Twitter Archive: 2012
Twitter dot com was a microblogging and social networking service, where users could share short posts (commonly known as “tweets”) with text, images, and video.
This is an archive of all my tweets from 2008–2025.
These days, you can find me on Bluesky or Mastodon.
By year
- 2025 33 posts
- 2024 203
- 2023 97
- 2022 91
- 2021 89
- 2020 26
- 2019 0
- 2018 6
- 2017 56
- 2016 108
- 2015 71
- 2014 197
- 2013 180
- 2012 160
- 2011 162
- 2010 171
- 2009 238
- 2008 101
…or see popular posts.
2012
@chrismanley Whoops...plus.google.com/11175968791525…
Why is code always set in a fixed-size monospace font? A experiment in typography for code: buff.ly/UfmeMM
I finally managed to write a new blog post! Design Principles for Metaprogramming dubroy.com/blog/design-pr…
"You find a broken window on the Empire State building, so you tear it down and rebuild it with the fixed window." buff.ly/VPCro6
Constructors Considered Harmful by @Gilad_Bracha: buff.ly/UcaZVg. Or, maybe OO causes more problems than it solves?
One of the nicest things about Dart is that it offers a saner way to do metaprogramming, via mirrors: buff.ly/VLZrVb
Interesting to read the documentation for Kent Beck's original Smalltalk test framework: xprogramming.com/testfram.htm
"A great UI is not one with the smallest number of clicks but where each individual click is as obvious as possible." ignorethecode.net/blog/2012/12/1…
"The time when you could have easily guessed the cost of a single operation by simple observation is over." mrale.ph/blog/2012/12/1…
If your web site shows me an interstitial ad telling me to download your app: Seriously. Just. Fuck. Off.
@puffnfresh Sorry, I shouldn't criticize. It just struck me as a celebration of unusable PLs. I'm looking forward to future themes though.
As all programmers know, ASCII text is the most efficient way to communicate. That's why SICP has no diagrams.
Wait, it does??
Wait, it does??
Thought experiment: what is the programming language equivalent of The Anti-Mac Interface? useit.com/papers/anti-ma…
I liked the idea of @pltgames, but I'm disappointed that the first theme is "Turing tarpits". Don't we have enough of those?
After browsing Pet Shop Boys albums on AMG, I finally get @mwichary's old profile picture: media.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/upl…
@jashkenas Just to be clear, that wasn't intended as a criticism of you or Docco! There's just a whole lot more to the idea of LP.
.@jashkenas Docco is great, but I sometimes worry people will think "literate programming" just means putting the comments beside the code.
"It's amazing how static the basic ideas of software have been since the period of late 1960s into the mid 1970s. We refuse to grow up."
"The moment programs grow beyond smallness, their brittleness becomes the most prominent feature, & software engineering becomes Sisyphean."
@dubroy Last tweet was a quote from a great article by Jaron Lanier on the concept of phenotropic computing: edge.org/3rd_culture/la….
My coffee grinder is broken so I pounded my beans in a mortar and pestle. I regret nothing.
Vint Cerf on Computer Science: plus.google.com/11175968791525…
@steveklabnik ...but sometimes it's better to have building blocks rather than grains of sand.
My hobby: sneaking hockey references into the Chromium code base: code.google.com/searchframe#OA…
"Folklore states that GOTO statements are 'cheap', while procedure calls are 'expensive'." repository.readscheme.org/ftp/papers/ai-…
Any good arguments for using expect() in tests, rather than assert()? It seems kind of pointless to me.
Just submitted my talk proposal for @mountain_js. Anyone else planning on going?
Why Software is Eating the World: online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…. Worth re-reading even if you’ve already seen it.
What % of software is written by people who consider themselves to be professional developers? Might be smaller than you think.
Interesting thought -- risk homeostasis with static & dynamic typing: johndcook.com/blog/2010/06/0…
So awesome -- a human-powered quad-rotor helicopter: youtube.com/watch?v=pJYISQ….
An amazing piece of Unix history: "We should have some ways of connecting programs like garden hose" cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/mdmpip…
Ending your blog post with "you should follow me on Twitter" is a good way to guarantee that I won't.
It's kind of funny how much we talk about code, rather than the product. It's like if novelists argued all the time about grammar.
I guess the Lisp guys were right all along: gigamonkeys.com/book/object-re…
I think one of the biggest downsides of class-based OOP is that it defeats lexical scoping, making code harder to reason about.
It's 2012 and I'm coding in a language that doesn't have proper lexical scoping. FML.
