Chris Armstrong
@chrisarmstrong.link
Software developer. Javascript/TypeScript, AWS. OCaml my camel. other tech stuff.
🇦🇺 🏳️🌈
Blog: https://www.chrisarmstrong.dev
🇦🇺 🏳️🌈
Blog: https://www.chrisarmstrong.dev
Translation: I came, I saw, I funded
Veni, vidi, vc
November 12, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Translation: I came, I saw, I funded
I cannot imagine having such an abusive relationship with my operating system that I need to do any of this arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...
How to declutter, quiet down, and take the AI out of Windows 11 25H2
A new major Windows 11 release means a new guide for cleaning up the OS.
arstechnica.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:07 AM
I cannot imagine having such an abusive relationship with my operating system that I need to do any of this arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...
okay so i'm having to make the claude code web thingie install opam and create a switch because it ocaml is not one of the "popular" languages it decided to include packages for
November 7, 2025 at 5:37 AM
okay so i'm having to make the claude code web thingie install opam and create a switch because it ocaml is not one of the "popular" languages it decided to include packages for
Reposted by Chris Armstrong
the gospel ecosystem has experimental tools for specification-driven testing, while editor support got better with OCaml-LSP 1.24.0 and Merlin 5.6. plus there's a new neovim plugin for ocaml devs! 🐫
November 6, 2025 at 9:27 PM
the gospel ecosystem has experimental tools for specification-driven testing, while editor support got better with OCaml-LSP 1.24.0 and Merlin 5.6. plus there's a new neovim plugin for ocaml devs! 🐫
I think AWS Lake Formation will break me
November 3, 2025 at 6:05 AM
I think AWS Lake Formation will break me
It’s still alive?! 🥳
Announcing larger instances for Amazon Lightsail
Amazon Lightsail launches 3 new larger instance bundles with up to 64 vCPUs & 256GB RAM. Available with Linux/Windows OS, various apps like WordPress, cPanel. Ideal for scaling web apps, databases, enterprise workloads. Available in all AWS regions.
Amazon Lightsail launches 3 new larger instance bundles with up to 64 vCPUs & 256GB RAM. Available with Linux/Windows OS, various apps like WordPress, cPanel. Ideal for scaling web apps, databases, enterprise workloads. Available in all AWS regions.
November 1, 2025 at 10:30 PM
It’s still alive?! 🥳
I've become the sort of AI doomer that recognises that yes, it has some utility, it can make me productive in some scenarios, so I may as well use it as much as I can while the bubble is still inflating and it's still cheap
October 27, 2025 at 4:14 AM
I've become the sort of AI doomer that recognises that yes, it has some utility, it can make me productive in some scenarios, so I may as well use it as much as I can while the bubble is still inflating and it's still cheap
Why you should instrument your build pipelines www.chrisarmstrong.dev/posts/instru...
Instrument your build pipelines to level up your DevOps maturity
Observability is not just about production systems. Leaving critical engineering infrastructure like build pipelines uninstrumented makes it hard for your organisation to identify development bottlene...
www.chrisarmstrong.dev
October 27, 2025 at 3:30 AM
Why you should instrument your build pipelines www.chrisarmstrong.dev/posts/instru...
LLMs love to manipulate text, which means they absolutely love to use command line utilities and write scripts that manipulate text.
My best advice would be: stop them before they can harm themselves and you.
My best advice would be: stop them before they can harm themselves and you.
October 26, 2025 at 12:46 AM
LLMs love to manipulate text, which means they absolutely love to use command line utilities and write scripts that manipulate text.
My best advice would be: stop them before they can harm themselves and you.
My best advice would be: stop them before they can harm themselves and you.
a little LLM hack that may or may not work:
More recent models have (most surely) been trained on data that describes how to prompt AIs themselves. You can tidy up a process that needs to be repeatable with the AI by simply just asking it to improve the prompt for itself.
More recent models have (most surely) been trained on data that describes how to prompt AIs themselves. You can tidy up a process that needs to be repeatable with the AI by simply just asking it to improve the prompt for itself.
October 26, 2025 at 12:32 AM
a little LLM hack that may or may not work:
More recent models have (most surely) been trained on data that describes how to prompt AIs themselves. You can tidy up a process that needs to be repeatable with the AI by simply just asking it to improve the prompt for itself.
More recent models have (most surely) been trained on data that describes how to prompt AIs themselves. You can tidy up a process that needs to be repeatable with the AI by simply just asking it to improve the prompt for itself.
What was supposed to be a quick article on build system observability looks like becoming a small series 🤦♂️
October 25, 2025 at 9:13 AM
What was supposed to be a quick article on build system observability looks like becoming a small series 🤦♂️
I had to stop myself from building a result type in typescript to solve a problem being unable to map over failed computations in only one module 😫
October 24, 2025 at 3:07 AM
I had to stop myself from building a result type in typescript to solve a problem being unable to map over failed computations in only one module 😫
<sigh>...but is it disco?
October 21, 2025 at 10:43 PM
<sigh>...but is it disco?
