yen is building stuff
@weiyen.net
I post about databases, web development, software engineering and other nerdy stuff.
Sydney 🇦🇺
Website: https://weiyen.net
Sydney 🇦🇺
Website: https://weiyen.net
Imagine computers with the power of computers
"Wow, GPT 5.2 Pro seems to be doing much better in this Connect4 game than GPT 5.2 Thinking did, I wonder why?" *checks thought trace* "Oh mother-"
January 10, 2026 at 5:28 AM
Imagine computers with the power of computers
Gonna be a hot day today
January 9, 2026 at 9:07 PM
Gonna be a hot day today
Reposted by yen is building stuff
January 9, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Fun fact: nearly all of TypeScript's type-checking logic is in a single massive 54,000-line file
github.com/microsoft/Ty...
github.com/microsoft/Ty...
github.com
January 7, 2026 at 1:44 PM
Fun fact: nearly all of TypeScript's type-checking logic is in a single massive 54,000-line file
github.com/microsoft/Ty...
github.com/microsoft/Ty...
Reposted by yen is building stuff
Hot take: we are faster at making software, but the world doesn't need more software
no I’m genuinely curious.
one of my contentions is that the metrics used to gauge progress in AI and particularly coding agents (where there may genuinely be apparent results according to the metrics’) are not actually adapted to producing things that matter to end-users. +
one of my contentions is that the metrics used to gauge progress in AI and particularly coding agents (where there may genuinely be apparent results according to the metrics’) are not actually adapted to producing things that matter to end-users. +
January 4, 2026 at 9:51 PM
Hot take: we are faster at making software, but the world doesn't need more software
Has anyone figured out how to get LLMs to make good vector graphics? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here.
January 4, 2026 at 8:48 PM
Has anyone figured out how to get LLMs to make good vector graphics? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here.
Reddit overtook TikTok(!) in the UK, because Google appears to be boosting them
UK folks, is this real?
UK folks, is this real?
Reddit overtakes TikTok in UK thanks to search algorithms and gen Z
Platform is now Britain’s fourth most visited social media site as users seek out human-generated content
www.theguardian.com
January 4, 2026 at 7:41 AM
Reddit overtook TikTok(!) in the UK, because Google appears to be boosting them
UK folks, is this real?
UK folks, is this real?
Reposted by yen is building stuff
gonna need a chunk of this platform to embrace capitalism and buy some Tesla puts
January 2, 2026 at 2:46 PM
gonna need a chunk of this platform to embrace capitalism and buy some Tesla puts
Kotlin + Jetpack Compose is so fun to work with. It's like React but without a lot of its downsides.
January 2, 2026 at 1:32 PM
Kotlin + Jetpack Compose is so fun to work with. It's like React but without a lot of its downsides.
Reposted by yen is building stuff
This post was a massive success so wanna repost it here. Dunno if BlueSky is now more open for these topics? steipete.me/posts/2025/s...
Shipping at Inference-Speed | Peter Steinberger
Why I stopped reading code and started watching it stream by.
steipete.me
January 1, 2026 at 1:57 PM
This post was a massive success so wanna repost it here. Dunno if BlueSky is now more open for these topics? steipete.me/posts/2025/s...
It took me too long to notice:
Claude on the web has the frontend-design skill enabled
Claude Code by default doesn't.
This is why web Claude makes nicer looking websites (imo) than Claude Code.
Claude on the web has the frontend-design skill enabled
Claude Code by default doesn't.
This is why web Claude makes nicer looking websites (imo) than Claude Code.
January 1, 2026 at 11:07 AM
It took me too long to notice:
Claude on the web has the frontend-design skill enabled
Claude Code by default doesn't.
This is why web Claude makes nicer looking websites (imo) than Claude Code.
Claude on the web has the frontend-design skill enabled
Claude Code by default doesn't.
This is why web Claude makes nicer looking websites (imo) than Claude Code.
When thinking about AI-vs-human software development, it's worth noting that the average human-written software is not very good
A thread 🧵 of _terrible_ design decisions for the internal APIs of the two Italian high speed train operators, Italo and Trenitalia.
Hardcoded passwords, terrible translations, spelling mistakes, xml in json (but utf8 encoded and transmitted as an array of numbers), it's all here. Enjoy!
Hardcoded passwords, terrible translations, spelling mistakes, xml in json (but utf8 encoded and transmitted as an array of numbers), it's all here. Enjoy!
