David Wynn
@ftwynn.bsky.social
- Former Google and Sumo Logic
- Field Architect at Antithesis
- I write about Technology (mostly testing these days) and Philosophy
- Worst speller on the Internet... probably
- Field Architect at Antithesis
- I write about Technology (mostly testing these days) and Philosophy
- Worst speller on the Internet... probably
Extremely enjoyable read, blurring the lines between linguistics and programming languages.
What Makes Code Hard To Read: Visual Patterns of Complexity
Not long ago, I was auditing a codebase for work (looking for bugs) when I realized that despite the quality of the code, I was becoming mentally fatigued extremely quickly and had a hard time…
seeinglogic.com
March 17, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Extremely enjoyable read, blurring the lines between linguistics and programming languages.
I 'm sure this bodes just fine for the future of our relationship with AI pair programming... :-P
Cursor told me I should learn coding instead of asking it to generate it + limit of 800 locs
Hi all, Yesterday I installed Cursor and currently on Pro Trial. After coding a bit I found out that it can’t go through 750-800 lines of code and when asked why is that I get this message: Not…
forum.cursor.com
March 13, 2025 at 2:17 PM
I 'm sure this bodes just fine for the future of our relationship with AI pair programming... :-P
Reposted by David Wynn
We've reduced intelligence to what people can do with computers, which is fueling the current hype cycle.
March 9, 2025 at 5:28 PM
We've reduced intelligence to what people can do with computers, which is fueling the current hype cycle.
Reposted by David Wynn
Trans people have long warned that most of the victims of anti-trans laws and policies would be cis women and girls who don't have the "right look."
Walmart called the police on a cis-woman using the women's bathroom.
Even after proving she's a woman, "one deputy continued to question her appearance, insisting she 'looked like a man.'"
😡 😡 😡
Even after proving she's a woman, "one deputy continued to question her appearance, insisting she 'looked like a man.'"
😡 😡 😡
Cis woman confronted by police officers in Arizona Walmart restroom for looking too masculine speaks out (exclusive)
“The only men in the women’s restroom were the cops,” Kalaya Morton said.
www.advocate.com
March 8, 2025 at 3:30 AM
Trans people have long warned that most of the victims of anti-trans laws and policies would be cis women and girls who don't have the "right look."
Reposted by David Wynn
Round 2 of the 2025 AMV Viewers' Choice Awards has begun! Voting ends on March 19th at 11:59 pm EST #AMVawards forms.gle/Gm8LPUSFNoAE...
2025 Viewers' Choice Awards - Semifinals
You can use this form to vote for the videos you'd like to move on to the A-M-V.org VCA finals.
VCA Schedule
Nominations: 02/06 - 02/19
Round 1 Voting: 02/21 - 03/05
Round 2 Voting: 03/07 - 03/19
Fi...
forms.gle
March 7, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Round 2 of the 2025 AMV Viewers' Choice Awards has begun! Voting ends on March 19th at 11:59 pm EST #AMVawards forms.gle/Gm8LPUSFNoAE...
Key Insight:
When running fuzzing as a non-blocking part of CI, preserving recent commits can be MUCH more important than preserving ALL failing runs.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxIG...
We see this at Antithesis too. The closer to the bug's creation you are, the easier it is to solve.
When running fuzzing as a non-blocking part of CI, preserving recent commits can be MUCH more important than preserving ALL failing runs.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxIG...
We see this at Antithesis too. The closer to the bug's creation you are, the easier it is to solve.
HYTRADBOI 2025 | Rocket science of simulation testing!
Presented by matlkad on Friday 28 February at HYTRADBOI 2025 (https://www.hytradboi.com/2025/)Link to talk: https://www.hytradboi.com/2025/c222d11a-6f4d-4211...
www.youtube.com
March 5, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Key Insight:
When running fuzzing as a non-blocking part of CI, preserving recent commits can be MUCH more important than preserving ALL failing runs.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxIG...
We see this at Antithesis too. The closer to the bug's creation you are, the easier it is to solve.
When running fuzzing as a non-blocking part of CI, preserving recent commits can be MUCH more important than preserving ALL failing runs.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxIG...
We see this at Antithesis too. The closer to the bug's creation you are, the easier it is to solve.
Reposted by David Wynn
Wrote up something about Techdirt's recent coverage, and why (whether we like it or not) we need to be a "democracy blog" now, rather than just a "tech" blog (not that we've ever been just a tech blog).
This story is *the* story and it impacts everything else.
www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/w...
This story is *the* story and it impacts everything else.
www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/w...
Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)
While political reporters are still doing their view-from-nowhere “Democrats say this, Republicans say that” dance, tech and legal journalists have been watching an unfortunately recogn…
www.techdirt.com
March 4, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Wrote up something about Techdirt's recent coverage, and why (whether we like it or not) we need to be a "democracy blog" now, rather than just a "tech" blog (not that we've ever been just a tech blog).
This story is *the* story and it impacts everything else.
www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/w...
This story is *the* story and it impacts everything else.
www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/w...
The key insight here:
Using SQLite with Cloudflare Durable Objects & Turso allows defining databases per entity, effectively replacing partitioning keys.
rivet.gg/blog/2025-02...
Interesting... if you can get over the cross-DB querying hurdles.
Using SQLite with Cloudflare Durable Objects & Turso allows defining databases per entity, effectively replacing partitioning keys.
rivet.gg/blog/2025-02...
Interesting... if you can get over the cross-DB querying hurdles.
SQLite-on-the-Server Is Misunderstood: Better At Hyper-Scale Than Micro-Scale
We're Rivet, a new open-source, self-hostable serverless platform. We've been in the weeds with SQLite-on-the-server recently and – boy – do we have a lot of thoughts to share. Give us a star on…
rivet.gg
March 4, 2025 at 3:02 PM
The key insight here:
Using SQLite with Cloudflare Durable Objects & Turso allows defining databases per entity, effectively replacing partitioning keys.
rivet.gg/blog/2025-02...
Interesting... if you can get over the cross-DB querying hurdles.
Using SQLite with Cloudflare Durable Objects & Turso allows defining databases per entity, effectively replacing partitioning keys.
rivet.gg/blog/2025-02...
Interesting... if you can get over the cross-DB querying hurdles.
A great reframe for speedrunners who want to apply those skills elsewhere.
zetier.com/speedrunners...
One reframe further... every incorrect behavior could be called a bug too. One person's skip is another person's FIXME.
zetier.com/speedrunners...
One reframe further... every incorrect behavior could be called a bug too. One person's skip is another person's FIXME.
Speedrunners = vulnerability researchers
Video game enthusiasts are developing experience in the cybersecurity industry by accident. Discover how gaming skills can translate into intriguing careers.
zetier.com
March 3, 2025 at 3:51 PM
A great reframe for speedrunners who want to apply those skills elsewhere.
zetier.com/speedrunners...
One reframe further... every incorrect behavior could be called a bug too. One person's skip is another person's FIXME.
zetier.com/speedrunners...
One reframe further... every incorrect behavior could be called a bug too. One person's skip is another person's FIXME.
#FunBugFriday
Bug hunting is an exercise in humility, and Dr. Morrison deserves credit for some great lines here
buff.ly/41cAnAI
"Once I got these log lines in place it became… slightly more clear what was happening"
Tell me about it...
Bug hunting is an exercise in humility, and Dr. Morrison deserves credit for some great lines here
buff.ly/41cAnAI
"Once I got these log lines in place it became… slightly more clear what was happening"
Tell me about it...
The bug that led to SimKube 2.0
Some of you might have noticed (on my newly-designed website!) that SimKube is now at version 2.0—and actually, it has been for a few months at this point. I had made a comment on lobste.rs a month…
buff.ly
February 28, 2025 at 2:52 PM
#FunBugFriday
Bug hunting is an exercise in humility, and Dr. Morrison deserves credit for some great lines here
buff.ly/41cAnAI
"Once I got these log lines in place it became… slightly more clear what was happening"
Tell me about it...
Bug hunting is an exercise in humility, and Dr. Morrison deserves credit for some great lines here
buff.ly/41cAnAI
"Once I got these log lines in place it became… slightly more clear what was happening"
Tell me about it...
Interesting talk
buff.ly/4hQzN2H
That said: I've never worked in a mutable runtime with the same confidence I have in a static binary. Sure I couldn't directly inspect it, but that I couldn't change it meant it was more stable to reason about than a dynamic system,
buff.ly/4hQzN2H
That said: I've never worked in a mutable runtime with the same confidence I have in a static binary. Sure I couldn't directly inspect it, but that I couldn't change it meant it was more stable to reason about than a dynamic system,
"Stop Writing Dead Programs" by Jack Rusher (Strange Loop 2022)
Most new programming languages are accidentally designed to be backwards compatible with punchcards. This talk argues that it would be better to focus on bui...
buff.ly
February 28, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Interesting talk
buff.ly/4hQzN2H
That said: I've never worked in a mutable runtime with the same confidence I have in a static binary. Sure I couldn't directly inspect it, but that I couldn't change it meant it was more stable to reason about than a dynamic system,
buff.ly/4hQzN2H
That said: I've never worked in a mutable runtime with the same confidence I have in a static binary. Sure I couldn't directly inspect it, but that I couldn't change it meant it was more stable to reason about than a dynamic system,
Sometimes all you need to do is stay alive long enough to see your system's worst bugs... like bosses just giving up.
