Paul Sonnentag
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paulsonnentag.bsky.social
Paul Sonnentag
@paulsonnentag.bsky.social
620 followers 180 following 18 posts
No more killer apps, kill the app!
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Paul Sonnentag @paulsonnentag.bsky.social · May 15
What if you didn't need git to collaborate on games?

We've been prototyping a new approach to collaboration in Godot: live and async collaborative editing, with branches and diffs, built right into the editor.

We're looking for people to test out an early version, see link in next post:
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
expede.wtf
🚀🚀🚀 I'm doin' a signal boost!

I just met Vanessa, an early-career dev with great energy looking for work! Interested in games and webdev, and working on a PS1-style game in her spare time. (Contact info is on her website)

👀 queenofsquiggles.codeberg.page
Queen Of Squiggles's Blog
queenofsquiggles.codeberg.page
October 31, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
automerge.org
We have a shiny new website courtesy of @spiralganglion.com and @seaofclouds.com 🙌

🚀 Check it out: automerge.org
A screenshot of the Automerge landing page. It says "Version control for your data. Automerge is a local-first sync engine for multiplayer apps that works offline, prevents conflicts, and runs fast."
October 16, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
inkandswitch.com
It's that time again: ✨we’re hiring✨

We're looking for a @godotengine.org IDE Engineer to help us build the next generation of collaboration tools inside the engine itself! More detail here: inkandswitch.com/jobs/godot-ide-engineer

(Remote role 🌍🌎🌏)
Godot IDE Engineer
Help build native, visual version control for collaborative game development in Godot
inkandswitch.com
October 3, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
joshuahhh.com
12 exciting live-programming projects will be presented at LIVE this year. It's free, online, and coming up soon!

Sat 9/27: Videos premiere
Sat 10/4: Q & A and discussion over Zoom

Details on projects are up already at liveprog.org; more schedule & links coming soon.

Hope to see ya there!
September 20, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
iznaut.com
hi hello my husband recently accepted a job in Victoria, BC so we are hoping to immigrate to Canada before the year is over

soooo i will be leaving my in-office IT job and be out of work again. shares and job leads welcome!
iznaut.com izzy kestrel @iznaut.com · Jan 29
hi i’m izzy, i am a game designer and programmer that likes making tools to support ppl’s cool projects. i’m also good at writing and a bunch of other stuff probably idk iznaut.com
izzy kestrel - game designer
game dev portfolio for isabelle adena kestrel
iznaut.com
August 13, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
inkandswitch.com
The Ink & Switch team is coming through London and we're having a social to share some recent news and research from the lab, and catch up with people in London interested in local first, malleable software, and other similar areas of making better computing.

Aug 16th, 6pm in London
Ink & Switch London Social · Luma
The Ink & Switch team is coming through London and we're having a social to share some recent news and research from the lab, and catch up with people in…
lu.ma
August 5, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
inkandswitch.com
Do you write TypeScript? Enjoy Automerge? Love building both tools and community? You might be a great fit for our ✨new✨ Automerge TypeScript Maintainer role!

www.inkandswitch.com/jobs/automer...

(Remote role, 🇬🇧 UK-based preferred but not required)
Automerge TypeScript Maintainer
Industrial research lab working on digital tools for creativity and productivity
www.inkandswitch.com
July 23, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
alexanderobenauer.com
Completed another trip around the sun this week. With gratitude, something to share:

Creative work is hilariously unintuitive to the adult mind. We are like beavers, blocking flow at the first sound of running water with dams made of any debris around.

Here are reminders I hold close:

