LoopConf talk done! Phew! Does that stage ever get less intimidating? Thank you everyone for all your lovely feedback. And thank you @loopconf.com and @rzen.net for such an amazing day.

I never meant to be working for a large US corporate, but honestly, this company has some great values and amazing people, and I’m actually really proud to be representing them at LoopConf this week. wpengine.com/blog/loopcon...

Dang, this is SUCH a good article on hiring software engineers: leaddev.com/hiring/how-h...

There is a policeman with a police car stood not far from our primary school gate this morning. People are just driving up and parking on double-yellow lines right in front of him. This is a tiny diorama view of the state of the world right now.

I think this is genuinely the best news story I read this week. Ultralight backpackers going all in on Haribo-branded battery packs. Amazing. www.theverge.com/tech/781387/...

For some reason there is a September School Disco this year. “Golden” from K-Pop Demon hunters was playing on drop-off. 200 tweens trying to hit that high A5 note! I hope the teachers have good ear defenders. 😂

This JavaScript Markdown editor is right up my street. Small, simple, zero dependencies (as far as I can tell). Great work! overtype.dev

2005: Your website looks like it was designed by a 3-year-old and barely works, this can't be a trustworthy source of information 2025: Your website looks like it was designed by a 3-year-old and barely works, this is the last bastion of truth on the Internet

Not gonna lie. All creative activity is kinda on hold until @loopconf.com is done. Will my talk be perfect? Nope. Has it taken on a life of its own? Hell yeah it has! I think it is writing me at this point!! Will there be way more than a half hour talk’s worth of stuff? Oh yes!!

Don't sleep on this opportunity! Contact @rzen.net and join us on 25 Sept!

Oh heck… 😂

Hrm, new phishing scam: "WebFiling is moving to GOV.UK One Login" purportedly from Companies House. Links are all to amazonaws rather than .gov.uk, and the email is from [email protected] or [email protected]

I won’t link it but I read a post on X today that was basically “WordPress has discovered package management and static content sources” But, of course, it’s done it in its very own, proprietary way rather than using existing, mature tech, and arrived there through a very circuitous route. Again!!

Hello fellow WordPress devs! If your schedule permits, I would be honored if you joined me for @loopconf.com on Sept 25th! I personally curated the schedule and couldn't be happier about the diversity of perspectives and experiences we get to hear. Check it out: loopconf.com

Perfect charity social media post. Amazing.

Oh gosh. So many things about me are grumpy-old-man-longs-for-things-to-be-like-the-olden-days right now! And it all feels so rational. Things WERE better. Is this how my parents feel/felt? Or did I grow up in some golden age?

Pico8 Xenon Megablast demake

YO DID YOU PEOPLE SEE THE INSANE DRONE SHOW IN SEOUL FOR KPOP DEMON HUNTERS!?!? youtube.com/shorts/Wnya4...

I keep discovering people who are going to @loopconf.com and it’s getting VERY exciting! So many people I finally get to meet in person. 😃

I have people saved in my phone like “Mary Landlord” and “Jim Maintenance” and it occurs to me that’s the way that Anglo surnames have always worked

I'm getting my music collection out of the cloud. Here's a write-up, including the apps I'm using on MacOS and iOS to do it. Digital music is great. Discovery platforms are great. But I want to OWN my tunes. rosswintle.uk/2025/09/de-c...

I’m working in React a lot again. Building a component system from scratch. Separating concerns. Using best practices. Was actually starting to like it. But it’s still SO verbose and you have to do so much thinking about the implementation. It’s really painful to work with still.

I just came across a product called “WazChat”. Is it just Brits that will think this is a poor choice of name? (With apologies if this is your product!)

I'm curious… Are there any large companies or web agencies out there that are doing anything with building static websites using web platform tech? I only ever hear about individuals doing this kind of thing, but surely there are benefits for microsites, or landing pages of some sort?

Just been cleaning up my GitHub notifications before starting my new job next week (eee!) and figured I haven't mentioned my silly little `spacer` CLI tool in a while. It automatically adds spacers when command output stops so you don't have to hit enter a bunch of times. github.com/samwho/spacer

I swear, the EE website is the WORST website in the whole of the UK. I can NEVER do what I want on it. I usually enter a weird redirect loop at some point. And crap like this happens. It's AWFUL!!!!

