🎱 Josh Branchaud ✨
@jbranchaud.bsky.social
Free-Range Software Dev and Consultant ✨ PostgreSQL • Ruby on Rails • TypeScript • React ✨ 🏃🐈🍹🎱 (he/him) | Chicago | Work with me: visualmode.dev
Pinned
The Ruby language and community have given me so much, so I thought I'd give a little something back as #RubyConf wraps.
Introducing Ruby Operator Lookup!
A one-stop directory for all the operators and symbols you'll see in Ruby programs. There are sooo many 😅
www.visualmode.dev/ruby-operators
Introducing Ruby Operator Lookup!
A one-stop directory for all the operators and symbols you'll see in Ruby programs. There are sooo many 😅
www.visualmode.dev/ruby-operators
Reposted by 🎱 Josh Branchaud ✨
a more prosaic challenge for 2026 is to use LLMs to help you write less rather than more
The LLM READMEs drive me nuts. I feel like they’re worse than no README at all.
January 4, 2026 at 6:20 PM
a more prosaic challenge for 2026 is to use LLMs to help you write less rather than more
I added a rule to Cursor/Claude telling it to stop generating these loooong markdown files unless specifically asked.
They aren’t useful (afaict) and they chip away at token usage/context window.
They aren’t useful (afaict) and they chip away at token usage/context window.
The LLM READMEs drive me nuts. I feel like they’re worse than no README at all.
January 5, 2026 at 11:08 PM
I added a rule to Cursor/Claude telling it to stop generating these loooong markdown files unless specifically asked.
They aren’t useful (afaict) and they chip away at token usage/context window.
They aren’t useful (afaict) and they chip away at token usage/context window.
Chicago bike infrastructure keeps getting better and better 🚲 💜
Some highlights of the 49 new bike racks CDOT installed along the new protected bike lanes on Clark Street.
January 5, 2026 at 11:02 PM
Chicago bike infrastructure keeps getting better and better 🚲 💜
I’m all in with Keigo Higashino — time to read the third in the Detective Galileo series: A Midsummer’s Equation
January 1, 2026 at 11:57 PM
I’m all in with Keigo Higashino — time to read the third in the Detective Galileo series: A Midsummer’s Equation
New year, new milestone with my TIL repo -- I just broke the 14,000 star mark 😵
github.com/jbranchaud/til
github.com/jbranchaud/til
January 1, 2026 at 6:19 PM
New year, new milestone with my TIL repo -- I just broke the 14,000 star mark 😵
github.com/jbranchaud/til
github.com/jbranchaud/til
📚 I’m gonna read some books in 2026. I’ll link them all below 🤓
January 1, 2026 at 6:08 PM
📚 I’m gonna read some books in 2026. I’ll link them all below 🤓
2025 Book Review
I read 34 books this year.
New for me this year was adding in a mix of kindle reads and audiobooks.
I read a book that only 13 people recorded reading this year 😯
Some favorites:
- Shogun books
- The Devotion of Suspect X
- Children of Time
- The Stand
I read 34 books this year.
New for me this year was adding in a mix of kindle reads and audiobooks.
I read a book that only 13 people recorded reading this year 😯
Some favorites:
- Shogun books
- The Devotion of Suspect X
- Children of Time
- The Stand
January 1, 2026 at 6:05 PM
2025 Book Review
I read 34 books this year.
New for me this year was adding in a mix of kindle reads and audiobooks.
I read a book that only 13 people recorded reading this year 😯
Some favorites:
- Shogun books
- The Devotion of Suspect X
- Children of Time
- The Stand
I read 34 books this year.
New for me this year was adding in a mix of kindle reads and audiobooks.
I read a book that only 13 people recorded reading this year 😯
Some favorites:
- Shogun books
- The Devotion of Suspect X
- Children of Time
- The Stand
Happy New Year 🥳🥂‼️
January 1, 2026 at 8:46 AM
Happy New Year 🥳🥂‼️
I’ve played wingspan a bunch, but got to play wyrmspan for the first time last night.
It’s an interesting variant of the game play. Still processing the strategy shift, but it was fun and would play again.
