Writing

Twenty-Four Years of the Internet Refusing to Sit Down

2026-09-16T15:00:00+00:00

A nostalgic walk through the technologies, trends, mistakes, and reinventions that shaped the web and everyone building it.

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The Architecture Debt Nobody Tracks

2026-09-09T15:00:00+00:00

Not all technical debt lives in code. Some of the most expensive debt lives in stale data models, service boundaries, undocumented decisions, hidden configuration, and the handful of people who still know how everything actually works.

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The Industry’s Obsession with Proxies

2026-09-02T15:00:00+00:00

Software teams rarely optimize for quality, they optimize for whatever's easiest to measure. A look at Goodhart's Law and the danger of confusing proxies with reality.

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Programming Is The Easy Part

2026-08-26T15:00:00+00:00

Programming isn't what makes or breaks a successful contractor. After more than a decade in consulting, these are the lessons that actually determine whether clients keep calling.

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The Quarter Was Saved. The Platform Wasn’t.

2026-08-19T15:00:00+00:00

Every shortcut creates a future obligation. Eventually somebody pays.

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One Reasonable “Sure” At A Time

2026-08-12T15:00:00+00:00

Saying yes opens doors, builds trust, and creates opportunities. But every yes also establishes precedent. A look at how professional acquiescence compounds, how organizations learn what we'll accept, and why nobody can take responsibility for your career quite like you can.

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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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