If you're a JS developer and want to learn how VMs work, you should definitely be following @mraleph's blog: mrale.ph/blog
@dubroy Previous tweet had the wrong URL. Fixed.
"Extremist programming is taking some principle, elevating it above everything else and applying it everywhere" blog.ezyang.com/2012/11/extrem…
The universe is not statically typed.
Currently engrossed in Alan Kay's Early History of Smalltalk: worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOf…. Fascinating history of programming languages & HCI.
"Small minds try to form religions, the great ones just want better routes up the mountain." -Alan Kay worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOf…
Interesting, Ruby 2.0 has lexically-scoped class extensions: blog.headius.com/2012/11/refini…. Could be pretty confusing though.
This is awesome: popapp.in. Easily turn your pen & paper sketches into an interactive prototype.
"Thingy probably isn't the best name for a class, so renamed to CacheMap." trac.webkit.org/changeset/1340…
Almost every discussion about OOP devolves into the No True Scotsman. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_S….
“Object-oriented programming isn’t the fundamental particle of computing that some people want it to be.” prog21.dadgum.com/156.html
"Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?" --Walter, on typography.
Sigh...now even Apple can't align text properly.
I have to say that @mountain_js sounds like an amazing idea. Snow and code in the Swiss alps.
"Our brains have collectively gone startup-crazy, seeing the world through stock option colored glasses." jenson.org/was-the-intern…
A Short Lesson in Perspective: lindsredding.com/2012/03/11/a-o… via @al3x
"By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems." -A.N. Whitehead
Back in Munich after a great week at #oredev in Malmö. Met so many cool people and learned a ton.
The video from my #oredev talk about the Chrome dev tools is up: vimeo.com/53073654
@raganwald I'll head to that coffee place in Helsingborg tmrw at 11am: dearcoffeeiloveyou.com/coffee-touring…. Let me know if you want to come! 'Tis far, tho
Looking forward to drinking coffee in Sweden next week. Oh, and I'll also be speaking at @oredev ;-) oredev.org/prod/oredev/20…
"We've taken abstractions of the technologies, and raised them up to be what the technology is about. That's an error." infoq.com/presentations/…
@BrendanEich It's not important, I'm just curious why JS ended up using the term slightly differently than in Self.
@BrendanEich Though some of the earliest papers on prototype-based programming (e.g. web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Lieber…) use the term the way JS does
@BrendanEich I'm curious, any reason why you chose "prototype" as the name of the delegatee in JS? Self doc refers to them as "parents".
@la_vidavegan: Check out squareup.com/ca...might come in useful for you guys.
@stevedekorte When I said counterintuitive, I meant WRT real-world objects and the meaning of "clone" or "copy"
@stevedekorte My point was just that cloning and delegation are distinct concepts. Self kept them separate, which seems simpler to me.
@stevedekorte The discussion re: namespaces is really a different issue.
"If you think global shared state is bad, you’re doing it wrong. […] When we need state, global state is great." awelonblue.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/loc…
@stevedekorte I.e., why mix the concepts of prototype and parent?
@stevedekorte I'm curious why you didn't use Self-style prototypes in Io. I've always found that easier to grok than the JS-style model.
Io (by @stevedekorte) is a really well-designed language in the Self/Smalltalk style. Worth checking out: iolanguage.com
Looking forward to speaking at Øredev in Malmö in a couple of weeks! I'll be talking about Chrome dev tools: oredev.org/2012/sessions/…
Current programming language crush: Icon. It was the inspiration for Python's slice syntax! cs.arizona.edu/icon/
Linus: "The fact is, reality is complicated, and not amenable to the 'one large idea' model of problem solving." meta.slashdot.org/story/12/10/11…
Speaking of the UX of programming, @worrydream's latest essay is a must-read: worrydream.com/LearnableProgr…
Some cool stuff in the latest version of @ibdknox's Light Table: chris-granger.com/2012/09/25/lig…. Nice to see people care about the UX of programming.
AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean -- sounds like a joke, but apparently it's not. static.springsource.org/spring/docs/2.…
Anyone know of any JavaScript libraries that provide Common Lisp-style generic functions, with :before, :after, :around, etc.?
Get rid of your janky scroll handlers! "position: -webkit-sticky" is in Canary and WebKit nightly: updates.html5rocks.com/2012/08/Stick-…
Meanwhile, in Canada: RT @kscheel: Police probing Quebec maple syrup heist worth up to $30-million theglobeandmail.com/news/national/…
The Samsung Galaxy camera looks pretty sweet. Very cool to see some of my code running on a camera! theverge.com/2012/8/29/3276…
"Not many of us stop to reflect. We're just programmers, after all […] content to follow where others have gone." goo.gl/fCfGW
@zedshaw Just saw your video from Web Rebels. Good stuff. Curious, do you have more concrete ideas about a usable programming language?
