Latest posts
- The Most Popular Blogs of Hacker News in 2025Jan 02, 2026
With 2025 wrapped up, I can finally answer a question I’m curious about every year: who were the most popular bloggers of Hacker News? Who counts as a blogger? I explain more in my methodology page, but it’s basically anyone who blogs as an individual rather than as part of a company or a team. For example, John Graham-Cumming blogged while he was the CTO of Cloudflare, so I count his personal
- What Makes the Intro to *Crafting Interpreters* so Good?Nov 19, 2025
One of my favorite programming books is Crafting Interpreters by Bob Nystrom. It teaches you how to build a programming language from scratch. Along the way, you learn about text parsing, data structures, virtual machines, and several other skills that make you a stronger developer. I was re-reading the book recently and realized that its introduction is delightfully effective. Developers are terr
- How to Get Meaningful Feedback on Your Design DocumentNov 03, 2025
You’ve spent weeks carefully writing a design document for your software project, but what happens next? How can you get useful feedback about it from your teammates? How do you prevent your design review from dragging on for months? I’ve been through many design reviews in my career as both the author and reviewer, and I have a special fondness for effective reviews. Through trial and error, I’ve
- The Software Essays that Shaped MeSep 30, 2025
I started reading software blogs before I got my first programming job 20 years ago. At this point, I’ve read thousands of blog posts and essays about software, but only a small handful stuck in my mind and changed the way I think. “The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code” by Joel Spolsky (2000) “Parse, don’t validate” by Alexis King (2019) “No Silver Bullet - Essence and Accident in Software Engin
- Adam Gordon Bell on Attracting Customers through BloggingSep 12, 2025
Adam Gordon Bell is a developer, blogger, and the host of the software engineering podcast, CoRecursive. I interviewed Adam about writing and his success at attracting customers through his blog posts when he worked at Earthly. We talk about: How Adam consistently wrote blog posts that reached the front page of Hacker News Discovering blog topics that attract potential customers Techniques Adam us
- Reader Feedback about my Chapter ListAug 29, 2025
For the past eight months, I’ve been working on my book, Refactoring English: Effective Writing for Software Developers. I’m publishing the book incrementally as I write, which means readers give me feedback about the book in real time. I started writing the chapters I felt most confident readers would like, but now that I’m about 50% complete, I want to make sure the remaining chapters are things
- Underused Techniques for Effective EmailsJul 16, 2025
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- How to Write Compelling Software Release AnnouncementsJun 25, 2025
A release announcement showcases how the user’s experience is better today than it was yesterday. That sounds obvious, but most release announcements seem to forget that there’s a user at all. So many release announcements just enumerate new features in a way that’s totallly divorced from how real people use the software. The announcement is essentially just a changelog with better writing. For ex
- How to Write Blog Posts that Developers ReadMar 27, 2025
I recently spoke to a developer who tried blogging but gave up because nobody was reading his posts. I checked out his blog, and it was immediately obvious why he didn’t have any readers. The developer had interesting insights, but he made so many mistakes in presenting his ideas that he was driving everyone away. The tragedy was that these errors were easy to fix. Once you learn to recognize them
- HN Popularity ContestMar 13, 2025
What counts as a personal blog? I count a site as a personal blog if: the site contains written content (not just an app or a video) the site is authored by a single person A blog still counts as a personal blog even if the blogger is a professional journalist (e.g., Brian Krebs) or blogging on their company’s website (e.g., Raymond Chen). Social media (Twitter / Mastodon) doesn’t count as a pers
- How to Write Useful Commit MessagesMar 07, 2025
Effective commit messages simplify the code review process and aid long-term code maintenance. Unfortunately, commit messages don’t get much respect, so the world is littered with useless messages like Fix bug or Update UI. There’s no widespread agreement about what makes a good commit message or why it’s useful, so I’m sharing my thoughts based on my 20 years of experience as a software developer
- Can You Spot the Passive Voice?Jan 31, 2025
the passive voice in the context of developing software. For each sentence, click: Active ⚡ if the sentence has no passive voice (active voice only) Passive 😴 if the sentence contains passive voice Does this sentence contain passive voice? Accuracy: 0%
- Can You Spot the Passive Voice?Jan 31, 2025
the passive voice in the context of developing software. For each sentence, click: Active ⚡ if the sentence has no passive voice (active voice only) Passive 😴 if the sentence contains passive voice Does this sentence contain passive voice? Accuracy: 0%
- Passive Voice Considered HarmfulJan 31, 2025
Your high school English teachers probably warned you that passive voice is dangerous and forbidden. Then, when you were an adult, some guy in a leather jacket told you that passive voice is cool and should be used whenever it’s desired. Well, the tide has turned again. If you’re a software developer, stop using the passive voice. Wait, what’s passive voice? In English, sentences can have one of t
- Rules for Writing Software TutorialsJan 02, 2025
Most software tutorials are tragically flawed. Tutorials often forget to mention some key detail, preventing readers from replicating the author’s process. Other times, the author brings in hidden assumptions that don’t match their readers’ expectations. The good news is that it’s easier than you think to write an exceptional software tutorial. You can stand out in a sea of mediocre guides by foll
- Sample Blog Editing NotesJan 01, 2001
The notes below are my blog editing notes for the first draft of Tyler Cipriani’s article, “The future of large files in Git is Git.” I worked with Tyler to: Reach a clearer understanding of his target audience Focus the post on practical lessons the reader can apply Find a structure that feels clear and intuitive Tyler’s finished article enjoyed a strongly positive reception: Reached the #1 posit