#GDC is coming in 22 days...
#GDC is coming in 22 days...
Depth is all you need: how Antithesis crushes Gradius
Antithesis' ability to play like a computer, not a human being, is central both to finding bugs and beating side-scrolling shooters.
buff.ly
February 25, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Sometimes all you need to do is stay alive long enough to see your system's worst bugs... like bosses just giving up.
#GDC is coming in 22 days...
#GDC is coming in 22 days...
If you know of anyone who's beaten Gradius without any upgrades, *PLEASE* let me know and I will update this post.
Depth is all you need: how Antithesis crushes Gradius
Antithesis' ability to play like a computer, not a human being, is central both to finding bugs and beating side-scrolling shooters.
buff.ly
February 21, 2025 at 3:55 PM
If you know of anyone who's beaten Gradius without any upgrades, *PLEASE* let me know and I will update this post.
![My craziest one turned out to be caused by World War 2.
Bug report from a bank said that a customer's birth date was not accepted when trying to open an account - they'd tried and found that any data within a range of about a month in the summer of 1945 was not accepted. This was a German bank, and the application was written in Java.
[researching goes here]
The name of that field led me to a Java API bug report which explained everything: The Locale for Germany is "centered" on Berlin, and in the summer of 1945 Berlin and the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany actually did have a 2 hour daylight savings time (which happened to be identical to Moscow time). Some smartass in the Java development team had "corrected" the sanity check in Java 1.4 because he believed 1 hour DST to be the maximum - but Berlin is in fact not the only timezone which had a 2 hour DST at one time or another. The bug was fixed in Java 1.5](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ovafxwsrpv7sgp3qsxhrmrgc/bafkreigwpslenoucyoierw26rhmtknp3ivbrpxlepvinta3vuqbly6v35e@jpeg)
February 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM
#PropertyTesting Pattern: Some things never change
Examples:
- Adding the same permissions to a user
- Removing a user from a group
- Changing a user preference
Examples:
- Adding the same permissions to a user
- Removing a user from a group
- Changing a user preference
February 20, 2025 at 3:08 PM
#PropertyTesting Pattern: Some things never change
Examples:
- Adding the same permissions to a user
- Removing a user from a group
- Changing a user preference
Examples:
- Adding the same permissions to a user
- Removing a user from a group
- Changing a user preference
Everyone should write fiction, even if they're terrible at it.
Because then you get really familiar with the point of WHY you include certain details in your story. And that's a skill that seems sorely lacking these days.
Because then you get really familiar with the point of WHY you include certain details in your story. And that's a skill that seems sorely lacking these days.
February 19, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Everyone should write fiction, even if they're terrible at it.
Because then you get really familiar with the point of WHY you include certain details in your story. And that's a skill that seems sorely lacking these days.
Because then you get really familiar with the point of WHY you include certain details in your story. And that's a skill that seems sorely lacking these days.
#PropertyTesting Pattern: There and back again
Examples:
- Serializing and deserializing
- Toggling preferences / settings
- Writing and deleting an object from storage
- Adding and removing a fixed value from a Number
Examples:
- Serializing and deserializing
- Toggling preferences / settings
- Writing and deleting an object from storage
- Adding and removing a fixed value from a Number
February 19, 2025 at 3:13 PM
#PropertyTesting Pattern: There and back again
Examples:
- Serializing and deserializing
- Toggling preferences / settings
- Writing and deleting an object from storage
- Adding and removing a fixed value from a Number
Examples:
- Serializing and deserializing
- Toggling preferences / settings
- Writing and deleting an object from storage
- Adding and removing a fixed value from a Number
It is bonkers how difficult it is to get spell check working on #emacs in windows.
I technically got it working through ltex-ls, but boy is it slow.
#WindowsOSSPains
I technically got it working through ltex-ls, but boy is it slow.
#WindowsOSSPains
February 19, 2025 at 2:54 PM
It is bonkers how difficult it is to get spell check working on #emacs in windows.
I technically got it working through ltex-ls, but boy is it slow.
#WindowsOSSPains
I technically got it working through ltex-ls, but boy is it slow.