@jashkenas I discovered a 1983 CHI paper that reminded me of Docco: cs.kent.edu/~jmaletic/soft…. Was it inspiration, or just coincidence?
I'm sick of hearing about "lowering the bar for online participation." How about raising the bar? We need quality, not quantity.
@DreamHostCare Experiencing some issues? My site (dubroy.com) appears to be down, along with all of our other domains.
Cool, now we have a commercial for Chrome tab sync feature that I worked on: youtube.com/watch?v=tSKZy2…
“Lack of respect for math and science is one of the largest unacknowledged problems in today’s society.” scienceblogs.com/principles/200…
A cool short film on what dating might be like in a future where everyone has something like Google Glass: vimeo.com/46304267#
Fascinating photos of an iPhone prototype. RT @verge: Early 'Jony' iPhone 4 render shows Sony design influence vrge.co/ONfLBi
Back in SF for a couple of weeks. First order of business: get me some Four Barrel. #fb
Android devs - looking to do something new? AeoFS is hiring in Palo Alto: aerofs.com/jobs. Great company & super smart people.
The OS X shortcut symbols are ridiculous. They're not even printed on the keyboards anymore! I can never remember WTF ⌥ means.
Best Chrome bug report ever - “As I know, cheese [is] never put under the cutlet.” code.google.com/p/chromium/iss…
I love the phone that @patricknepper got in Jakarta: dual-sim, analog TV and radio tuners, plus a huge antenna.
“I think everybody should learn how to program a computer…because it teaches you how to think.” —Steve Jobs (from magpictures.com/stevejobsthelo…)
All programmers should watch @faaborg and @C64’s great talk from Google I/O: Advanced Design for Engineers youtube.com/watch?v=iJDoxO…
Love that he’s rocking a Jays hat. #chanian2012 RT @mashable: Twitter Engineer Tweets World Series of Poker Journey on.mash.to/P2Ll3c
Enjoying fellow Torontonian @chanian's tweets from the World Series of Poker. Good luck in day 3 dude!
Damn, the pre-rendering on Chrome for iOS is just awesome. Type a few characters, click on the first result, and it’s instantly loaded.
Engineering is figuring out how. Design is about what and why.
Alan Kay: “The Internet is the only real object-oriented system…it's never had to be stopped to be updated.” pocket.co/sowhD
If you develop Chrome extensions, you need to check out event pages in dev/Canary: blog.chromium.org/2012/06/put-yo….
I am I the only one who prefers bullets indented, rather than than hung?
1. Run Chrome with --remote-debugging-port=9222. 2. Open dev tools, go to localhost:9222 in another tab. 3. Check your talisman.
Your coding philosophies are irrelevant: prog21.dadgum.com/142.html
Finally found a great coffee place in Munich: @BaldNEU. Thanks to @870punkte for the recommendation.
.@scrollkit looks pretty awesome -- "What if the Web were Paper and Everyone had a Pen" scrollkit.com/s/2344
Why the Xlerator is way better than the Dyson Airblade: onefoottsunami.com/2012/03/08/the….
Excited to be speaking at Øredev 2012 in Malmö (oredev.org). Also excited for Scandinavian coffee.
John Lilly on the future of computers: "The next big thing is always beneath contempt." lilly.tumblr.com/post/237196999… /via @moizsyed
I really like where Light Table is going: chris-granger.com/2012/05/21/the….
Are there any good reasons for showing line numbers in a text editor? Mostly seems like a waste of pixels to me.
Chrome 19 is out today! I worked on the UI for one of the new features, syncing tabs between computers: chrome.blogspot.de/2012/05/keepin…
Things like *JS (mbebenita.github.com/Mvm/), make me think of Alan Kay's comment that programming has become a pop culture: queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=…
Alan Kay: "on roughly the same system [...] a benchmark from 1979 at Xerox PARC runs only 50 times faster today" doc.ic.ac.uk/~susan/475/Ala…
It's interesting that we write 10M-line programs with the same tools & techniques as 1000-line programs.
