Kevin Menard
@nirvdrum.bsky.social
Staff Engineer at @Shopify. Working on YJIT and TruffleRuby.
I despise so-called "opinionated formatters". While I consistency in formatting, most of these formatters will apply conditional rules that break consistency. And there are far more important attributes to me than consistency, such as legibility and comprehension. Alas, I must say goodbye to nixfmt.
October 11, 2025 at 5:56 PM
I despise so-called "opinionated formatters". While I consistency in formatting, most of these formatters will apply conditional rules that break consistency. And there are far more important attributes to me than consistency, such as legibility and comprehension. Alas, I must say goodbye to nixfmt.
Vibe coding is the great equalizer. Now all code I look at can be as difficult to comprehend as optimized Perl, regardless of language.
October 10, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Vibe coding is the great equalizer. Now all code I look at can be as difficult to comprehend as optimized Perl, regardless of language.
Yet another example of why auto-upgrading to the latest version of every library in the name of security is a farce developers created because “convenience” often isn’t a winning argument. Ideally you’d vet every upgrad. Sadly, that’s inext to impossible in JS land.
www.koi.security/blog/postmar...
www.koi.security/blog/postmar...
First Malicious MCP in the Wild: The Postmark Backdoor That's Stealing Your Emails | Koi Blog
www.koi.security
September 28, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Yet another example of why auto-upgrading to the latest version of every library in the name of security is a farce developers created because “convenience” often isn’t a winning argument. Ideally you’d vet every upgrad. Sadly, that’s inext to impossible in JS land.
www.koi.security/blog/postmar...
www.koi.security/blog/postmar...
Arguing against self-hosting because a SaaS company will handle security better vastly misunderstands how little security is a concern for an MVP. It’s rarely addressed while a startup seeks product market fit. The engineers slinging code have no security background. And LLMs aren’t going to fix it.
September 19, 2025 at 1:36 AM
Arguing against self-hosting because a SaaS company will handle security better vastly misunderstands how little security is a concern for an MVP. It’s rarely addressed while a startup seeks product market fit. The engineers slinging code have no security background. And LLMs aren’t going to fix it.
Reposted by Kevin Menard
Exciting news for Ruby and Rails developers!
RubyMine is now FREE for non-commercial use! It joins the list alongside WebStorm, Rider, CLion, and RustRover, allowing you to learn, develop your open-source and hobby projects, and create content for FREE.
Learn more: jb.gg/tqov3b
RubyMine is now FREE for non-commercial use! It joins the list alongside WebStorm, Rider, CLion, and RustRover, allowing you to learn, develop your open-source and hobby projects, and create content for FREE.
Learn more: jb.gg/tqov3b
September 2, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Exciting news for Ruby and Rails developers!
RubyMine is now FREE for non-commercial use! It joins the list alongside WebStorm, Rider, CLion, and RustRover, allowing you to learn, develop your open-source and hobby projects, and create content for FREE.
Learn more: jb.gg/tqov3b
RubyMine is now FREE for non-commercial use! It joins the list alongside WebStorm, Rider, CLion, and RustRover, allowing you to learn, develop your open-source and hobby projects, and create content for FREE.
Learn more: jb.gg/tqov3b
Ticketmaster is killing it with these recommendations.
August 22, 2025 at 10:15 PM
Ticketmaster is killing it with these recommendations.
I shut Mogoterra down in 2009 and at that time the company was better known as Mogotest. I very much doubt there were 35 searches for it on LinkedIn this week.
August 5, 2025 at 9:55 PM
I shut Mogoterra down in 2009 and at that time the company was better known as Mogotest. I very much doubt there were 35 searches for it on LinkedIn this week.
It’s really quite sad how quickly we went from fretting over 50 - 100ms in front-end code to letting React and Cloudflare add seconds to page load. And then for the hell of it we decided to trash privacy because Cloudflare made blocking any VPN other than theirs a one-click process.
June 14, 2025 at 9:42 PM
It’s really quite sad how quickly we went from fretting over 50 - 100ms in front-end code to letting React and Cloudflare add seconds to page load. And then for the hell of it we decided to trash privacy because Cloudflare made blocking any VPN other than theirs a one-click process.
I hope LLMs can one day automate the generation of useful changelogs and allow us to destroy the scourge of Conventional Commits.
June 4, 2025 at 9:31 PM
I hope LLMs can one day automate the generation of useful changelogs and allow us to destroy the scourge of Conventional Commits.
It's rather annoying that Ubiquiti skips right over 5 Gbps. I appreciate 10 Gbps over copper is doable now, but it's not power efficient and I'm somewhat concerned it'll burn down my house. Running fibre throughout and replacing all my switches for SFP+ will be ungodly expensive.