It’s an interesting variant of the game play. Still processing the strategy shift, but it was fun and would play again.
December 31, 2025 at 8:49 PM
I’ve played wingspan a bunch, but got to play wyrmspan for the first time last night.
It’s an interesting variant of the game play. Still processing the strategy shift, but it was fun and would play again.
It’s an interesting variant of the game play. Still processing the strategy shift, but it was fun and would play again.
Reposted by 🎱 Josh Branchaud ✨
Alongside the Ruby 4.0 release last week, I published charm-ruby over Christmas, bringing @charm.land's excellent terminal UI libraries to Ruby.
A full TUI framework, reusable components, styled output, forms, markdown rendering, spinners, charts, and a lot more!
Demos below ⬇️
A full TUI framework, reusable components, styled output, forms, markdown rendering, spinners, charts, and a lot more!
Demos below ⬇️
December 30, 2025 at 5:40 AM
Alongside the Ruby 4.0 release last week, I published charm-ruby over Christmas, bringing @charm.land's excellent terminal UI libraries to Ruby.
A full TUI framework, reusable components, styled output, forms, markdown rendering, spinners, charts, and a lot more!
Demos below ⬇️
A full TUI framework, reusable components, styled output, forms, markdown rendering, spinners, charts, and a lot more!
Demos below ⬇️
Reposted by 🎱 Josh Branchaud ✨
This thread of four tweets offers a neat mental model for working with coding agents
In essence a language model changes you from a programmer who writes lines of code, to a programmer that manages the context the model has access to, prunes irrelevant things, adds useful material to context, and writes detailed specifications. If that doesn't sound fun to you, you won't enjoy it.
December 30, 2025 at 1:17 AM
This thread of four tweets offers a neat mental model for working with coding agents
A reminder to junior devs that the questions you are hesitating to ask are a gift and you should go ahead and ask them.
The fresh perspective and curiosity gives those of us who have been doing this a while a chance to reexamine assumptions and articulate things we think we know pretty well.
The fresh perspective and curiosity gives those of us who have been doing this a while a chance to reexamine assumptions and articulate things we think we know pretty well.
December 30, 2025 at 7:28 PM
A reminder to junior devs that the questions you are hesitating to ask are a gift and you should go ahead and ask them.
The fresh perspective and curiosity gives those of us who have been doing this a while a chance to reexamine assumptions and articulate things we think we know pretty well.
The fresh perspective and curiosity gives those of us who have been doing this a while a chance to reexamine assumptions and articulate things we think we know pretty well.
Ensuring I carefully read all AI-generated code by instructing the LLM to always discreetly inject 1 to 3 subtle typos/bugs into the features I ask it to build.
December 29, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Ensuring I carefully read all AI-generated code by instructing the LLM to always discreetly inject 1 to 3 subtle typos/bugs into the features I ask it to build.
I found a good use case for git submodules earlier this year -- managing a private notes file for a public repo.
The two things that made it work really well:
- the submodule is a single-file repo
- all submodule interactions are mediated via Taskfile tasks
github.com/jbranchaud/t...
The two things that made it work really well:
- the submodule is a single-file repo
- all submodule interactions are mediated via Taskfile tasks
github.com/jbranchaud/t...
December 29, 2025 at 2:46 PM
I found a good use case for git submodules earlier this year -- managing a private notes file for a public repo.
The two things that made it work really well:
- the submodule is a single-file repo
- all submodule interactions are mediated via Taskfile tasks
github.com/jbranchaud/t...
The two things that made it work really well:
- the submodule is a single-file repo
- all submodule interactions are mediated via Taskfile tasks
github.com/jbranchaud/t...
My next read is Sarah Cypher’s The Skin and Its Girl.
Trying out my new labubu bookmark for this one.
Trying out my new labubu bookmark for this one.
December 28, 2025 at 11:17 PM
My next read is Sarah Cypher’s The Skin and Its Girl.
Trying out my new labubu bookmark for this one.
Trying out my new labubu bookmark for this one.
yeesh, Minitest 6 with Rails 8.1.1 quietly doesn't run any of your tests and exits with a success status code.
