Commanding Your Claude Code Army(opens in new tab)
How a simple terminal trick helps me manage multiple Claude Code instances without losing my mind (or my terminal tabs)
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Code Signing and Notarization: Sparkle and Tears(opens in new tab)
My brutal journey implementing Sparkle auto-updates in sandboxed macOS apps - from 40 failed releases to enlightenment.
How Imports Work in RSC(opens in new tab)
A layered module system.
Vibe Meter: Monitor Your AI Costs(opens in new tab)
How I built Vibe Meter, a macOS menu bar app to track AI spending in real-time - from workshop demo to shipped product in three days.
tldx(opens in new tab)
A Domain Availability Research Tool.
Why Are We Still Hiring Release Managers in 2025?(opens in new tab)
Scrum Masters, Release Managers, and the illusion of progress in a world that should know better.
The Death of 'Senior'(opens in new tab)
Somewhere between title inflation and egalitarian delusion, the meaning of 'Senior Developer' got lost.
Economics & labor rights in AI skepticism(opens in new tab)
There’s a growing attitude in the technology industry that LLM technology is, or will be, the next great innovation to our work. Business owners and workers alike seem to be in unlikely agreement: owners are thrilled at the prospect of ...
This is perhaps my favorite use of A.I. so far. (MCP)(opens in new tab)
Harness AI to transform detailed technical YouTube videos into rich, automated blog posts—saving time while expanding your content’s reach and impact.
Claude Code is My Computer(opens in new tab)
I run Claude Code with --dangerously-skip-permissions flag, giving it full system access. Let me show you a new way of approaching computers.
Stop Over-thinking AI Subscriptions(opens in new tab)
After spending heavily on AI tools for two months, here's why the math actually works out—and which subscriptions are worth every penny.
#434: Most of OpenAI’s tech stack runs on Python(opens in new tab)
Topics covered in this episode: Making PyPI’s test suite 81% faster People aren’t talking enough about how most of OpenAI’s tech stack runs on Python PyCon Talks on YouTube Optimizing Python Import Performance Extras Joke See the full show notes ...
Agentic AI Workflows with LangGraph(opens in new tab)
See the full show notes for this episode on the website at talkpython.fm/507
Introducing Demark: HTML in. MD out. Blink-fast.(opens in new tab)
How I vibe coded my first Swift package using existing JavaScript libraries and AI assistance to solve HTML to Markdown conversion in Swift.
Web app for looking up NYC street trees(opens in new tab)
I spent Thursday at King’s County Court House finding out whether I was going to be called for jury duty. I used the opportunity to reach way back in the spark file for a silly side project, a web app ...
The Future of Vibe Coding: Building with AI, Live and Unfiltered(opens in new tab)
I demonstrate 'vibe coding' - a new approach to software development with AI, building two apps from scratch in a 3-hour live workshop.
MCP Best Practices(opens in new tab)
My comprehensive guide outlining best practices for building reliable, user-friendly Model Context Protocol (MCP) tools with proper configuration, testing, and release management.
Finding My Spark Again(opens in new tab)
I reflect on my post-exit journey from emptiness to rediscovering my passion for building, sparked by AI's transformative potential.
Terminal Trove May 2025 Wrap Up(opens in new tab)
A wrap up of all the things that happened in Terminal Trove in May 2025.
RSC for LISP Developers(opens in new tab)
Quoting for modules.
Progressive JSON(opens in new tab)
Why streaming isn't enough.
Why Does RSC Integrate with a Bundler?(opens in new tab)
One does not simply serialize a module.
I LOVE TLS(opens in new tab)
In the world of web infrastructure, what starts as a simple goal can often lead you down a fascinating rabbit hole of history, philosophy, and clever engineering. This is the story of our journey to build a simple, single-purpose, open-source ...
🗓️ Office Hours for June(opens in new tab)
I’m hosting a regular afternoon edition tomorrow (Friday, May 30) to wrap up the month of May. After that, I’ll be away on vacation, so I’m skipping the first two Fridays in June and the first Friday in July. Here’s ...
Fixing errors installing the charlock_holmes ruby gem redux(opens in new tab)
A while back I posted about fixing an error installing the charlock_holmes gem on MacOS, well the error has returned. Here’s the newest fix. If you get an error that looks something like this: Gem::Ext::BuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem ...
One Roundtrip Per Navigation(opens in new tab)
What do HTML, GraphQL, and RSC have in common?
The promise that wasn’t kept(opens in new tab)
This isn't progress.
Speaking & Consulting(opens in new tab)
Want a dose of dry wit and hard-earned lessons at your event or in your codebase? I speak and consult on legacy systems, privacy, burnout, and fixing things that actually matter.
