Writing

Alpha is Permission to Be Wrong

2026-08-06T15:00:00+00:00

Alpha software is supposed to break. APIs change, schemas move, and sometimes the right upgrade path really is starting over. As I get AdAstra ready for its first developers, I'm learning that instability isn't the problem. Carelessness is.

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Done Happens Offstage

2026-08-05T15:00:00+00:00

Tests pass. The package resolves. The docs exist. That's complete. "Done" is harder. Two open-source projects I once considered failures eventually became useful in ways I never planned, and taught me that releasing software means giving up some control over what it becomes.

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Confidence Doesn’t Need an Audience

2026-07-29T15:00:00+00:00

Being underestimated professionally never bothered me as much as being misunderstood personally.

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The Greatest Hits of ExpressionEngine History

2026-07-22T15:00:00+00:00

ExpressionEngine's history isn't just software. It's licensing drama, conference stories, community legends, and a platform that somehow survived all of it.

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Introducing AdAstra (The Software Got Here First)

2026-07-21T15:00:00+00:00

Introducing AdAstra: a content platform where your content model comes first and the software shipped before the announcement did. Two alphas in, with the roadmap, the known issues, and the money talk all on the table.

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Phase 9: The New Platform

2026-07-15T15:00:00+00:00

The migration is finished. The architecture is clean. Morale has returned. The platform finally feels manageable again. This is the phase where organizations discover that complexity wasn't the enemy. It was always part of the journey.

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Phase 8: The Rewrite

2026-07-08T15:00:00+00:00

Rewriting software sounds fun right up until you remember the old platform still has customers. This is the phase where optimism collides with reality, hidden business rules emerge from the shadows, and teams discover that the hardest part of a rewrite isn't writing code. It's understanding what the old code was actually doing.

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Phase 7: The Rebuild Conversation

2026-07-01T15:09:00+00:00

There are few meetings in software engineering more dangerous than the first serious rewrite discussion. Not because rewrites are inherently bad, but because the conversation is rarely about code. It's about trust, frustration, risk, and whether the organization understands the problem it's trying to solve.

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Phase 6: Stabilization Attempts

2026-06-24T15:00:00+00:00

The platform is struggling. The team is exhausted. The roadmap is slipping. Naturally, someone suggests a framework migration. This is the phase where organizations start searching for stability and discover that complexity is much easier to move than eliminate.

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Phase 5: Architecture Strain

2026-06-17T15:00:00+00:00

The platform isn't broken. It's resisting change. This is the phase where complexity becomes operational, process expands to compensate for instability, and organizations discover that the real bottleneck isn't capacity. It's understanding.

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