December 31, 2025 at 12:16 PM
When thinking about AI-vs-human software development, it's worth noting that the average human-written software is not very good
December 30, 2025 at 6:25 AM
Wild that this is what gets Rich Hickey on to bluesky
I got this email:
"Rich,
Your creation of Clojure <sycophantic blather worthy of a third grader's homework assignment to write a letter to a public figure you don't know, using sources you don't understand, to express an emotion unfelt, with no intention whatsoever>
Claude Haiku 4.5"
Thanks AI!:
"Rich,
Your creation of Clojure <sycophantic blather worthy of a third grader's homework assignment to write a letter to a public figure you don't know, using sources you don't understand, to express an emotion unfelt, with no intention whatsoever>
Claude Haiku 4.5"
Thanks AI!:
ThanksAI.md
GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.
gist.github.com
December 29, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Wild that this is what gets Rich Hickey on to bluesky
Reposted by yen is building stuff
This article about Postgres enums squashed a lot of my misconceptions. Very well done:
boringsql.com/posts/postgr...
#Postgres #SQL
boringsql.com/posts/postgr...
#Postgres #SQL
We need to talk about ENUMs
ENUMs offer simplicity, but are they right for your data? Compare them with CHECK constraints and reference tables to find the best approach for managing your application's values.
boringsql.com
December 28, 2025 at 5:27 AM
This article about Postgres enums squashed a lot of my misconceptions. Very well done:
boringsql.com/posts/postgr...
#Postgres #SQL
boringsql.com/posts/postgr...
#Postgres #SQL
Why wouldn't Disney let OpenAI use their IP, can't be any worse than whatever this is
In case you were wondering what it’s like to boot a free to play mobile game in 2025
December 28, 2025 at 2:10 AM
Why wouldn't Disney let OpenAI use their IP, can't be any worse than whatever this is
Boxing day isn't a thing in america?
Why wouldn't Americans want another day of shopping, do they hate the economy or something?
Why wouldn't Americans want another day of shopping, do they hate the economy or something?
"Boxing day might affect these hours" google I'm in America
December 27, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Boxing day isn't a thing in america?
Why wouldn't Americans want another day of shopping, do they hate the economy or something?
Why wouldn't Americans want another day of shopping, do they hate the economy or something?
Reposted by yen is building stuff
Always reskeet a Venn diagram, underworld edition 🐶
December 27, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Always reskeet a Venn diagram, underworld edition 🐶
Reposted by yen is building stuff
I thought it was fake but it's real www.dummies.com/book/technol...
December 23, 2025 at 2:12 AM
I thought it was fake but it's real www.dummies.com/book/technol...
Reposted by yen is building stuff
Affine units are ones where X - Y is defined, as is X + (Y - Z), but X + Y is not.
Examples: temperature, timestamps, coordinate systems.
Any others that are useful in CS?
Examples: temperature, timestamps, coordinate systems.
Any others that are useful in CS?
October 17, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Affine units are ones where X - Y is defined, as is X + (Y - Z), but X + Y is not.
Examples: temperature, timestamps, coordinate systems.
Any others that are useful in CS?
Examples: temperature, timestamps, coordinate systems.
Any others that are useful in CS?
Reposted by yen is building stuff
1. To opinions! Solar is the cheapest source of bulk electricity in many countries, and the quickest to deploy, and now you couldn't stop it being built if you wanted to. The limits to PV build in most places are grid access, permitting, and sometimes installation labour.
October 20, 2025 at 7:44 AM
1. To opinions! Solar is the cheapest source of bulk electricity in many countries, and the quickest to deploy, and now you couldn't stop it being built if you wanted to. The limits to PV build in most places are grid access, permitting, and sometimes installation labour.
Reposted by yen is building stuff
“Write a single paragraph about someone who doles out their remaining words like wartime rations, having been told they only have ten thousand left in their lifetime. They’re at 47 words remaining, holding their newborn.”
August 11, 2025 at 6:55 AM
“Write a single paragraph about someone who doles out their remaining words like wartime rations, having been told they only have ten thousand left in their lifetime. They’re at 47 words remaining, holding their newborn.”
Now is as good a time as any to go through the bookmarked posts
December 22, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Now is as good a time as any to go through the bookmarked posts
how do I unlock this achievement
December 21, 2025 at 7:50 PM
how do I unlock this achievement