I’m a pretty humble guy, so most people don’t know this extremely impressive fact about me: Raymond Chen once mentioned me on The Old New Thing, the classic Windows development blog. mtlynch.io/my-old-new-t...

I interviewed Adam Gordon Bell, blogger and host of the CoRecursive podcast about how he consistently reaches the front page of Hacker News, what blog post topics attract customers, and how Adam improved his writing refactoringenglish.com/blog/intervi...

In August, I got useful feedback about my book, spent way too long editing a video, and had way too much fun creating the transcript. I also helped a blogger reach #1 on Hacker News and Lobsters when my goal was just the front page. mtlynch.io/retrospectiv...

I propose this ChatGPT transcript as an end-level boss for the "you could have done this just as easily without an LLM" crowd to take on chatgpt.com/share/68bf48...

New achievement: I repaired a CPU with bent pins! I bought a used AMD Ryzen 7 5700G CPU for my home NAS because my old Athlon 3000G was choking on 4K video. The new CPU arrived with bent pins. Thought about returning it but managed to repair it myself with a utility blade.

New blog post: SQLite's Durability Settings are a Mess www.agwa.name/blog/post/sq...

I asked customers and potential customers of my upcoming book which chapters they were excited to read. I got 133 responses and found interesting ways to visualize the responses. The feedback helped me restructure the book and adjust focus in certain chapters. refactoringenglish.com/blog/chapter...

My unusual marriage advice is to use a couple's email domain. It eliminates a lot of miscommunication on shared email threads and shared online services. mtlynch.io/couples-emai...

It took me several hours to figure out how to flash custom firmware onto my AirGradient ONE air quality monitor, so I wrote up instructions to save others the hassle. mtlynch.io/notes/flash-...

Interesting thinking about LLMs as part of a *process* for generating code rather than just a way to generate code repeatedly. "Code is not the most valuable asset you own, but rather the ability to generate, maintain, and improve it—the process." daily.bec-systems.com/0218-close-t...

In my July update: - How do I integrate reader feedback when readers want to wait until my book is done? - Where is all my time going? - How I reimplemented a 300-hour app in 10 hours - I'm making progress with Gleam but might be cheating mtlynch.io/retrospectiv...

New blog post: How long does it take to upgrade an eBook? https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/08/how-long-does-it-take-to-upgrade-an-ebook/ The older I get, the more comfortable I become with complaining. Not merely moaning on social media, but writing a direct email to the perpetrator of some …

I successfully migrated from a RAIDZ1 ZFS pool to RAIDZ2 without a spare ZFS server or external storage. It was a bumpy ride and involved some neat hacks, but I moved all 18 TB of my data successfully.

Writing emails is a bit like driving in that everyone assumes they're above average at it, but nobody thinks critically about how to grow their skills. I wrote about the techniques I wish more developers knew for writing effective emails. refactoringenglish.com/chapters/tec...

This is my first weekly update on my simpler weekly update site (looks like I need to improve the social sharing) weeks.mtlynch.io/2025-07-11/

I'm shutting down What Got Done, my free weekly status update app. The source remains available, and I've added tools for exporting/migrating your data. Thanks to everyone who tried the app over the years! www.whatgotdone.com/shutdown-not...

June was my most productive writing month ever, but now I'm trying to avoid juggling too many tasks at once. mtlynch.io/retrospectiv...

A quote from Refactoring English made it to LWN's development quote of the week. lwn.net/Articles/102...

🕵️‍♂️ Maybe you should read the privacy policy: Meta now asks to scan your unshared photos to train its AI - tucked away in the fine print. 📰 TechCrunch article by @sarahp.bsky.social techcrunch.com/2025/06/27/f... At @zeitkapsl.eu, we keep things simple: 🔐 #E2EE. Read ours: 👉 zeitkapsl.eu/en/privacy

I recently returned two dead hard drives to a merchant and was surprised to discover that they'd accidentally published my home address, email, and order details, along with every other customer who'd returned defective merchandise.

So many release announcements just enumerate new features without connecting them to real use cases, essentially just a fancy changelog. A good release announcement should excite users. And it should NEVER include the phrase "various bugfixes and improvements." refactoringenglish.com/chapters/rel...

I'm trying to learn a new programming language that's significantly different from other languages I know, so here are my notes from my first few hours working with Gleam mtlynch.io/notes/gleam-...