#WindowsOSSPains
#PropertyTesting Pattern: Different paths, same destination
If order truly doesn't matter, you should confirm that. Notable examples:
- Adding items in a cart (esp w/ & w/o sales)
- Changing user permissions
- Adding data sources
If order truly doesn't matter, you should confirm that. Notable examples:
- Adding items in a cart (esp w/ & w/o sales)
- Changing user permissions
- Adding data sources
February 18, 2025 at 2:21 PM
#PropertyTesting Pattern: Different paths, same destination
If order truly doesn't matter, you should confirm that. Notable examples:
- Adding items in a cart (esp w/ & w/o sales)
- Changing user permissions
- Adding data sources
If order truly doesn't matter, you should confirm that. Notable examples:
- Adding items in a cart (esp w/ & w/o sales)
- Changing user permissions
- Adding data sources
If you're looking at putting #propertytesting into practice and drawing a blank once you open VSCode, this is the best article for direct help.
https://buff.ly/4b6cPSv
I'll dive deeper into it over the week, because the patterns apply to services instead of just functions.
#testing
https://buff.ly/4b6cPSv
I'll dive deeper into it over the week, because the patterns apply to services instead of just functions.
#testing
Choosing properties for property-based testing
Or, I want to use PBT, but I can never think of any properties to use
buff.ly
February 17, 2025 at 3:23 PM
If you're looking at putting #propertytesting into practice and drawing a blank once you open VSCode, this is the best article for direct help.
https://buff.ly/4b6cPSv
I'll dive deeper into it over the week, because the patterns apply to services instead of just functions.
#testing
https://buff.ly/4b6cPSv
I'll dive deeper into it over the week, because the patterns apply to services instead of just functions.
#testing
February 14, 2025 at 2:52 PM
The worst part about the hardest bugs is the re-affirmation that computer still think deductively... even if our investigation starts with blinders on that make the situation seems like nonsense.
#debugging
#debugging
February 13, 2025 at 3:14 PM
The worst part about the hardest bugs is the re-affirmation that computer still think deductively... even if our investigation starts with blinders on that make the situation seems like nonsense.
#debugging
#debugging
The good news about average bug size = dev velocity is that *you can still improve dev velocity.*
Lower the beta value in the third part below and see:
If you reduce the time to resolve on your hardest bugs, you inherently gain dev velocity.
https://buff.ly/3CHnGFU
Lower the beta value in the third part below and see:
If you reduce the time to resolve on your hardest bugs, you inherently gain dev velocity.
https://buff.ly/3CHnGFU
February 12, 2025 at 4:21 PM
The good news about average bug size = dev velocity is that *you can still improve dev velocity.*
Lower the beta value in the third part below and see:
If you reduce the time to resolve on your hardest bugs, you inherently gain dev velocity.
https://buff.ly/3CHnGFU
Lower the beta value in the third part below and see:
If you reduce the time to resolve on your hardest bugs, you inherently gain dev velocity.
https://buff.ly/3CHnGFU
No matter what the effort distribution is of your backlog, your dev velocity is *always* your average bug size.
Here's a 1 minute challenge to test it.
Try to find a distribution in the tool below (part 3) where samples of it *don't* create a normal distribution.
Here's a 1 minute challenge to test it.
Try to find a distribution in the tool below (part 3) where samples of it *don't* create a normal distribution.
Probability Distributions
A probability distribution specifies the relative likelihoods of all possible outcomes.
buff.ly
February 11, 2025 at 2:21 PM
No matter what the effort distribution is of your backlog, your dev velocity is *always* your average bug size.
Here's a 1 minute challenge to test it.
Try to find a distribution in the tool below (part 3) where samples of it *don't* create a normal distribution.
Here's a 1 minute challenge to test it.
Try to find a distribution in the tool below (part 3) where samples of it *don't* create a normal distribution.
The epic treatise from @apenwarr is a powerful explainer and guide for how to navigate a world where teams will never resolve more bugs than are created.
https://buff.ly/2JrB5Tu
... but there are tools that can change that ratio. Property testing, simulation testing, and more.
https://buff.ly/2JrB5Tu
... but there are tools that can change that ratio. Property testing, simulation testing, and more.
An epic treatise on scheduling, bug tracking, and triage
[Note 2017-12-29: the news.ycombinator.com discussion of this post is unusually useful. You may want to read it first.] [Note 2018-09-01:...
buff.ly
February 10, 2025 at 3:06 PM
The epic treatise from @apenwarr is a powerful explainer and guide for how to navigate a world where teams will never resolve more bugs than are created.
https://buff.ly/2JrB5Tu
... but there are tools that can change that ratio. Property testing, simulation testing, and more.
https://buff.ly/2JrB5Tu
... but there are tools that can change that ratio. Property testing, simulation testing, and more.