Josh
@joshsaintjacque.com
Seattle-area Staff Software Engineer working mostly on web applications. I work mostly in Ruby on Rails and React. Interested in AI and LLM discussions.
I sometimes write on joshsaintjacque.com.
I sometimes write on joshsaintjacque.com.
Pinned
Josh
@joshsaintjacque.com
· Nov 10
👋 Hi Bluesky! I'm a Staff Software Engineer with a decade of experience building web applications. Love to share and chat about all things programming and webdev.
Being on call when AWS goes down is like being on a bucket brigade on the sun.
October 20, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Being on call when AWS goes down is like being on a bucket brigade on the sun.
Raycast's clipboard history is actually really nice. I bind it to cmd+shift+v and it's very handy.
October 11, 2025 at 4:47 AM
Raycast's clipboard history is actually really nice. I bind it to cmd+shift+v and it's very handy.
@hankgreen.bsky.social's take on Sora 2 misses something crucial: it's entirely about data.
It's a platform for humans to provide massive amounts of free training data to OpenAI by viewing/engaging/remixing videos.
It's a platform for humans to provide massive amounts of free training data to OpenAI by viewing/engaging/remixing videos.
Give me a single reason why Sora2 should exist.
YouTube video by Hank Green
youtu.be
October 9, 2025 at 1:13 AM
@hankgreen.bsky.social's take on Sora 2 misses something crucial: it's entirely about data.
It's a platform for humans to provide massive amounts of free training data to OpenAI by viewing/engaging/remixing videos.
It's a platform for humans to provide massive amounts of free training data to OpenAI by viewing/engaging/remixing videos.
Yep.
Scientists say X (formerly Twitter) has lost its professional edge — and Bluesky is taking its place
After Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, many scientists report the platform is no longer suitable for professional use. A recent survey indicates that researchers are increasingly turning to Bluesky...
www.psypost.org
September 27, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Yep.
Watching someone you admire descend into madness in realtime is an awful feeling.
September 27, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Watching someone you admire descend into madness in realtime is an awful feeling.
With GitHub's launch of its own CLI/TUI for AI we now have Claude Code, Codex, Cursor Agent, and Copilot CLI. The competition in this space is crazy.
September 26, 2025 at 11:36 PM
With GitHub's launch of its own CLI/TUI for AI we now have Claude Code, Codex, Cursor Agent, and Copilot CLI. The competition in this space is crazy.
Slack is fine. If you're more excited to open Discord than Slack it's probably because you use it for fun things. If you had to use it for work you'd feel the joy sucked out of it, too.
September 26, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Slack is fine. If you're more excited to open Discord than Slack it's probably because you use it for fun things. If you had to use it for work you'd feel the joy sucked out of it, too.
Man ChatGPT cuts deep 🥲
September 26, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Man ChatGPT cuts deep 🥲
Reposted by Josh
I miss my 50-year streak of not knowing who the Secretary of Health is or anything about them.
September 26, 2025 at 2:11 AM
I miss my 50-year streak of not knowing who the Secretary of Health is or anything about them.
Thiel is the same guy who argued that monopolies are actually good for consumers. Guess I should get a refund on all those econ courses I took in college.
September 25, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Thiel is the same guy who argued that monopolies are actually good for consumers. Guess I should get a refund on all those econ courses I took in college.
I've heard billionaires make some creative arguments to discourage regulation, but Peter Thiel warning that regulating AI will bring forth the Antichrist is truely something special.
September 25, 2025 at 7:43 PM
I've heard billionaires make some creative arguments to discourage regulation, but Peter Thiel warning that regulating AI will bring forth the Antichrist is truely something special.
Some good points here about the problems with defaulting to React. I'd go a little further and say many of these team don't need a frontend framework at all, see HTMX, Hotwire, and so on.
https://www.lorenstew.art/blog/react-won-by-default
https://www.lorenstew.art/blog/react-won-by-default
September 23, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Some good points here about the problems with defaulting to React. I'd go a little further and say many of these team don't need a frontend framework at all, see HTMX, Hotwire, and so on.
https://www.lorenstew.art/blog/react-won-by-default
https://www.lorenstew.art/blog/react-won-by-default
Oh, you want a text confirmation of the payment? Just enter your number... again...
