I love polished, pretty things.
After ten years of keeping tech notes in notebooks and Obsidian, I came across makingsoftware.com and fell in love with its visuals and style. Now I want my notes to be that good, and that's slow work.
While I'm working on it, here are some smaller, recent ones to read.
How this blog is made
Markdown, one build script, and a web server. What this site runs on, and why a framework would be overkill for it.
My take on modern solo development
One monorepo so agents get the whole context, one cross-platform codebase so I iterate on the web with hot reload and deliver everywhere.
ESP is the new Raspberry Pi
For DIY, ESP32 replaced the Pi: networking and simple graphics on a few-dollar MCU, firmware made easy by AI, start with ESP-IDF in Cursor.
React Native is not a mobile framework
React Native is a JavaScript orchestrator of native views, not a portable UI framework.
Frameworks are overkill. HTML is enough.
A static site is the simple default for a document. What raw HTML gives up, what a thin build and an LLM cover, and measured numbers against Hugo, Astro, and Next.js.
When to use React Native and Expo?
A yes/no decision tree for picking native, Flutter, KMP, Expo, or bare React Native — opinionated, not exhaustive.
DinoDreams — complex coloring in React Native with Skia
The coloring engine of a kids' app on React Native and Expo: flood-filled regions, a Skia canvas per region, and paint that never leaks past the outlines.
Consistent cross-platform Expo splash screen
A simple way to show the same splash screen on iOS and Android with expo-splash-screen, edge-to-edge, and Reanimated.