOS

Cameras and Attention (Redux)—JOURNAL

A mild “yes/and” on a theme often highlighted by contemporary tech critical commentary.

God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology – Volume I: God and the Works of God —LIBRARY

The first of two volumes of collected essays and papers by John Webster. Very, very scholarly.

…revelation disturbs —LIBRARY

‘It is “an interruption which addresses us.”’

Spiritual Experiences—Intellectual and Emotional—JOURNAL

A warning.

Theological Anthropology Comes First—JOURNAL

You don’t get a healthy politics if you answer the question “What is a human?” incorrectly.

What if PageRank Was a Mistake?—JOURNAL

A provocation on our algorithmic present and a curational (curative?) alt-history.

Alley sunset—PHOTOS

Praising God—LIBRARY

Two quotes from a John Webster sermon of the same title: on worship, and the one worshipped.

MusicXML and Percussion Notation—JOURNAL

Digging into How Dorico and StaffPad represent percussion differently.

StaffPad to Dorico via MusicXML? Alas, no. —JOURNAL

A tale of woe! …but with some tips for less woeful tales to sooth the bitter pill this is.

StaffPad Versions—JOURNAL

Making it easy to keep track of your composing history in StaffPad.

Fanfare for a New Era of American Spaceflight ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

You can now search for my name in Spotify, Apple Music, etc., and you will find there: orchestra music!

creation is pure generosity—LIBRARY

‘Life… finds a way.’—PHOTOS

A lonely little plant—from our family trip to Dinosaur National Monument.

My Current Photography Setup—JOURNAL

Could also be filed under “from my sent messages.”

Revealed and Stated Preferences—JOURNAL

On Ben Thompson’s weekly article on Instagram, Facebook, algorithmic feeds in general—and how economic analysis of behavior ranges from insufficient to awful.

Late Afternoon Lake—PHOTOS

Went for a walk, took my camera, was giddy that I had done so when I saw how beautiful the sky was.

Two quotes on creatio ex nihilo —LIBRARY

Reread Books!—LIBRARY

Fiction, nonfiction, steak, popcorn: find books you love and reread them.

Miscellaneous Updates—JOURNAL

Or: it has been months since I wrote anything, so I’m scratching that itch.

Chatting About Web Dev ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Ember CLI history, ember-auto-import, web bundling, and more

not the imposition of an alien will—LIBRARY

exposition precedes disputation—LIBRARY

Balloons, of Course—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 8: seen on the way out of Albuquerque.

The Best Brewery I Visited in ABQ—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 7: the bar at High and Dry Brewing.

Lone Cactus—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 6: compensating for mid-day lighting to share a glimpse of this lonely/lovely plant.

Trailer Music Jam↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

The fruit of riffing on an idea at a coffee shop all afternoon.

Ramen and Ribs—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 5: some outstanding eats. (The typical ’gram photo.)

Slow Burn Coffee—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 4: the loveliest space I have yet seen in the city.

Three considerations on reading the Bible—LIBRARY

Webster expounding/expanding on Bonhoeffer and Barth.

Rio Grande Drainage—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 3: drainage water running into the Rio Grande, spotted on my run

Tiny Flowers for Color—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 2: a tiny flower on a little table outside a coffee shop.

“…our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten.”—LIBRARY

“If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humourless existence of a man who has no hope.”

Motel Guest’s Only—PHOTOS

New Mexico Vacation, Day 1: An overflow lot in Las Vegas, New Mexico

Keep It Local—ELSEWHERE

Or: (part of) what “reasoning about your code” really means; being my EmberConf 2021 talk.

Impromptu EmberConf 2021 AMA↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

In which my friend David Baker put me on the spot… and it was great!

RFC: Semantic Versioning for TypeScript Types ↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

In which years of thinking and months of design come to fruition.

Progressive Disclosure of Complexity and Typed FP Languages—JOURNAL

Or, one part of why to some extent Elm, and to a significant degree PureScript Halogen, can be quite difficult for users to get their heads around at first.

