My bookmarks
I enjoy consuming content. Here are the outstanding ones that stuck with me, that I would recommend to others wholeheartedly, and re-read from time to time.
Articles
I Sold TinyPilot, My First Successful Business (2024), Michael Lynch
I daydream occasionally about launching something modest and eventually selling it. This is an eye-opening account of such a journey, detailing the financial terms and even the desserts he ate in celebration.
ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web (2023), Ted Chiang
Immediately after reading this, I looked up Ted Chiang, then took a train to the nearest Kinokuniya and bought a copy of Stories of Your Life and Others. Tower of Babylon and Hell Is the Absence of God blew my mind. What a storyteller.
Parse, don't validate (2019), Alexis King
What's Functional Programming All About? (2017), Li Haoyi
These two articles changed how I write and review code. Now I think more carefully about how clearly information flows through a program.
The three-page paper that shook philosophy: Gettiers in software engineering (2019), James Somers
The article says it best: once you have a name for (this situation/feeling that you know but never could articulate), you start seeing them everywhere.
Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued (2012), Patrick McKenzie
The advise here may not be applicable to every scenario, but for the uninitiated, it is a great primer in understanding how recruiters and hiring managers think.
Oxide RFDs:
Bryan Cantrill is very good at structuring and articulating his beliefs and strategies, which have (in my opinion) a wonderful blend of idealism and pragmatism.
Books
A Philosophy of Software Design (2018), John Ousterhout
The single best book I've read on software. It's short but information-dense, and was clearly written by someone with experience building quality software.
Videos
The Soul of Erlang and Elixir (2019), Sasa Juric
This gripping technical presentation of the BEAM is singularly responsible for leading me into the world of Elixir.
Amazon DynamoDB Deep Dive: Advanced Design Patterns for DynamoDB (2018), Rick Houlihan
Before watching this video, I thought that NoSQL was meant for non-relational data, or fast prototyping.