Making sense of complexity since 1987
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Make the Frontend Problem Easier
Reliable agentic frontend development requires making the problem environment more explicit, constrained, and testable — not just stronger models.
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Does the Programming Language You Use Shape How You Think?
A literature-review essay on linguistics, embodiment, and how code syntax shapes the way we reason.
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Software Was Never Precise, We Just Agreed to Pretend
There is a story we like to tell about software: that it is the precise discipline. The machine does exactly what it is told. This story is a useful fiction.
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When the Map Is Missing: Building Software Under Uncertainty
Most interesting software problems arrive without a clear map. How engineers navigate when the destination itself is unknown.
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The Software Development Cycle Split
Software development is entering a phase where the ability to build and the ability to think about what to build are splitting apart.
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In Defense of Redux
Redux has been unfashionable for years. Most of the criticism is well-argued, some of it is correct — but the core insight still holds.
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Documentation Is Not an Agent Guardrail
The first response to unreliable agent-written code is usually to write more instructions. This is almost never the right response.
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From Spaghetti Effects to Saga Pipelines
Redux Sagas are a powerful but underexplained tool. A guide to structuring async side-effect logic so it stays readable under pressure.
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The End of "Developer Ergonomics"
Frameworks have spent twenty years optimizing for fewer keystrokes. AI agents change what optimization target actually matters.
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Synchronous State, Scheduled UI: The Architecture Your Framework Should Use
There is a tension at the heart of every reactive UI framework: state should update immediately, but the screen should not. This is a tractable problem.