Dogmatic portrayal of the canon—LIBRARY

Introducing “Heuristics for Good Software Design”—JOURNAL

A series of posts in which I explain how I think about effective software design.

Naming and Framing—JOURNAL

Or, why did Accelerate matter for DevOps?

A Gap in (My Knowledge of) the Developer Productivity Literature —JOURNAL

Where is the equivalent of Accelerate for anything outside of DevOps?

A Useful Approach to Problem-Solving—JOURNAL

(It’s useful to me, at least.)

Announcement: Speaking at EmberConf 2021 —ELSEWHERE

In which I’ll be speaking for 30 minutes at a JS conference… and will spend only about 5 of those minutes on JS.

Scarcities—JOURNAL

In which what was supposed to be a quick, Robin Sloan- and Craig Mod-inspired, note on attention and cryptothings… somehow morphed into the dream of a research program for something much, much different.

I Am Not An Original Thinker—JOURNAL

And it turns out that’s actually totally fine.

A path away from Kant?—LIBRARY

Koyzis’ provocative thesis on authority and liberty.

Using Classes for Functional Programming—JOURNAL

We tend to think classes are inherently for object-oriented programming, but they are much more flexible than that in JavaScript and TypeScript (and other languages too).

God with us, God for us—LIBRARY

Just Write—JOURNAL

Even if you only have five minutes: write anyway.

holiness and jealousy—LIBRARY

God as the Holy One and God as Redeemer and Saviour—LIBRARY

not primarily morally legislative but soteriological—LIBRARY

God is holy as he bends down to us in mercy—LIBRARY

Wrapping Up 2020 and Starting 2021—JOURNAL

Goodbye, good riddance, won’t look back fondly on this one.

thus… have we made the world—LIBRARY

the trap of thinking that we know what's going on here—LIBRARY

Understanding args in Glimmer Components—JOURNAL

Clearing up a common confusion with a worked example.

all the difference in the world—LIBRARY

the requirement for theological reason —LIBRARY

an exercise of fellowship with the saints—LIBRARY

Ember Octane is a New Mental Model—JOURNAL

…not a 1:1 translation from Ember Classic—but that’s often a big win!

Reluctantly Returning to Social Media—JOURNAL

I have to be on social media professionally… but I don't have to live there.

We speak in God’s presence—LIBRARY

reason is a field of God’s sanctifying work—LIBRARY

an exercise of holiness—LIBRARY

the unholy science?—LIBRARY

Private Chat and DMs Are Good, Actually —ESSAYS

Don’t forget the lessons of physical offices when thinking about chat.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore—LIBRARY

Robin Sloan’s debut novel was just astonishing.

Notes on Thoughtbot’s “Stop Using 'any'”—JOURNAL

A couple tweaks and improvements to a good post!

Writing Robust TypeScript Libraries—JOURNAL

A subtler art than it might at first appear, if you intend to support JS or even loose mode TS.

Data Constructors, Part 2: Better TypeScript —JOURNAL

A deep dive on more idiomatic TypeScript implementations of ML-style data constructors.

God teaches us—LIBRARY

Initializing Class Fields in Ember Octane —JOURNAL

One of the many small-but-lovely benefits of getting to use native classes in Ember Octane.

Finding Holy in the Suburbs—LIBRARY

A solid popular-level book—which I wish pushed just a little harder than it does.

Politics & The Order of Love—LIBRARY

A good book, if not quite the one I hoped for.

Things I Was Wrong About: Types —JOURNAL

Because it would do us all good to be a little more honest about where we’ve changed our minds or simply been mistaken.

Autotracking: Elegant DX Via Cutting-Edge CS —JOURNAL

A modern JavaScript reactivity system powered by Lamport clocks and incremental computation and depth-first searches: oh my!

A Chalcedonian conceptual grammar for love and justice—LIBRARY

What if we thought of “love” and “justice” like the hypostatic union?