(1/2)
You can do things for their own sake without having to provide justification. But if you really need one, it's this: *things lead to other things.* Doing things opens up doors, ideas, pathways, and opportunities that couldn't have been imagined or designed without having first done those things. By definition, doing things you enjoy leads to more things you'll enjoy. It's another way of saying "the dots connect looking backwards", one of the three messages in Steve Jobs' (wonderful) commencement address at Stanford, but it keeps the frame in the present. Simply following one's curiosity — even when it seems unproductive to do so — is wildly underestimated as an activity that moves the human race forward. Feynman's spinning plates led to his Nobel prize. It's easy to lose motivation when it isn't clear how some work will contribute. But quite often, the biggest contribution something makes is the next thing it leads us into. We can't predict these paths in advance, but we can notice how much it has happened in the past, and trust that it will continue. This is one worth repeating early and often. Things lead to other things. It's a powerful reminder in the face of creative doubts. "What if this is nothing?" Doesn't matter, it will lead to something. In creative work, there is this frustration while mid-process that reflects the delta between where a work is and where you want it to be. When it's gone, the work is done. This means that one is always experiencing this in the ongoing activity of their creative work. There's always a next problem to be solved, or a need to get some work away from some unsatisfying place, or toward some unknown more satisfying one. It isn't always clear, in fact, it's usually unclear, where to go — that's why it's so frustrating. We live with this frustration during the whole life of a creative work. You have to learn to embrace this frustration. The frustration sometimes feels like a despair born from fear that the work won't get better, that it won't ever meet your tastes. But it should be embraced: it's what tells you your work will get better, because it keeps your mind at the task of figuring how to improve it. It is a *good* frustration. Once you learn to embrace this frustration, you can start to enjoy it, which helps you enjoy your work more (which helps you do harder things). It helps to have gone through many resolutions of this frustration; that gives you the confidence to know early on in a creative project that it will, in time, dissipate, as you find your way through the nooks of creative revelation. But I've found that it seems to require revolutions in each domain; this frustration is hard to enjoy in a new field of creation, since this confidence has much less to ground itself on. It's important to be able to identify the good frustration. Simply being able to identify it can turn it from a source of negativity to one of excitement and energy. Once identified, it can become a source of action, sometimes even direction. In particularly challenging moments, this frustration can end early work. Pointing at this frustration, describing its source, and what about the work has led to it, is often all you need to think more clearly about how to proceed. I furiously note-take my way into the depths of a project. These notes become Ariadne's thread; when I'm deep in the details and I've lost sense of the project's purpose — which I need to color my interpretation of the details, including filtering out those that do not matter, and to direct my next actions — I can return to those notes which pull me into the right perspective again. They are also helpful when writing descriptions of the project for public consumption; once I know the inner-most details, challenges, rewarding pieces, etc., it becomes much harder to describe the project from the outside. I'm now a native to the project, and I can no longer give a newcomer directions that make any sense to them. The original notes serve this purpose wonderfully. David Bowie: > Always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest it in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you co-exist with the rest of society. I've found it necessary to document that spark from first flint to the first moment of forgetfulness. The creator's mind can often fall into a perfectionist's trap: "It must first be *right*, then it can be." Obsession grows with something being perfect, more perfect, more than perfect. This will grind work to a halt. We hold on too tight. In these times, it's important to reorient to experimentation and consistency. It is at these times that I must catch the down-spiral early, and instead refocus my obsession on consistent work and progress. Striving for consistency inevitably leads to quality; striving for quality inevitably destroys consistency. This advice does not necessarily supersede the need to acknowledge one’s seasonal creative phases or to give into good distractions. So this may not be the right advice at all times, but you'll know the times when it is, because it'll annoy you. And it's important to remember: **Diverse inputs create rich outputs**. This happens in big ways and small. On the latter: at some surprisingly early point, doing a lot more of the work won't make it any better, but doing a lot of *other* things will. On the former: one must cultivate an interest in and understanding of many different things. Each field has different ways of seeing the world, and each person has still more nuanced takes. Adopting many lenses helps us see creative solutions to the ever-harder problems we and the world will face. Different lenses are one of the great gifts we get from reading, inquisitive conversation, and following obsessions down deep paths.
July 18, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
quakefultales.bsky.social
This is the platonic ideal of sniffing
July 18, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
joshuahhh.com
One week until MONDAY, JULY 21st, which I call "LIVE Workshop Christmas".

(It's Christmas for me and the PC, cuz we get to look at all the cool stuff you submit! I guess for you it's more like "the submission deadline".)

liveprog.org
July 14, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
pvh.ca
Automerge 3 is here: the heart transplant is complete! Huge improvements in memory usage and (in most cases) correspondingly big performance improvements too. Backwards compatible on disk and the network so there's no reason not to upgrade today: automerge.org/blog/automer...
Automerge 3.0 | Automerge CRDT
Automerge is a local-first data sync engine that makes it easy to build collaborative apps. Today we're excited to announce version 3.0 of Automerge!
automerge.org
July 15, 2025 at 6:04 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
ohmjs.org
A few different Ink & Switch projects have used Ohm…here's the latest one.

