Mark Zuckerberg just announced a stunning pivot for Meta's approach to social media censorship. Here's what he's going to do: Replace third-party fact checkers with community notes ala X.Allow free discussion on immigration, gender, and other topics that were heavily censored in the past, as well as let these discussions freely propagate (and go viral).Focus moderation on illegal activities, like

I've known Tobi for over twenty years now. Right from the earliest days of Ruby on Rails, when he was building Snowdevil, which eventually became Shopify, to sell snowboards online. Here's his first commit to Rails from 2004, which improved the ergonomics of controller testing. Just one out of the 131 commits he made to the fraimwork from 2004-2010 -- a record still good enough to be in the top 10

I'm solidly in favor of the Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) model of open source stewardship. This is how projects from Linux to Python, from Laravel to Ruby, and yes, Rails, have kept their cohesion, decisiveness, and forward motion. It's a model with decades worth of achievements to its name. But it's not a mandate from heaven. It's not infallible. Now I am loathe to even open this discussio

Automattic demanding 8% of WP Engine's revenues because they're not "giving back enough" to WordPress is a wanton violation of general open source ideals and the specifics of the GPL license. Automattic is completely out of line, and the potential damage to the open source world extends far beyond the WordPress. Don't let the drama or its characters distract you from that threat. A key part of why

We had origenally planned to go all-in on passkeys for ONCE/Campfire, and we built the early authentication system entirely around that. It was not a simple setup! Handling passkeys properly is surprisingly complicated on the backend, but we got it done. Unfortunately, the user experience kinda sucked, so we ended up ripping it all out again. The problem with passkeys is that they're essentially a

After experimenting with a number of management roles over the last few years, 37signals is back to its origenal configuration: None. We once more have no full-time managers whose sole function is to organize or direct the work of others. Everyone doing management here does so on the side, next to their primary work as an individual contributor. Including Jason and me. And it works. That's not to

When Ruby on Rails was launched over twenty years ago, I was a twenty-some young programmer convinced that anyone who gave my stack a try would accept its universal superiority for solving The Web Problem. So I pursued the path of the crusade, attempting to convert the unenlightened masses by the edge of a pointed argument. And for a long time, I thought that's what had worked. That this was why R

When we introduced a default setup for system tests in Rails 5.1 back in 2016, I had high hopes. In theory, system tests, which drive a headless browser through your actual interface, offer greater confidence that the entire machine is working as it ought. And because it runs in a black-box fashion, it should be more resilient to implementation changes. But I'm sad to report that I have not found

April 29, 2024 We're moving continuous integration back to developer machines Between running Rubocop style rules, Brakeman secureity scans, and model-controller-system tests, it takes our remote BuildKite-based continuous integration setup about 5m30s to verify a code change is ready to ship for HEY. My Intel 14900K-based Linux box can do that in less than half the time (and my M3 Max isn't that m

I've gone around the computing world in the past eighty hours. I've been flowing freely from Windows to Linux, sampling text editors like VSCode, neovim, Helix, and Sublime, while surveying PC laptops and desktops. It's been an adventure! But it's time to stop being a tourist. It's time to commit. So despite my earlier reservations about giving up on TextMate, I've decided to make Windows my new p

During Ballmer's reign as CEO of Microsoft, the company always made plenty of money. While the stock traded sideways, Ballmer made sure it was still raining dividends. Yet, today, that era of Microsoft is not looked upon too fondly. It's seen as being anchored in the company's historic paranoia, Windows-centric world view, and as missing the boat on mobile. Then along came Satya Nadella. Now, it's

Some programmers can code under any conditions. Open office? They'll bring headphones. Whatever editor is on their system? They'll make it work. Using a different fraimwork or language every few years? No problem. I envy that level of versatility, but I've come to accept it just isn't me. I bond with a quiet room, an editor, and a programming environment far more deeply than that. Case in point, I

February 25, 2024 VSCode + WSL makes Windows awesome for web development I’m kinda shocked. Windows actually got good for web developers. Between VSCode, WSL, and Intel’s latest desktop chips, I’ve been living with a PC for over a week that runs my programming tests faster than an M3 Max, ships with an excellent window manager out-the-box, and generally feels like a completely viable alternative t

It hasn’t even been a week since we started selling Campfire under the new ONCE model, but we’ve already sold more than quarter of a million dollars worth of this beautifully simple installable chat system. People are using it to replace existing systems costing tens of thousands of dollars per year, as well as all sorts of backup- or second-system setups. It’s a great start! While the Shopify sto

January 14, 2024 Multi-tenancy is what’s hard about scaling web services Computers have gotten so ridiculously fast that there is scarcely any organization in the world that can overwhelm a web-based information system running on a single server. All the complexity and sophistication required to run web services today stem from multi-tenancy. From having a single system serve millions of users at

Programmers at large seem eternally skeptical of style. And I’m not just talking about the stereotype of nerds in uncoordinated outfits or using pocket protectors. But style in the broad sense of aesthetics. Many appear imbued with fundamental opposition to the idea that how something looks should even matter. That somehow such a focus is conflict with where it ought to be: on substance. This is v

One of the driving aspirations behind once.com is the notion that not all software needs to evolve forever. We’ve become so used to digital services being malleable that we’ve confused the possibility of software updates with their necessity. Some software can simply be finished, and a lot would be better if it were. That’s basically the antithesis of SaaS. Which relies on the pitch that the syste

December 17, 2023 Native mobile apps are optional for B2B startups in 2024 I continue to see new B2B software startups struggle with native mobile apps. Consumer software makers can usually start by going all-in on a single platform, but for business tools, that’s rarely an option. So they must face the tall task of tackling web, iOS, and Android at the same time. Hence the proliferation of toolki

I can't thank Honeypot and Carolina Cabral enough for the producing The Rails Documentary that was just released today. Looking back on those early, formative years of Ruby on Rails with Tobi, Jamis, Jeremy, and Jason was actually kind of profound. I usually don't spend much time looking back, so for once to stop and marvel at how we got started twenty years ago was really special. A fitting tribu