All is broken and incomplete, and politics can not heal the rupture. —LIBRARY

Summarizing the basic shared commitments of all Augustinian liberals, whatever their many other differences

Data Constructors, Part 1: Understanding by Implementing —JOURNAL

Understanding an idea from Standard ML-like languages by implementing it in (boring) TypeScript.

Tracking in the Glimmer VM↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Chris Garrett (@pzuraq) explains to me how autotracking and the Glimmer (Ember) template layer connect!

Can You Recommend a Book on This?—JOURNAL

Probably not, unfortunately. Maybe I can write something up, though?

Async Data and Autotracking in Ember Octane—JOURNAL

Digging into the load helper and AsyncData type I introduced in an earlier post.

the mixed moral qualities of any age—LIBRARY

In which Eric Gregory makes it clear that this book is extremely for me.

Migrating Off of PromiseProxyMixin in Ember Octane —JOURNAL

An important refactor for getting rid of mixins and proxies.

Twitter and Me, Redux—JOURNAL

A 2020 update on my take on that particular social medium.

Good theology demands good theologians—LIBRARY

How spiritual formation is not mere interiority or “authenticity” but death-and-resurrection at the hand of the living God.

The first and last act of theological existence—LIBRARY

Polemic is Hard—LIBRARY

One can only take so much bludgeoning-of-bad-ideas before growing weary of a book.

theological self-criticism—LIBRARY

the story of modern theology—LIBRARY

Christian Theology’s Place in the University—LIBRARY

Or, John Webster cracking very wise.

Humans of Open Source↩︎—❈—ELSEWHERE

Chatting with Sean Chen about open source, Christian humanism, and working in public.

The Real Aim of Utopias—LIBRARY

Perfectionism Without Perfectibility—LIBRARY

Please Reply!—JOURNAL

My Atom and JSON feeds gained a new “feature.”

On Ending “This Week I Learned”—JOURNAL

At least for now, I don’t have time for this particular bit of blogging. And that’s okay.

An anti-culture—LIBRARY

What theology must be if it is to be healthy and fruitful as a field.

Christian astonishment—LIBRARY

Good Theologians—LIBRARY

Presence—JOURNAL

A few notes on God-with-us in his Word and at his Table.

A Git Workflow for Managing Long-Running Upgrades—JOURNAL

Using some lessons learned in the trenches of large upgrades.

Sourdough—LIBRARY

Easily the most delightful book I’ve read in years.

Building the Slow Way—JOURNAL

Or, part of why rewrite is taking a while: I’m in this for the long haul.

Reading Habits—JOURNAL

How exactly do I go about reading, and what do I read these days?

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 8 —JOURNAL

SpaceX launched today, and I am launching the rough draft of “Fanfare for a New Era of American Spaceflight” to honor it!

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 7 —JOURNAL

Memorial Day and Thursday night progress…

Making Illegal States Unrepresentable—In TypeScript—JOURNAL

Showing how Scott Wlaschin’s approach in F^♯ translates to a language with a very different type system.

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 6 —JOURNAL

A surprising amount of progress over the weekend—the muscles are coming back!

This Week I Learned #5—JOURNAL

This Week I Learned #4—JOURNAL

Designing an Atomic CSS System—JOURNAL

Making my CSS scalable from the outset.

mut (and set) and autotracking in Ember Octane —JOURNAL

Understanding a surprising behavior—and fixing a refactoring hazard.

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 5 —JOURNAL

Fighting a horrible mood by making progress anyway. Not much. But enough.

This Week I Learned #3—JOURNAL

Less reading this week… because more composing.

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 4 (Part 2) —JOURNAL

Reworking rhythms to make the next section of this piece connect more clearly to the first.

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 4 (Part 1) —JOURNAL

I have a version of this piece I could publish! Now to get the rest of it done…

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 3 —JOURNAL

The first draft of the first section is complete!

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 2 —JOURNAL

I wrote some good harmonic lines! I started learning a new notation software program!

Composing a Fanfare for Crew Dragon: Day 1 —JOURNAL

Sharing my work as it happens for this composition.