June 2, 2025 at 9:16 PM
It's rather annoying that Ubiquiti skips right over 5 Gbps. I appreciate 10 Gbps over copper is doable now, but it's not power efficient and I'm somewhat concerned it'll burn down my house. Running fibre throughout and replacing all my switches for SFP+ will be ungodly expensive.
Issues like this are why I loathe "stale" issues:
github.com/linuxserver/...
It's not resolved, despite messaging to that effect. Community members were trying to help each other out, but that conversation is now shut down. And for what? So a project can juice its issue close rate?
github.com/linuxserver/...
It's not resolved, despite messaging to that effect. Community members were trying to help each other out, but that conversation is now shut down. And for what? So a project can juice its issue close rate?
Support for physically connected USB devices · Issue #58 · linuxserver/docker-calibre
Desired Behavior Allow a user to plug-in their Kindle or e-reader device via USB Allow a user to upload files directly to connected device Steps Start docker with: --privileged -v /dev/bus/usb:/dev...
github.com
May 25, 2025 at 3:12 AM
Issues like this are why I loathe "stale" issues:
github.com/linuxserver/...
It's not resolved, despite messaging to that effect. Community members were trying to help each other out, but that conversation is now shut down. And for what? So a project can juice its issue close rate?
github.com/linuxserver/...
It's not resolved, despite messaging to that effect. Community members were trying to help each other out, but that conversation is now shut down. And for what? So a project can juice its issue close rate?
It’s a little sad to me that I haven’t written anything with ExtJS in a decade and no UI component framework has come out since that’s competitive. I’ve seen 17,000 different ways to render tabs but hardly any toolkits include a Tree component. And nothing comes close to ExtJS’s Grid component.
April 27, 2025 at 9:16 PM
It’s a little sad to me that I haven’t written anything with ExtJS in a decade and no UI component framework has come out since that’s competitive. I’ve seen 17,000 different ways to render tabs but hardly any toolkits include a Tree component. And nothing comes close to ExtJS’s Grid component.
@stuffwithstuff.com I’m going through “Crafting Interpreters” again with a book club at work. One thing I’ve noticed is the Java code would be a lot easier to manage with newer Java functionality like pattern matching switches and records for data classes, should you ever do a 2nd edition.
April 25, 2025 at 9:58 PM
@stuffwithstuff.com I’m going through “Crafting Interpreters” again with a book club at work. One thing I’ve noticed is the Java code would be a lot easier to manage with newer Java functionality like pattern matching switches and records for data classes, should you ever do a 2nd edition.
It’s time to part with some more computer books. A couple of these I’ve had since high school.
I have digital copies of the Manning books, which is nice, but outside of using them for reference I vastly prefer the tactile experience of a real book. They’re much easier on my eyes, too.
I have digital copies of the Manning books, which is nice, but outside of using them for reference I vastly prefer the tactile experience of a real book. They’re much easier on my eyes, too.
April 24, 2025 at 5:14 PM
It’s time to part with some more computer books. A couple of these I’ve had since high school.
I have digital copies of the Manning books, which is nice, but outside of using them for reference I vastly prefer the tactile experience of a real book. They’re much easier on my eyes, too.
I have digital copies of the Manning books, which is nice, but outside of using them for reference I vastly prefer the tactile experience of a real book. They’re much easier on my eyes, too.
I’d love to get an updated copy of this time. It was a great way to learn x86 assembly and functioned as an amazing reference.
If anyone knows of a book that fills that void, please let me know.
If anyone knows of a book that fills that void, please let me know.
April 24, 2025 at 3:54 PM
I’d love to get an updated copy of this time. It was a great way to learn x86 assembly and functioned as an amazing reference.
If anyone knows of a book that fills that void, please let me know.
If anyone knows of a book that fills that void, please let me know.
Reposted by Kevin Menard
Nine Inch Nails “The Hand That Feeds” single, March 2005 …20 years ago. Art direction / design by me. Created with damaged scanner glitching techniques, and hand-drawn digital pixel linework. More info in alt text.
March 31, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Nine Inch Nails “The Hand That Feeds” single, March 2005 …20 years ago. Art direction / design by me. Created with damaged scanner glitching techniques, and hand-drawn digital pixel linework. More info in alt text.
It's really hard to get excited about a UI component library that doesn't supply a Tree component. I don't need the 275th unique iteration on what tabs should look like. I need to fill the gap the browser isn't handling.
April 1, 2025 at 9:27 PM
It's really hard to get excited about a UI component library that doesn't supply a Tree component. I don't need the 275th unique iteration on what tabs should look like. I need to fill the gap the browser isn't handling.