Let's end kidney deaths: buy one of my kidneys(opens in new tab)
🤖 When AI Agents Start Panicking: Wild Emails from a Failing Vending Business(opens in new tab)
🤔 I struggle with most research papers, but the Vending-Bench: A Benchmark for Long-Term Coherence of Autonomous Agents was an easy read. The paper follows a fascinating study where researchers simulate various LLM models running a vending machine business over ...
#433: Dev in the Arena(opens in new tab)
Topics covered in this episode: git-flight-rules Uravelling t-strings neohtop Introducing Pyrefly: A new type checker and IDE experience for Python Extras Joke See the full show notes for this episode on the website at pythonbytes.fm/433
Coding With My Eyes Wide Shut(opens in new tab)
At WorkOS's AI onsite and MCP Night, I experimented with vibe coding. What started as a two-hour experiment with 5,000 lines of unseen TypeScript became a glimpse into programming's future.
Vibe coding for teams, thoughts to date(opens in new tab)
(note: this is still a topic I’m interested in and thinking about a lot, but this blog post from 8 months ago is so out of date as to be useless - 2026/02/07)
May 2025(opens in new tab)
How to collect Webmentions for your site(opens in new tab)
Quick disclaimer before we start. This is well-trod ground. Nothing here is new or revolutionary, nothing about this implementation hasn’t already been done by smarter folks than I :) This is just my blog post about it. We’ll use webmention.io ...
Writing bugs with K.S. Bhaskar(opens in new tab)
It's easy to talk about everything when you've been writing software for half a century. Bhaskar has some amazing insights from his impressive career building software using everything from punch cards to AI. If you like learning about the past ...
Elixir/Phoenix Liveview was a mistake(opens in new tab)
I made an expensive technical decision on Phoenix Liveview for the Smol Talk webapp about a year ago that I now regret, and am jotting down some notes to self for why.
Make a cutting room floor(opens in new tab)
OKRs: Objectives, Key Results, and Corporate Cosplay(opens in new tab)
A cynical developer's guide to why OKRs often fail, how they sometimes help, and what to do when you're assigned 15 of them.
Scrum Helped. Then It Got in the Way.(opens in new tab)
Scrum helped us escape the waterfall. But it’s become more ceremony than substance—and the real work is happening in the cracks between stand-ups.
TIL Poppler's pdftoppm to convert PDF pages into PNG files(opens in new tab)
Today I learned about pdftoppm, a simple CLI tool that can convert each page of a PDF into separate image files. My use case was to chop up a few big PDF reports to make OCR and data analysis easier, ...
About(opens in new tab)
The Cynical Developer is a blog for tired engineers, reflective skeptics, and anyone who’s seen too many “Next Big Things” end up as tomorrow’s tech debt. This site is maintained by a seasoned developer with a mild aversion to buzzwords ...
Contact(opens in new tab)
Want to reach out? I’m happy to hear from fellow devs, writers, or the hopelessly over-engineered. Email: [email protected] Please don’t send cold sales pitches. I’m not that kind of cynical. Got something to say? Use the form below. Please, no ...
From JNDI Hell to CDI Heaven: A Developer’s Path to Sanity(opens in new tab)
Because @Stateless shouldn’t require 3 XML files and a blood sacrifice.
Well, what if I'm wrong?(opens in new tab)
Anyone online has seen over the past years how the frequency of Palestinian accounts on Bluesky and other platforms has increased, two- and four-fold, folks asking for help and linking to GoFundMes. They share their stories and plea for help, ...
#432: How To Fix Your Computer(opens in new tab)
Topics covered in this episode: pre-commit: install with uv PEP 773: A Python Installation Manager for Windows (Accepted) Changes for Textual The Best Programmers I Know Extras Joke See the full show notes for this episode on the website at ...
ty: Astral's New Type Checker (Formerly Red-Knot)(opens in new tab)
See the full show notes for this episode on the website at talkpython.fm/506
Have We Lost Our Way?(opens in new tab)
Agile was never supposed to be a checklist. Somewhere between the ceremonies and the certifications, we forgot what it was for.
Unravelling t-strings(opens in new tab)
PEP 750 introduced t-strings for Python 3.14. In fact, they are so new that as of Python 3.14.0b1 there still isn't any documentation yet for t-strings. 😅 As such, this blog post will hopefully help explain what exactly t-strings are ...
Design Pressure(opens in new tab)
Ever had this weird gut feeling that something is off in your code, but couldn’t put the finger on why? Are you starting your projects with the best intentions, following all best practices, and still feel like your architecture turns ...