From @alexwarth.bsky.social (co-creator of Ohm) and @geoffreylitt.com (who made Wildcard, one of our all-time favourite Ohm-powered projects)
alexwarth.bsky.social Alex Warth @alexwarth.bsky.social · Feb 4
What if a spreadsheet cell could hold multiple values at the same time?

That's the idea behind Ambsheets, a project I've been working on w/ @geoffreylitt.com at @inkandswitch.com. It's a new spreadsheet that makes it easier for you to explore many possibilities simultaneously.

1/2
July 10, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
joshuahhh.com
BTW: I'm slowly assembling a LIVE Primer to help folk submitting to LIVE (& others) get the lay of the land. Please take a look and let me know what's missing, what sucks, what's rad, etc.

live-workshop.github.io/primer/
The LIVE Primer
The LIVE Primer
live-workshop.github.io
June 13, 2025 at 3:50 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
geoffreylitt.com
New longform @inkandswitch.com essay! 📜

Malleable Software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps

by me, @joshuahhh.com, @pvh.ca and @seaofclouds.com

inkandswitch.com/essay/mallea...

It's about why people need agency over their software tools, and how to make that happen.
Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
The original promise of personal computing was a new kind of clay. Instead, we got appliances: built far away, sealed, unchangeable. In this essay, we envision malleable software: tools that users can...
inkandswitch.com
June 10, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
inkandswitch.com
Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
www.inkandswitch.com/essay/mallea...
Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
The original promise of personal computing was a new kind of clay. Instead, we got appliances: built far away, sealed, unchangeable. In this essay, we envision malleable software: tools that users can...
www.inkandswitch.com
June 10, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
schickling.dev
After 4 years of work, I'm incredibly excited to introduce LiveStore, the next-gen data layer I'm building for Overtone.

It's based on reactive SQLite and has a built-in sync engine. Give it a try - would love your feedback!
May 27, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
worrydream.com
Computational Public Space. A talk about a values-driven approach to integrating computation into cities. (40 min)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PixP...
Computational Public Space
YouTube video by Dynamicland
www.youtube.com
May 15, 2025 at 5:33 PM
paulsonnentag.bsky.social
What if you didn't need git to collaborate on games?

We've been prototyping a new approach to collaboration in Godot: live and async collaborative editing, with branches and diffs, built right into the editor.

We're looking for people to test out an early version, see link in next post:
May 15, 2025 at 10:12 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
martin.kleppmann.com
Great talk by @pvh.ca on how @inkandswitch.com goes about doing impactful research youtu.be/w7DVlI_Ztq8?...
How to Do Ambitious Research in the Modern Era
YouTube video by Nemertes
youtu.be
May 13, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
elliot.website
Here's a cut of some of my interactive and visual work from the past year.

I'm looking for work! I'm looking for remote work developing, prototyping and/or researching on editors, custom interactive things, or visualizations. I mostly work in JS/TS. Let me know if you know something pls ty :)
April 29, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
ohrobin.bsky.social
It doesn’t matter if they’re “coming for you next.” Even if your position and your privilege will ALWAYS protect you and everyone you love, it is your job as a conscious human being to fight for justice. That’s just the way it fucking is.

You don’t get to abdicate that responsibility.
April 12, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
v21.bsky.social
people find their own use for tools
silha.com Edward Silha @silha.com · Apr 10
I swear, the longer you look at this, the worse it gets…
April 11, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
pvh.ca
This is the logo for a new Ink & Switch research track. What are your guesses for the name of this research area?
a mysterious geometric logo
March 28, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
jackrusher.com
www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...
Nine New Tardigrade Species Discovered Thanks to the Efforts of Danish Schoolchildren
The budding scientists collected the tiny water bears in a massive citizen science project that involved almost 30,000 participants
www.smithsonianmag.com
March 20, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Paul Sonnentag
damienhci.bsky.social
Photoshop for text. In our #CHI2025 paper “Textoshop”, we explore how interactions inspired by drawing software can help edit text. We consider words as pixels, sentences as regions, and tones as colours. #HCI #NLProc #LLMs #AI Thread 🧵
(1/10)
March 18, 2025 at 9:28 PM