I’m still contemplating the idea that software can be “finished”. Is this an idea that has value today? Are the things that you would have to do to make “finished” software good things to do? And under what business models is finished software a good idea?

I’m contemplating the idea that software can be “finished”. What do you think is the oldest thing that you own that contains software but that has never been updated?

This is a fun little thing. Stick-on capacitive controller for you phone that works with a web-based "OS" that loads up games and touch controls for the controller to work with. It won't be anything like a real controller, but it looks fun and accessible. 🎩 @binarymoon.bsky.social get.playtil.es

There’s also a segment at around 18:45 about how “there isn’t a lot in the app that can crash, luckily” which is not actually luck but the result of some good decisions being made.

This is such a wholesome episode of @scott.hanselman.com’s podcast about the development of Hank Green’s Focus Friend app. Really gets me thinking about how to use my skills and experiences to do something cool and what making my own luck might look like. pca.st/episode/0736...

We're one month away from Inclusive Design 24. Twenty four hours of talks about accessibility and inclusive design, streamed live for free on 25 September 2025. Save the date! #id24 #accessibility #inclusiveDesign inclusivedesign24.org/2025/schedule/

Every “free” file converter online = your files sent to some random server. So I made my own. Runs locally as an app on Mac, Windows and Linux. Now 1,100 users use it for 3,742 types of conversions.

✨ Big O ✨ Let me take you on a visual introduction to what big O notation is in my new blog post: samwho.dev/big-o. With big O notation you can better understand how algorithms will perform in practice, finding orders of magnitude improvements often with very simple changes to your code.

Next fun holiday project: writing a recursive, regex-based HTML parser for my son in Godot’s Gdscript so he can build a app in Godot that depends on web-scraping some data. The things we do…

How do you distill 25 years of experience into a single session? 👉 By delivering 25 lessons in 25 minutes. Join @rosswintle.uk at #LoopConf for a fast-paced, inspiring talk you won’t forget. 📅 Sept 25 | London 🎟 Save your seat: loopconf.com/sessions/25-...

The full schedule for LoopConf (London, 25th September) is now out. I'm sharing a stage with some amazing people. I'm also working on some fun things for my talk - which is almost going to be a mini conference-within-a-conference! You can get £50 off a ticket with code “ROSS50”. www.loopconf.com

Hey, @samwho.dev … are you into cooking articles now??? 🤣 pudding.cool/2025/08/onio...

This is REALLY good. I'm thinking a lot about communication right now and there's a ton of good stuff relevant to my industry and remote work in here. kind.engineering

Kid: There should be underground trains everywhere! Wife (not realising): That would be really boring. Me: 👀 Wife: What?! Me: Boring? Everyone except me: 🙄

Trombone Champ is about £5 on the Nintendo Switch right now. I’ve had it 15 minutes and I’ve already had £5 worth of laughing out of it. Zarathustra… OMG!!! 🤣

A terrific piece by @rosswintle.uk on three core tenets of programming, which, like Ross, I've been applying in stages since I began learning to code three decades ago. rosswintle.uk/2025/07/the-...

This evening my family were talking about whether worms could talk. It was suggested that they might just not be very chatty. And then I spent about ten minutes attempting to say the words: "introvert invertebrate" 😂

My new talk is up! 5 practical things developers can do to build trust with their non-technical bosses. In the high trust environment you have less micromanagement and conflict, and more freedom and harmony. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zki4...

This evening I have discovered Wiio’s Laws of human communication, and they are perfect! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiio%27...

We now own the game “Skull”. It is excellent. Especially to take to a cafe or bar and to just play short games with friends and family. Quick to learn. But always different. I first learned about it from @tomscott.com and it’s actually fun to watch too. youtu.be/rK2locyo-Pc

I’m reading ALL of these right now. You can NOT accuse me of not wanting to level up my knowledge and become a better programmer. Yes, even 30 years into my career!

OK. This is actually happening now. And it’s NOT really crap. 🙌😁 DIY video gaming table. Budget so far: £105 Needs paint. We’ll add some small fans for cooling. And a USB hub. And such a fun summer project to build! And it’s OURS! WE made it. And that’s so cool.

The D&D gaming table-top progresses. We are basically building a tabletop around a tabletop. Lots of wood flying around. Nowhere near complete but…

This was a fun illusion we saw on our trip to Cardiff today. The exhibit’s own camera was crap, so we tried our own. The quality is WAY better. But the angle is ever so slightly off. Still… fun!