Pining minitest to <6 for now.
github.com/rails/rails/...
Pining minitest to <6 for now.
github.com/rails/rails/...
tests not being picked up on a brand new plugin · Issue #56406 · rails/rails
I was trying to update one of my gems' dependencies to use minitest 6 and noticed that tests stopped working. I can see the same behavior on a fresh plugin. Steps to reproduce rails plugin new bug ...
github.com
December 28, 2025 at 7:33 PM
yeesh, Minitest 6 with Rails 8.1.1 quietly doesn't run any of your tests and exits with a success status code.
Pining minitest to <6 for now.
github.com/rails/rails/...
Pining minitest to <6 for now.
github.com/rails/rails/...
How is YouTube Music as an alternative to Spotify?
December 26, 2025 at 6:27 PM
How is YouTube Music as an alternative to Spotify?
I’ve upgraded a couple different Rails apps to Ruby 4.0.0 today. Quite uneventful for a major version bump.
I’m grateful they weren’t painful upgrades, but with effectively no breaking changes, I’m kinda wondering “why 4.0?”.
I’m grateful they weren’t painful upgrades, but with effectively no breaking changes, I’m kinda wondering “why 4.0?”.
December 26, 2025 at 6:16 PM
I’ve upgraded a couple different Rails apps to Ruby 4.0.0 today. Quite uneventful for a major version bump.
I’m grateful they weren’t painful upgrades, but with effectively no breaking changes, I’m kinda wondering “why 4.0?”.
I’m grateful they weren’t painful upgrades, but with effectively no breaking changes, I’m kinda wondering “why 4.0?”.
AI-generated “art” for jigsaw puzzles is a pretty sad reality I guess we live in now.
December 26, 2025 at 4:31 PM
AI-generated “art” for jigsaw puzzles is a pretty sad reality I guess we live in now.
On a whim I made a batch of naan from scratch for the first time. It turned out great.
rasamalaysia.com/naan/
rasamalaysia.com/naan/
December 25, 2025 at 10:51 PM
On a whim I made a batch of naan from scratch for the first time. It turned out great.
rasamalaysia.com/naan/
rasamalaysia.com/naan/
Time for my yearly listen to David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries — his delivery is perfect in the narration and it’s packed with biting humor from start to finish.
December 25, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Time for my yearly listen to David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries — his delivery is perfect in the narration and it’s packed with biting humor from start to finish.
Shoutout to all the people that keep public transit running on Christmas 🚂 🎄
December 25, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Shoutout to all the people that keep public transit running on Christmas 🚂 🎄
Reposted by 🎱 Josh Branchaud ✨
This is NGC 2264, also called the "Christmas Tree Cluster." It's a cluster of young stars about 2,500 light years away.
They were 'born' during the Pliocene Epoch (2-5 MYA), about the same time as early hominids like Ardipithecus or Homo habilis, so they're barely older than humanity.
🎄💫🔭
They were 'born' during the Pliocene Epoch (2-5 MYA), about the same time as early hominids like Ardipithecus or Homo habilis, so they're barely older than humanity.
🎄💫🔭
December 25, 2025 at 1:18 PM
This is NGC 2264, also called the "Christmas Tree Cluster." It's a cluster of young stars about 2,500 light years away.
They were 'born' during the Pliocene Epoch (2-5 MYA), about the same time as early hominids like Ardipithecus or Homo habilis, so they're barely older than humanity.
🎄💫🔭
They were 'born' during the Pliocene Epoch (2-5 MYA), about the same time as early hominids like Ardipithecus or Homo habilis, so they're barely older than humanity.
🎄💫🔭
I have lots of Christmas movie favorites but a staple that I often watch multiple times each season is A Christmas Story 🎄
December 25, 2025 at 5:14 AM
I have lots of Christmas movie favorites but a staple that I often watch multiple times each season is A Christmas Story 🎄
I’m not reading many “business” books these days, but Rob Fitzpatrick’s The Mom Test has been recommended by all the right people.
December 24, 2025 at 8:16 PM
I’m not reading many “business” books these days, but Rob Fitzpatrick’s The Mom Test has been recommended by all the right people.