I think the most interesting work in programming languages right now is about the runtime, not syntax or even the languages themselves. Which places PyPy in an interesting position, as they have put a great deal of effort into abstracting out the concept of runtime from the language they are …
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Git-as-sync, not source-control-as-deployment
I don’t like systems that use git push for deployment (Heroku et al). Why? I do a lot of this:
$ git push deploy ... realize I forgot a domain name ... $ git commit -m "fix domain name" -a ; git push deploy ... realize I didn't do something right with the database setup …
Python Application Package
I’ve been thinking some more about deployment of Python web applications, and deployment in general (in part leading up to the Web Summit). And I’ve got an idea.
I wrote about this about a year ago and recently revised some notes on a proposal but I’ve been …
Why doctest.js is better than Python’s doctest
I’ve been trying, not too successfully I’m afraid, to get more people to use doctest.js. There’s probably a few reasons people don’t. They are all wrong! Doctest.js is the best!
One issue in particular is that people (especially people in my Python-biased circles) are …
New Blog Software
Since I want to start blogging again, of course I have to also change my software. That’s just out these things work.
And to start a new blog I need at least one post, otherwise things are breaky. So of course the first post must be the announcement I …
The overuse of functions
A programming quandry (related to some thoughts I’ve had on locality):
The prevailing wisdom says that you should keep your functions small and concise, refactoring and extracting functions as necessary. But this hurts the locality of expectations that I have been thinking about. Consider:
function updateUserStatus(user) { if (user …
Why Isn’t Programming Futuristic
If you think someone is asking a rhetorical question, it is usually most interesting to treat it as though it is a legitimate question. Especially if we’re talking about something hard — driving down to underlying assumptions through this questioning process is interesting.
Applying this to Bret Victor’s talk …
The Order of Payment And Consumption Drives Content
Economics: incentives incentives incentives. I don’t know if I quite buy it, but it’s still a good lens for understanding why the market contains what it does.
I was reminded of those incentives when reading The Jenna Marbles Paradox: Why Are YouTube Videos So Terrible? The basic premise …
Saying Goodbye To Python
This post is long overdue; this isn’t a declaration of intent (any intent was long ago made real), just my reflection about my own path. I left the Python world a long time ago but I never took a chance to say goodbye.
While I had moved on from …
How We Use GitHub Issues To Organize a Project