Claude Code could cost up to $10 an hour and needs your source cod; companies are paying up. But, if you need a tool that costs $100/year and saves you hours per week, that goes into purchase review Hell. They’ll tell you to spend hours setting up an unaudited, slower OSS “alternative.” Fun stuff.
March 25, 2025 at 12:48 AM
Claude Code could cost up to $10 an hour and needs your source cod; companies are paying up. But, if you need a tool that costs $100/year and saves you hours per week, that goes into purchase review Hell. They’ll tell you to spend hours setting up an unaudited, slower OSS “alternative.” Fun stuff.
@backblaze.bsky.social
I received an email saying my password isn't secure enough. It's a 32 character randomly generated password with a mixture of case, digits, and special characters. And it's only used with a service-specific email address for Backblaze. What's not secure? Was there a breach?
I received an email saying my password isn't secure enough. It's a 32 character randomly generated password with a mixture of case, digits, and special characters. And it's only used with a service-specific email address for Backblaze. What's not secure? Was there a breach?
March 21, 2025 at 6:19 AM
@backblaze.bsky.social
I received an email saying my password isn't secure enough. It's a 32 character randomly generated password with a mixture of case, digits, and special characters. And it's only used with a service-specific email address for Backblaze. What's not secure? Was there a breach?
I received an email saying my password isn't secure enough. It's a 32 character randomly generated password with a mixture of case, digits, and special characters. And it's only used with a service-specific email address for Backblaze. What's not secure? Was there a breach?
I appreciate the ways Slack/Discord are better than IRC. But, c'mon, it's been over a decade. Why do I need to swap workspaces all day long just to read a message from the one or two channels I care about? Switching channels across servers in IRC is instantaneous. It's massively more productive.
March 5, 2025 at 4:47 PM
I appreciate the ways Slack/Discord are better than IRC. But, c'mon, it's been over a decade. Why do I need to swap workspaces all day long just to read a message from the one or two channels I care about? Switching channels across servers in IRC is instantaneous. It's massively more productive.
I can't believe we still don't have a standard tree widget for web apps. Every native GUI toolkit provides one, but web browsers insist on every dev inventing it and doing so poorly.
It's weird that SenchaJS still has the best components even if they appear a bit dated.
It's weird that SenchaJS still has the best components even if they appear a bit dated.
February 21, 2025 at 5:39 AM
I can't believe we still don't have a standard tree widget for web apps. Every native GUI toolkit provides one, but web browsers insist on every dev inventing it and doing so poorly.
It's weird that SenchaJS still has the best components even if they appear a bit dated.
It's weird that SenchaJS still has the best components even if they appear a bit dated.
I let my YouTube Premium subscription lapse and now I’m conflicted on reactivating it. I like not having any ads when watching educational content, but the ads have been unexpectedly beneficial: I’ve found I spend way less time in the YouTube app because the ads are unbearable.
February 12, 2025 at 7:21 PM
I let my YouTube Premium subscription lapse and now I’m conflicted on reactivating it. I like not having any ads when watching educational content, but the ads have been unexpectedly beneficial: I’ve found I spend way less time in the YouTube app because the ads are unbearable.
It’s kinda sad, but also rather predictable, what’s happening with Bambu Labs’s 3D printers. I appreciate they made 3D printing more accessible to the masses and forced other manufacturers to up their game. But if you chose a convenient appliance over an open platform, this is the risk you took.
January 19, 2025 at 8:56 PM
It’s kinda sad, but also rather predictable, what’s happening with Bambu Labs’s 3D printers. I appreciate they made 3D printing more accessible to the masses and forced other manufacturers to up their game. But if you chose a convenient appliance over an open platform, this is the risk you took.
@fox0x01.bsky.social Is there any store that sells a DRM-free PDF copy of your book? I purchased on Wiley before realizing I would be stuck in their walled garden. I bought a paperback copy to read, but like having an indexable digital copy for quick reference.
December 30, 2024 at 7:43 AM
@fox0x01.bsky.social Is there any store that sells a DRM-free PDF copy of your book? I purchased on Wiley before realizing I would be stuck in their walled garden. I bought a paperback copy to read, but like having an indexable digital copy for quick reference.
We got a follow-up email saying there wasn’t a credible threat, but man getting emails like this is exhausting. Since it was devoid of any details, you get to pick which tragedy you think they’re referring to.
Shootings aren’t something we constantly think about, but it’s always in the background.
Shootings aren’t something we constantly think about, but it’s always in the background.
December 19, 2024 at 6:25 PM
We got a follow-up email saying there wasn’t a credible threat, but man getting emails like this is exhausting. Since it was devoid of any details, you get to pick which tragedy you think they’re referring to.
Shootings aren’t something we constantly think about, but it’s always in the background.
Shootings aren’t something we constantly think about, but it’s always in the background.