Follow-Up on Command-Line Finding and Filtering—JOURNAL

A simpler solution that doesn’t require tr… if you have GNU utils or other alternatives.

find, grep, xargs, and newlines and null—JOURNAL

Turns out tr is your friend for this kind of thing.

This Week I Learned #2—JOURNAL

The Infra Engineer’s Blind Spot—JOURNAL

Why I ended up down a rabbit hole instead of shipping.

This Week I Learned #1 —JOURNAL

JavaScript Functional Immutable Update Performance—JOURNAL

What are the performance implications of “immutable functional updates”?

Superscript and Subscript Line Heights—JOURNAL

A tip for better typography.

On “Saints”—JOURNAL

Should we prepend the term to “Paul” or “Augustine”?

All places tell stories—LIBRARY

Waiting for Communion—JOURNAL

A coronavirus reminder of our place in the time between the times.

The Lost World—LIBRARY

Not quite as spectacular as the first entry… but still a lot of fun.

Jurassic Park—LIBRARY

A book that knows it is both a sci-fi thriller and sociotechnological commentary.

The Triune Creator’s Relating to Creation—LIBRARY

God’s self-commitment to creatures—LIBRARY

Scripting Affiliate Links in Alfred—JOURNAL

Perhaps weirdly, I haven’t done much of this before!

Adding a Reading List Page—LIBRARY

A central place to see what I’ve read and what I’ve said about it!

How I Publish This Site—JOURNAL

Explaining how I run this site—everything.

Ulysses Publishing With WordPress on Linux—JOURNAL

A tech tip for other folks using WordPress on custom Linux setups.

Problematic—LIBRARY

You keep using that word. I’m not sure you know what you think it means.

Fall-Centered Theological Anthropologies—LIBRARY

Tiamat’s Wrath—LIBRARY

The things only the eighth book in a series can do.

Please Don’t Just Screenshot Books!—JOURNAL

A PSA to writers-on-the-web about how we share text.

Tell Me Your Priors!—LIBRARY

A gap I wish David H. Kelsey’s introduction in Eccentric Existence had filled.

An Atom Feed Apology—JOURNAL

Doubly embarrassing for having now messed up both of my feeds.

Epistemic Status—JOURNAL

Making explicit just how confident I am (or am not).

A Decadal Kind of Change—JOURNAL

Rethinking this site—and my own vocations—as the 2010s give way to the 2020s.

Adieu to 2019—JOURNAL

A year of rest and recovery, for which I’m profoundly grateful.

Dark Matter—LIBRARY

I could not put this book down. Also, it was kind of creepy.

Recursion—LIBRARY

Blake Crouch’s latest thriller is—delightfully—about something.

Writing Implements—JOURNAL

Sheer delight—by way of writing in a Pano Totebook with a Uniball Signo RT1 0.38mm.

Endings and Edges—JOURNAL

Reflections prompted by Michael Sacasas’ wrapping up a decade of blogging.

Red Mars—LIBRARY

Kim Stanley Robinson’s imagination is provocative in the best ways.

Decaffeinating—JOURNAL

How and why I switched to mostly decaf coffee.

On Remembering Scripture—JOURNAL

Time to stop leaning so hard on search.

Some Thoughts on micro.blog—JOURNAL

I like the service. But I’m not using it.

25,462 Words—JOURNAL

Reflections on a month of writing.

A JSON Feed Apology and Explanation—JOURNAL

All my best efforts and this is still where we end up!

…but Running is Sunlight—JOURNAL

(Why yes, that is a riff on Superman.)

Travel is my Kryptonite—JOURNAL

It ruins all my normal habits and rhythms and tanks my productivity.

Twitter Bots and “Decline”—JOURNAL

Picking up a dropped thread from Winning Slowly 7.13

Writing Requires Reading—JOURNAL

…as my November-writing adventures make clear!

Relaunch!—JOURNAL

A new website design and implementation for 2020 and beyond—with a new title to boot!