Dustin Boston

Category: Links

  • Anti-AI Hype

    Simon Willison’s response to Don’t fall into the anti-AI hype

    I’m glad someone was brave enough to say this. There is a lot of anti-AI sentiment in the software development community these days. Much of it is justified, but if you let people convince you that AI isn’t genuinely useful for software developers or that this whole thing will blow over soon it’s becoming clear that you’re taking on a very real risk to your future career.

    Don’t fall into the anti-AI hype

    Whatever you believe about what the Right Thing should be, you can’t control it by refusing what is happening right now. Skipping AI is not going to help you or your career.

  • Technical Blogging Lessons Learned

    Lots of good advice about blogging in this post, like writing with a time limit:

    Setting time limits. I started… with the idea of using 60min every Sunday to write. Whatever gets written in those 60min gets published.

    Or this one from Jeff Atwood about making writing a habit:

    Just write. Make a habit of writing. It’s like exercise. It’s like anything else…mental health. What are the fundamentals of mental health? Are you eating? Are you sleeping? Are you exercising? Are you having sane interactions with friends and family? These are the fundamentals. And I would add another fundamental to that: Are you writing?

  • Web Frameworks and LLMs

    Dead Framework Theory makes some good points about React and LLMs:

    1. React has become the default framework of the web
    2. React’s dominance is perpetuated by LLMs via existing sites and tooling
    3. New frameworks and platform features must compete against via LLMs
    4. Framework innovation stagnates and frameworks become irrelevant

  • Functional Programming in React

    Level Up React: Functional programming in React

    React uses a functional paradigm, so we should use functional principles when using it. This article shows the basics of functional programming with React. I’m interested to see how far this can be taken. For example, could we use combinators as HOC’s to compose pages?

  • Working From Home Improves Mental Health

    The effects of commuting and working from home arrangements on mental health

    Working from home improves mental health as compared to commuting, especially among women and those with poor mental health.

  • More Ways CSS and HTML Can Replace JavaScript

    You No Longer Need JavaScript by Lyra Rebane

    Modern CSS and HTML can replace JavaScript for more use cases than most developers realize. The web is evolving away from JS-heavy frameworks and toward progressive enhancement.

    This article has examples of centering things, nested CSS, web components, dark mode, CSS variables, accordions, and form field validation.

  • Web Components are for Progressive Enhancement

    HTML Web Components

    Rather than an empty “shell component” that takes data and (using JavaScript exclusively) renders the entirety of its contents, web components encourage an approach of composing core content with HTML and then wrapping it in a custom element that enhances its contents with additional functionality.

    This perspective highlights how the web uses progressive enhancement by default. It can also make your web components much smaller.

  • Research is Slow, Development is Fast

    Slowness is a Virtue

    Development is the execution of a map toward a goal while research is the pursuit of a goal without a map… In this sense, when it comes to research, speed should be considered an anti-signal and slowness a virtue.

    If you can define the steps for a task, then the task is development. Conversely, the tasks that can’t be defined (because there isn’t a known solution) are research tasks.

  • Social Isolation Speeds Cognitive Decline

    Reducing Social Isolation Offers Brain Protection in Later Life

    New research published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences has discovered a direct causal effect between social isolation and a faster decline in later-life cognitive function.

    Social engagement is defined with three components:

    One is sociability measured through: partnership/marital status, time spent with family and friends, as well as likely barriers to sociability. The second component is church group membership, measured through self-reported frequency of religious participation. The third component is membership in community organizations, measured through self-reports of how many hours respondents spend volunteering per year

    Via Neuroscience News

  • Thin Desires

    Thin Desires Are Eating Your Life

    A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it. A thin desire is one that doesn’t… Thick desires are inconvenient. They take years to cultivate and can’t be satisfied on demand… The thick life doesn’t scale.

    I think Cal Newport would call this Deep Work and Quality Leisure Time. I love the idea of doing things in ways that don’t scale.