"A tech-first view promotes scarcity thinking ... and dismissing good ideas because of obscure boundary cases." prog21.dadgum.com/56.html
.@jashkenas nails it: "Libraries should be mostly unit tested. Applications should be mostly integration tested." news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3828531
Little something I've been working on. RT @googlechrome: Sign-in & take your tabs with you with today’s #Chrome Beta goo.gl/wlCFs
Whoah. One of the coolest WebGL demos I've ever seen. Floating Shiny Knot: goo.gl/zLhTD by @thespite
Wow. Physical artifacts of the programming process: craigmod.com/journal/digita….
Everyone raves about @tweetbot's UI, but I for one find the toolbar icons inscrutable. Inscrutable! (Love it otherwise, though.)
I think @gruber's hit a new low. Gleefully linking to negative Android articles is not enough; gotta throw in an insult to the author, too.
@milchblick Can you recommend a place to get a great espresso in Munich? Thanks!
@coffeecollectif @klaus_thomsen I'm thinking of going to Copenhagen over Easter weekend...will Coffee Collective be open at all?
I can't NOT link to @jackdied's PyCon talk "Stop Writing Classes": pyvideo.org/video/880/stop…. Good discussion on HN, too: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3717715
I'd like to use the Orion editor in one of my projects, but can't find a simple example of how to embed it in a page. Too bad.
Oh, man. Just discovered Points of View, essays about Alan Kay: vpri.org/pov/. Ivan Sutherland, Adele Goldberg, etc. Must read.
My ad blocker is Inspect Element => Delete Node.
"Pure graphical interfaces are almost invariably severely limited in expressive power." plus.google.com/11175968791525…
Go watch Bret Victor's talk from CUSEC: vimeo.com/36579366. It will change how you think about programming tools.
"I'm in the architecture building. I can tell because all the signs are in Futura and Helvetica."
"Beauty is more important in computing…because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity." -D. Gelernter
The work being done by Alan Kay's STEPS project is inspiring -- remaking computing in 1/1000 the code. plus.google.com/11175968791525…
@alaindebotton Really enjoy your tweets, but they'd be even better sprinkled throughout the day. Have you seen bufferapp.com?
WTF is a "kudo" and why did I just send one to @dcurtis by hovering over something on his site?
I think it's great that everybody is creating their own language these days, but I'd love to see more with truly new ideas.
Why PyPy is interesting for more than just Python developers: "write an interpreter and get a JIT for free" tratt.net/laurie/tech_ar…
Burrito: Rethinking the Lab Notebook: stanford.edu/~pgbovine/burr…. Another cool project by @pgbovine (via @gvwilson)
Just discovered @pgbovine's Online Python Tutor: people.csail.mit.edu/pgbovine/pytho…. A very cool way of stepping through & visualizing code.
Attractive Things Work Better: jnd.org/dn.mss/emotion…
Hmm, @GestureWorks's multitouch diagrams look awfully similar to the ones I made for BumpTop: gestureworks.com/features/open-… vs. dubroy.com/blog/bumptop-m…
Interesting study on tech workers and Empathizing-Systemizing theory, but not sure I agree with the methodology. plus.google.com/11175968791525…
Generalizing @jwz: Some programmers, when confronted with complexity, think "I know, I'll use more complexity."
If it's necessary to show a modal dialog to tell me your app successfully did what I told it to, you've got bigger problems.
@borismus Not sure if you know this, but the links on your home page don't work properly with Cmd-click.
All programmers should learn about UX and usability. APIs are user interfaces for programmers.
I can't wait for web intents (webintents.org) to be ubiquitous, so we can get rid of this junk:
So cool. Android ski googles with a heads up display: youtube.com/watch?v=hlwZWs….
Some really cool ideas for e-book interaction techniques: youtube.com/watch?v=rVyBwz….
A Design Primer for Engineers: randsinrepose.com/archives/2012/…
Android style guide is out! developer.android.com/design/index.h…
Paged virtual memory lets you treat a limited resource like it's unlimited. Nope, don't see any problems with that.
"What would Steve McQueen do if he ran a site?" Awesome. Finally a gadget site I would read: thewirecutter.com.
Aren't encapsulation and decoupling fundamentally at odds? Encapsulation means tight coupling of code and data.
Also, Twitter's search box text is 1px too low.
My superpower: noticing text that is vertically misaligned. E.g., the "Tweet" button on Twitter.
I love this: @marknca's LG TV trying to provide "personality" in dialog boxes: and .
Totally agree with the premise of @jackdied's PyCon talk: Stop Writing Classes (goo.gl/8KRis). Some of the stdlib is "too OO".
Some people approach typography like classical architecture, insisting that proportions and shapes must always follow the old rules.
Great article about Roboto, the new Android font: boingboing.net/2012/01/02/rob…. Nice to see someone look at it with an open mind.