Finally, after a few weeks of work (evenings and weekends), personalfinancespython.com has been updated to reference Beancount 3! I also took this chance to freshen up the book's cover as well as the website. The git diff shows over 10k changes, making it a significant update. #buildinpublic

Based on this CO2 graph, can you guess the point in the weekend I was playing with dry ice?

Just finished updating the contents of personalfinancespython.com to use Beancount 3, and the git diff is sitting at over 10,000 changes 😅

I'm experimenting with the Gleam programming language @gleam.run. One of its features is that it can call Elixir libraries, but I couldn't find any examples, so I wrote my own. mtlynch.io/notes/gleam-...

In my May retrospective, I discovered that giving myself more time limits in my writing has helped me publish more and focus better. mtlynch.io/retrospectiv...

One of my favorite pieces of advice about writing educational books and products comes from Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick.

I'm looking for a new programming language to learn. I want something that will frighten and confuse me as a Go/Python/C++ programmer. Must treat web apps as first-class citizens and be friendly for making simple CRUD apps. Bonus for static typing. mtlynch.io/notes/which-...

I'm writing about how to write compelling software release announcements. What are your favorite examples of products who write great release announcements? What are some anti-patterns you'd like to see more companies avoid?

I'm on the latest episode of the tmpdir podcast to talk about how developers can improve their writing and how that can help them in their careers and side projects. tmpdir.org/044/

Got several useful tips about LLMs, open-source development, blogging, and being an indie founder from @simonwillison.net's recent interview on the Software Misadventures podcast, so I wrote up my takeaways. mtlynch.io/notes/simon-...

If you're in the Western Mass area and you've got an indie business, side project, or want to start one, join me next week for a meetup in Hadley, MA www.meetup.com/nerdsummit/e...

Markdown is great. I use local MD files to keep my daily task lists, the habit of 6 years that keeps me productive. Read "How I Stay Productive" glebbahmutov.com/blog/how-i-s...

In my April retrospective, I evaluate the process for writing my book and look for ways to make it faster and more measurable. I also share a preview of a tool I'm working on to better understand Hacker News, and I try out a DRM-free movie store. mtlynch.io/retrospectiv...

An example of what I mean when I say everyday consumer interactions for basic needs are hostile. A utility company services 8 million ppl in my state. They changed payment platforms. Just changed. Every customer has to create a new account, Re-enter payment info, set up billing, auto draft

Thanks to a reader suggestion, I updated my post about calling C code from Zig so that everything builds again with the latest Zig (0.14.0). mtlynch.io/notes/zig-ca...

I'm now famous enough that people remember vague, disconnected details about me

I haven’t seen many authors crowdfund their books before completing them, so I thought I’d write about why I did it, which parts of the process worked well, and which parts turned out to be a waste of time.

One gotcha when you create a podcast is that you should never give out your platform's RSS URL to listeners or podcast directories. Instead, you can use @bunny.net to give your podcast a custom domain, regardless of which podcast platform you use.

If you're in the Western Mass area and run a business or side project or you're interested in starting one, come join me at our next meetup on Tuesday, May 20th - 2pm at Esselon Cafe in Hadley, MA.

In March, I published more blog posts than ever before. In my latest retrospective, I share how I chose those posts and how their actual performance compared with my predictions. I'm also looking for book publishing software recommendations, if you've got 'em. mtlynch.io/retrospectiv...

My DIY book cover vs. a professional designer's version.

I played around more with the Hacker News Popularity Contest site and now you can view stats for your domain. refactoringenglish.com/tools/hn-pop...

This is one of the best articles I've ever read about running a solo, bootstrapped business. Lots of great tips that are clearly hard-won from years of experience.

What's the angle here? In two days, I got two different PRs on my open-source projects from two distinct but mostly fresh Github accounts adding Traefik as a layer in front of my app. The style of writing and code seem very AI-generated.

Hoping this is an April Fool's joke. Why would I want to spy on my users' scrollbar position?

The pre-sale for my book has now reached $6,100 of its $5k goal. You'd think it comfortably reached its target, but just four days ago, I was totally convinced I'd failed. I'd only raised $3k, and I had no idea how I'd find the last $2k mtlynch.io/book-pre-sal...

fusion is an open-source RSS reader I've been contributing to. I like the stack (Go+Svelte+SQLite), and Yuan has been super friendly and helpful in accepting contributions. It's rekindled my love for RSS as a way of reading articles online.

My blog post about writing blog posts that appeal to Hacker News is on the front page of Hacker News