Hey, Lucas

The story of how we became parents, to celebrate the legal finalization of our adoption today.

2022

Looking back at 2022, looking forward at 2023. And some bonus book recommendations.

Good-bye, carvers.co

Another year, another new domain.

Now Playing Music in Git

git commits are the new AIM away messages.

Hey, LaunchDarkly

I’m joining LaunchDarkly to work on their Internal Tools team.

Book Ratings Considered Harmful

Or: “why ReadsRainbow is way more useful than GoodReads”.

Today's My Last Day at HashiCorp

Commemorating my last day at HashiCorp by looking back on my tenure.

Building a Baby Button

A writeup on a project I actually completed. How to build a button that will send messages when pushed.

Engineering Leadership

To mark becoming the Engineer Lead for the Terraform Plugin SDK, some thoughts on what engineering leadership means to me.

Whose Pride?

A look at what Pride is about, whether it’s a riot or a party, and who should be proud, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion.

Mayor Pete

Does Pete Buttigieg’s gayness count as diversity?

Adoption Update

An update on last year’s post about starting a family.

2019

Looking ahead to 2019, examining what my priorities are.

Good-bye, paddy.io

Dropping the domain name I’ve had my entire professional career.

Starting a Family

I think I want an even bigger family.

Hashiversary

Reflecting on a year working at HashiCorp.

Using Google Cast With Your Record Player

How to cast your record player to a Chromecast Audio, through PulseAudio. For a bonus challenge, it will involve running PulseAudio headless.

Contexts & Dependency Injection

An examination of different dependency injection strategies in Go.

How I Learned To Quit Worrying And Love Go’s Interfaces

Let’s talk about what makes Go’s interface type so freaking useful.

On Being Impractical

I’ve started to talk more about and develop more ideas around being impractical, so it’s probably past due for me to write about what it means to me.

Professional Concerns

Are we really talking about Codes of Conduct again?

&yetConf 2015

A conference for those doing the impractical.

Google Cloud Storage & WAL-E (Part One)

My efforts and progress on getting WAL-E to support Google Cloud Storage, and the stumbling blocks I’m facing.

Ampersand & OAuth2, Part 1: Local Storage

Part one of an ongoing series about using Ampersand.js with OAuth2. We’ll talk about storing your tokens and their associated metadata.

Have a Code of Conduct

What a Code of Conduct means to me, why I think your Open Source project should have one, and responses to common objections to Codes of Conduct.

Here’s to the Yetis

A love letter to some of my favourite people on earth.

Fool’s Literature

I have a lot of existential angst about what I do and how I spend my time.

Washington

We’re looking at moving to the fine state of Washington, and people keep asking, so I thought I’d talk about it.

Child

I’m having a bit of an existential crisis. Don’t mind me.

Speaking of Mental Health…

I will come talk to your organization, conference, or user group about mental health in tech.

Coming Out

Not Invented Here

Make. Relentlessly.

We Are The Impressive Acts

There is no objective metric of difficulty, and thus no act unworthy of celebration.

Adventures in Meatspace

I’m leaving Twitter for the month of July.

Scared Shipless

It has been a super long time since I’ve shipped any software of substance.

Negative

I think I might need an attitude adjustment.

Superhuman

Technology exists to make us superhuman, not rich.

An Open Letter To Recruiters

A guide to pitching me, and probably other engineers.

Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Failure

A reminder that the decentralised web will not look the same as the centralised web.

Getting By

Thoughts and reactions about Gets By, a community project launched this past weekend.

We Can Do Better

A rallying cry to pull our heads out of our asses and start making things that deserve to exist again.

Internet Hero

How can we make tech empowering again?

Marine

My younger brother just became a Marine, and I couldn’t be more proud of him. But his graduation ceremony made me think about the difference between military and civilian employment.

Happy

What’s your purpose, as a company? Why do you do what you do?

Growing Up On The Internet

I like to say that I grew up on the internet, but I don’t think a lot of people really know what I mean by that. So I wrote a really, really long post explaining it.

On Welcoming Minorities

How can a community or culture be welcoming to minorities?

RealtimeConf Europe

I spoke at RealtimeConf Europe in Lyon, France. This was a conference and an experience with no equal.

In Defence Of The Hackathon

I believe that hackathons are some of the most important events in our community, and I’m afraid they’re going the way of the dinosaur.

Oh, The Cleverness Of Me

When is cleverness a good thing in software? Where is the appropriate place to be clever?

The Open Sourcing Mental Illness Tour

A cause worth supporting.

Young and Brilliant and Good

Death, depression, and a reminder that your conclusions are invalid. This has nothing to do with Aaron and everything to do with you.

2012

A self-indulgent post celebrating the victories I won in 2012, my regrets for the year, and hopes for 2013.

The Open Web

The open web is not about technology, it is not about sharing source code or ideas. It’s about people.

What Did You Expect?

Sometimes, I have to wonder if people think online services are powered by unicorns, smiles, and friendly words.

How Do You People Take Me Seriously?

I am a kid just out of college, with no sense of professionalism, and no formal education in my line of work. And yet, you people seem to have an absurd fascination with taking me seriously.

Homeless

I’m no longer a resident of Buffalo, and that requires a self-indulgent post.

Measuring DX

Developer Experience is all about working to make your platforms pleasant for developers to build on. But how do you measure your success at making people happy?

On Go

I’ve been writing Go for months now. I thought at first that my fascination with it was due to the novelty of a new language. I’m beginning to realise that Go offers something new: the ability to write code.

What Google Glass Really Means

Google Glass is important. Very important. But not as a consumer device.

Developer Experience Engineer

I’ve officially signed on as a Developer Experience Engineer at Iron.io. What the hell does that mean?

The Cloud Is For You

Cloud computing is not the same as Platform-as-a-Service.

Collective Ignorance

None of us has any idea what we’re doing, and that is what makes the internet awesome. Please stop pretending you do.

Nobody Can Live on Dog Food

“Eating your own dog food” is the phrase used to describe interacting with your product the way customers do. It’s considered good practice, to the point of being common sense. It can be taken too far.

Special

As society progresses, it becomes increasingly specialised. There are a lot of problems with that.

The Story of 2cloud

The ongoing history of 2cloud; alternate title: “How I Started A Company On Accident”. A narrative exploring how a learning project grew out of control.

Tales From High School

A long and unnecessarily epic story that serves no real purpose. I just wanted to tell it. Also, it has Jedis.

Ass Kicked Per Minute

Coders are Batman, Iron.io is Alfred, and building your infrastructure is a pain in the ass. Also, work should be measured in how long it takes to kick ass.

Moving to Jekyll

Someone you probably know or care little about is using a new mass of ones and zeroes to inflict his opinions on the world.

The Fallacy of “Nimble”

An Open Letter To Congress: SOPA Is A Good Start

Disillusioned

On App Engine’s Pricing Change

College & Startups

College students and startup founders lead very similar lives and have oddly similar goals. Our youth, fresh out of high school, are being encouraged to pursue one of these lifestyles, however, and I have to wonder whether it is the right one.

Tips and Secrets for Dealing With App Engine

The Problem With Tangential Learning

Professionally Yours

Google+: I’ve Seen This Before

Remembering Why I Write Software

Time for a Change?

Logging the Channel API

App Engine Channels and Chrome Extensions

On Peter Pan

I’m a Shakespeare of Software

Thoughts

All Quiet

Let’s Cut Down a Tree, Knowing No One Will Hear

What I’ve Been Up To

In Support of @Spaz

I Support Twitter’s Ads, and So Should You

Beware the Pretty-Faced Girl

A Return to My Roots