https://blog.senko.net/code-was-never-the-hard-part-is-an-insult-to-all-programmers
āCode was never the hard partā is an insult to all programmers
a pushback against the dismissive claim that ācode was never the hard partā. Programming is a genuinely difficult, skilled discipline, and the author argues we should embrace both technical excellence and customer empathy while adapting to AI, rather than retreating into denial or extreme positions.
7 days ago
https://apoxy.dev/blog/oghttp2-vs-nghttp2
A Tale of Two HTTP/2 Codecs
a deep performance investigation into why Envoyās switch from nghttp2 to oghttp2 caused a ~20% CPU regression on HTTP/2 proxied traffic. The culprit wasnāt the Huffman decoder but string handling in header block processing, with std::string::push_back alone eating 13-20% of CPU. Envoy ended up reverting the default in 1.37.
#engineering
7 days ago
https://master.dev/blog/something-nobody-told-you-about-the-image-element-it-can-overflow/
Something Nobody Told You About The Image Element (It Can Overflow!)
the humble <img> is a replaced element, meaning its container and its content have separate dimensions - so with object-fit, object-position, and border-radius the image content can actually overflow its own box. The author turns this quirk into neat tricks like animated image reveals and loader effects with zero extra markup.
7 days ago
https://www.andrewt.net/dithered-qr-codes/wtf/
How to make error-diffused QR codes
a fun deep dive into embedding photographs inside QR codes using Floyd-Steinberg dithering and error diffusion, producing codes that look like images while remaining fully scannable.
7 days ago
https://www.gilesthomas.com/2025/09/maths-for-llms
The maths you need to start understanding LLMs
you donāt need a PhD to understand how LLMs work under the hood. This post shows that high-school vectors and matrices are enough: embeddings, high-dimensional spaces, dot products for similarity, and matrix multiplication as projection between spaces.
#ai
7 days ago
https://notashelf.dev/posts/taste-is-all-thats-left
Taste Is All That's Left
with AI removing the friction of writing software, taste - the ability to judge what deserves to exist - becomes the only genuinely scarce skill left. The difficulty of building used to force us to develop discernment through failure; frictionless generation has separated productivity from judgment, leaving us swimming in an ocean of āplausibleā mediocrity.
#thoughts
#programming
#software
7 days ago
https://www.experimental-history.com/p/incentives-are-for-losers
Incentives are for losers
not a programming article, but a great essay on building your own value system instead of chasing external rewards. Chasing arbitrary incentives stunts genuine growth; the author makes the case for doing whatās right regardless, through the story of abolitionist Charles Sumner, who pursued justice despite severe social and physical costs.
7 days ago
https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2026/08/on-building-scalable-control-planes.html
On building scalable control planes
lessons from a decade of building EC2ās control plane - the system that reconciles desired infrastructure state with actual state. Fun fact: at the heart of it all was a plain MySQL database (ācustomer X now has VM Yā was literally a row in a table), and the article walks through the years of failover pain, read replicas, and sharding it took to scale it. Those pains shaped DSQLās architecture: per-connection micro-VMs, automatic read replicas with strong consistency, and transparent partitioning. DSQLās control plane even runs on DSQL itself.
7 days ago
https://postgreslocksexplained.com/
Postgres Locks Explained
a whole site dedicated to Postgres locks, written by a customer reliability engineer as āthe documentation I wish existed when I was learning about locksā. It walks from animated concept explainers through runnable table-lock demos, troubleshooting guides, and monitoring tool reviews, and includes an interactive blocking graph showing which SQL operations lock each other out.
7 days ago
https://www.pgedge.com/blog/looking-forward-to-postgres-19-autovacuum-tweaks
Looking Forward to Postgres 19: Autovacuum Tweaks
autovacuum is getting smarter in Postgres 19: instead of processing tables in catalog order, it scores and prioritizes them by transaction ID age, dead tuples, recent inserts, and analyze needs - with six new tuning knobs to weight those factors. Autovacuum workers can also finally parallelize index vacuuming across multiple workers.
7 days ago
https://github.com/atoonk/wireblast
wireblast
for Go readers: a high-performance packet generator - think āthe iPerf of packet generatorsā - that hits line rate (138M packets per second on 100G NICs) from a single static Go binary using AF_XDP, no DPDK required. Supports UDP, TCP SYN, IMIX, raw Ethernet, and PCAP replay. Apache-2.0 licensed. Donāt miss the amazing companion post Wireblast: a 100Gbs packet generator in Go with AF_XDP where the author walks through how itās built.
7 days ago
https://github.com/RockwellShah/filekey
filekey
a privacy-focused, accountless web app that encrypts and shares files with passkeys and AES-256, entirely on-device - it even works offline. The code is a great read if you want to see WebAuthnās PRF extension and HPKE cryptography used in a real product, and how to design a trustworthy offline-first app. GPLv3 licensed.
7 days ago
https://github.com/malmeloo/FindMy.py
FindMy.py
for Python readers: a library that queries Appleās FindMy network from any platform - no Mac required. It fetches and decrypts location reports for AirTags and iDevices, handles Apple account auth with 2FA, and scans for nearby devices, with both sync and async APIs. A fascinating read if you want to understand how Appleās crowd-sourced location network actually works under the hood. MIT licensed.
7 days ago
https://github.com/productdevbook/hucre
hucre
a zero-dependency spreadsheet engine in pure TypeScript that reads and writes XLSX, CSV, ODS, JSON, NDJSON, and XML, with streaming support and round-trip preservation. A great codebase to study how binary/document format parsing and streaming architectures work without leaning on any external libraries. MIT licensed.
7 days ago
https://github.com/betterleaks/betterleaks
betterleaks
a configurable, fast, and thorough secrets scanner. It is maintained by the folks who made Gitleaks, including the original author.
7 days ago
https://github.com/zqxwce/vphone-ws
vphone-ws
a native macOS app for managing virtual iPhones - browse, create, and boot iOS research VMs from a single window. Built on Appleās Virtualization.framework for Apple Silicon.
7 days ago
https://superfile.dev/
superfile
a pretty and modern terminal file manager written in Go, with customizable themes, plugins, and hotkeys. Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
7 days ago
https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash
filestash
a storage-agnostic, Dropbox-like file manager for your existing storage: FTP, SFTP, S3, SMB, WebDAV, IPFS, and about 20 other protocols. Plugin-driven, so backends, auth, and file viewers are all swappable. Written in Go, AGPL-3.0 licensed.
7 days ago
https://github.com/lzhgus/Capso
Capso
a free, open-source screenshot and screen recording app for macOS - a native alternative to paid tools like CleanShot X. Area/window/fullscreen capture, video and GIF recording with webcam picture-in-picture, annotations, OCR, and screenshot history, with no paywall. Built with Swift 6 and SwiftUI.
7 days ago
https://www.whatcable.uk/
WhatCable
a free macOS menu bar app that tells you what your USB-C cable can actually do - speed, power capability, and display support - based on what your Mac really detects, not what the packaging claims. Great for figuring out why a cable charges slowly or wonāt drive your monitor. For Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 14+, with a CLI for scripting.
7 days ago
https://github.com/samyak2403/RepoStore
RepoStore
a GitHub-powered Android app store. It discovers public repositories with installable APK releases and lets you browse, install, and update them through a Play Store-style Material 3 interface.
7 days ago