Also, THIS TIME IT FORMATS IT FOR YOU WTF
Also, THIS TIME IT FORMATS IT FOR YOU WTF
September 20, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Oh, you want a text confirmation of the payment? Just enter your number... again...
Also, THIS TIME IT FORMATS IT FOR YOU WTF
Also, THIS TIME IT FORMATS IT FOR YOU WTF
And a $7 service fee for the privilege of paying my ticket...
September 20, 2025 at 6:55 PM
And a $7 service fee for the privilege of paying my ticket...
Paying a traffic ticket and the website requires I add the hyphens to my phone number.
The effort required to build that validation is about the same as just formatting it on the server but that's done of my business...
The effort required to build that validation is about the same as just formatting it on the server but that's done of my business...
September 20, 2025 at 6:53 PM
Paying a traffic ticket and the website requires I add the hyphens to my phone number.
The effort required to build that validation is about the same as just formatting it on the server but that's done of my business...
The effort required to build that validation is about the same as just formatting it on the server but that's done of my business...
It's neat that Tailwind has child selectors and all but I wonder if at this point you should just use a stylesheet.
September 20, 2025 at 3:01 AM
It's neat that Tailwind has child selectors and all but I wonder if at this point you should just use a stylesheet.
It's been a decade and I still run into neat little things buried in Rails.
say_with_time "Reverting all service rates to nil." do
Service.update_all( :rate, nil )
end
# Output
-- Reverting all service rates to nil.
-> 0.3451s
-> 2233 rows
say_with_time "Reverting all service rates to nil." do
Service.update_all( :rate, nil )
end
# Output
-- Reverting all service rates to nil.
-> 0.3451s
-> 2233 rows
September 19, 2025 at 10:56 PM
It's been a decade and I still run into neat little things buried in Rails.
say_with_time "Reverting all service rates to nil." do
Service.update_all( :rate, nil )
end
# Output
-- Reverting all service rates to nil.
-> 0.3451s
-> 2233 rows
say_with_time "Reverting all service rates to nil." do
Service.update_all( :rate, nil )
end
# Output
-- Reverting all service rates to nil.
-> 0.3451s
-> 2233 rows
React hooks were a mistake and I don't mind saying so.
September 17, 2025 at 11:59 PM
React hooks were a mistake and I don't mind saying so.
Hot take: We were better off when you needed a class component to have state and side-effects.
September 17, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Hot take: We were better off when you needed a class component to have state and side-effects.
The feeling when you've listened to rain sounds for white noise so much you actually developed a preference for certain kinds of rain.
September 16, 2025 at 10:59 PM
The feeling when you've listened to rain sounds for white noise so much you actually developed a preference for certain kinds of rain.
I love how extreme these opinions are. Like, sometimes an OS update is just an OS update.
September 16, 2025 at 7:29 PM
I love how extreme these opinions are. Like, sometimes an OS update is just an OS update.
I'd like to see more developers get comfortable with the idea of throwing away system tests. Use them to drive the development of the thing you're working on, but if it's not adding value that exceeds its costs it's ok to delete them.
September 13, 2025 at 9:57 PM
I'd like to see more developers get comfortable with the idea of throwing away system tests. Use them to drive the development of the thing you're working on, but if it's not adding value that exceeds its costs it's ok to delete them.
I'm really exctied about Turbo handling offline support in Rails. This is a use case that's a real pain to handle without a lot of JavaScript at the moment.
September 13, 2025 at 9:53 PM
I'm really exctied about Turbo handling offline support in Rails. This is a use case that's a real pain to handle without a lot of JavaScript at the moment.
Enjoyed DHH's Rails World keynote this year. Really good points about the costs of complexity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcwzWzC7gUA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcwzWzC7gUA
September 13, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Enjoyed DHH's Rails World keynote this year. Really good points about the costs of complexity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcwzWzC7gUA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcwzWzC7gUA
Raycast + Bluesky extension is really nice. I have hyper + x set to post to Bsky and it's seemless.
September 12, 2025 at 5:08 AM
Raycast + Bluesky extension is really nice. I have hyper + x set to post to Bsky and it's seemless.