ICFP wrap-up from me www.chrisarmstrong.dev/posts/icfp-w...
ICFP 2025 Wrap-up
Wrap-up on my time at the ICFP '25 conference in Singapore
www.chrisarmstrong.dev
October 18, 2025 at 2:01 AM
ICFP wrap-up from me www.chrisarmstrong.dev/posts/icfp-w...
Now to chill in my hotel, sightsee some of Singapore, and get back to Sydney (why do all the flights have to be banked for an overnight return?)
October 18, 2025 at 1:30 AM
Now to chill in my hotel, sightsee some of Singapore, and get back to Sydney (why do all the flights have to be banked for an overnight return?)
I'm pretty much wrapped up for ICFP now - it was absolutely lovely meeting people from all over the world who work with or hack on OCaml, thank you to all those who made me feel welcome 😀
October 18, 2025 at 1:29 AM
I'm pretty much wrapped up for ICFP now - it was absolutely lovely meeting people from all over the world who work with or hack on OCaml, thank you to all those who made me feel welcome 😀
🛫 Sydney 🛬Singapore on my way to ICFP 😊
October 15, 2025 at 4:42 AM
🛫 Sydney 🛬Singapore on my way to ICFP 😊
Reposted by Chris Armstrong
I swear the things AWS manages to squeeze out of their data centers should be classified as black magic. You can now create instant copies of EBS volumes with single-digit millisecond latency. Sounds simple - but this is an amazing feat of engineering.
aws-news.com/article/2025...
aws-news.com/article/2025...
Introducing Amazon EBS Volume Clones: Create instant copies of your EBS volumes
Amazon EBS Volume Clones allows users to create instant point-in-time copies of encrypted volumes within the same Availability Zone with a single API call ...
aws-news.com
October 14, 2025 at 9:41 PM
I swear the things AWS manages to squeeze out of their data centers should be classified as black magic. You can now create instant copies of EBS volumes with single-digit millisecond latency. Sounds simple - but this is an amazing feat of engineering.
aws-news.com/article/2025...
aws-news.com/article/2025...
Reposted by Chris Armstrong
I still think about when New Relic wrote a blog arguing that customers should leave vendors acquired by private equity (PE) b/c prices will go up+quality will go down. It was a stab at Sumo Logic just bought by PE.
6 months later New Relic got bought by PE...and deleted the blog
6 months later New Relic got bought by PE...and deleted the blog
October 13, 2025 at 9:09 PM
I still think about when New Relic wrote a blog arguing that customers should leave vendors acquired by private equity (PE) b/c prices will go up+quality will go down. It was a stab at Sumo Logic just bought by PE.
6 months later New Relic got bought by PE...and deleted the blog
6 months later New Relic got bought by PE...and deleted the blog
When working on a demo for smaws, one thing I noticed is how much tls negotiation affects the performance of lambda functions, independently of the programming language
October 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM
When working on a demo for smaws, one thing I noticed is how much tls negotiation affects the performance of lambda functions, independently of the programming language
✅ Speaker notes written
✅ Sample pulled together
✅ Demo prerecorded
Now just to memorise it all (nobody warned me conference presentations are sooo involved)
✅ Sample pulled together
✅ Demo prerecorded
Now just to memorise it all (nobody warned me conference presentations are sooo involved)
October 12, 2025 at 9:47 AM
✅ Speaker notes written
✅ Sample pulled together
✅ Demo prerecorded
Now just to memorise it all (nobody warned me conference presentations are sooo involved)
✅ Sample pulled together
✅ Demo prerecorded
Now just to memorise it all (nobody warned me conference presentations are sooo involved)
In one of those lethargic and morose moods that has me drinking French 75s
October 4, 2025 at 6:38 AM
In one of those lethargic and morose moods that has me drinking French 75s
software devs 996ing with the AI, telling themselves they just need to get better at context engineering
Metropolis Moloch scene rescore
YouTube video by stratusphunkmusic1
www.youtube.com
October 2, 2025 at 12:28 AM
software devs 996ing with the AI, telling themselves they just need to get better at context engineering
Using gemini code (for reasons) and the randomised loading descriptors are even more unhinged
October 1, 2025 at 5:33 AM
Using gemini code (for reasons) and the randomised loading descriptors are even more unhinged
Reposted by Chris Armstrong
great post! — ostensibly "why blog?" but also "how to reconcile writing across your entangled subselves?" and "to what extent exactly can you really own your identity and data online?"
> Microposting feels like a race I’m always going to lose. Long-form writing is a nice long walk when I have time.
> Microposting feels like a race I’m always going to lose. Long-form writing is a nice long walk when I have time.
September 30, 2025 at 3:50 PM
great post! — ostensibly "why blog?" but also "how to reconcile writing across your entangled subselves?" and "to what extent exactly can you really own your identity and data online?"
> Microposting feels like a race I’m always going to lose. Long-form writing is a nice long walk when I have time.
> Microposting feels like a race I’m always going to lose. Long-form writing is a nice long walk when I have time.