Sometimes It Works

Writing somewhat aimlessly about my (mis)adventures in software engineering and life.

Here are some useless stats: I've published 53 articles. The most recent article was published on 20th Jan '25 .
And I have 48 articles in draft. The most recent one of those was created on 12th Sep '22 .

• On AI doomerism 20th Jan '25 • 5 mins

  This is a reflection on this post (of the same title) that I thoroughly enjoyed, by Flavio Copes. "I am the genuine article, therefore I don't have to try. I just have to be. You, on the...
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• 2024: Just the Start 31st Dec '24 • 4 mins

  2024 has overall been a great year for me personally. I believe it represents a turning point. 2023 was tough, but 2024 went some way to redressing the balance and I am even more positive about...
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• Slow Tech is Good Tech 29th May '24 • 5 mins

  This morning, I watched a video advertising a course aimed at developers. One of the first sentiments proclaimed is that of feeling left behind, that tech is moving too fast to keep up. I think...
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• Simon Shares 16th Apr '24 • 1 mins

  I've started a little podcast! If you give it a listen, I'd love to know what you think.
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• Why You (Probably) Shouldn't Start With an SPA 1st Feb '24 • 11 mins

  I came across this interesting article by @gregnavis the other day. I guess it's from a few years ago now, judging by some of the other posts on his blog. But it still holds up. It's maybe even...
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• 2023: The Rollercoaster 29th Dec '23 • 8 mins

  This year has been quite a ride! 🎢 It's felt like the first real year since 2020 that things have been somewhat "normal". However, looking back, it's been anything but normal. Job...
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• It's not just me, then! 28th Sep '23 • 2 mins

  I don't want to hapr on about Twitter's downfall as a medium for people to connect, but... as I mentioned a few weeks ago, the situation is pretty bad right now. For a while, I truly believed it...
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• A-A-Ron! 20th Sep '23 • 4 mins

  Aaron Francis is a rising star in the Laravel community. Over the past couple of years he's rocketed up because he's a genuinely thoughtful, intelligent and funny guy. I like him. I met him very...
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• Streaming & Recording 18th Sep '23 • 1 mins

  I started streaming on Twitch a while ago. My plan was to do it regularly, but you know how life gets in the way. I'm going to make a concerted effort to do more tho going forwards. Streams are...
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• Getting background colours to go all the way 14th Sep '23 • 8 mins

  I'm pretty proud of the Gitamic diff viewer. It's not perfect (and probably never will be thanks to different browser rendering engines), but it can handle some pretty gnarly diffs quite...
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• Laravel Nova Import v0.7 12th Sep '23 • 3 mins

  I recently spent a little time on my Laravel Nova CSV Import package, one of my main open source packages. This came at the request of a sponsor. This gave me the opportunity to level-up some of...
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• Flicker 11th Sep '23 • 1 mins

  Flicker I originally wrote this 1 year ago today but didn't publish it. Just a little flicker, That’s all it takes. Makes smaller and lighter Until it’s all erased. Can’t get close to...
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• How I Update and Deploy this Site 5th Sep '23 • 2 mins

  I love a good CMS. I don't like how slow they can be to load pages. A sudden spike in traffic and even a rapid CMS can cause an unprepared server to grind to a halt. I used to love running my own...
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• The waning reach of Twitter 5th Sep '23 • 3 mins

  I'm really frustrated with Twitter lately... I have developed an unhealthy reliance upon TwitterWhen I'm not on it, I'm thinking about it. When my phone is in my hand, my thumbs default to...
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• NativePHP is here! 9th Aug '23 • 1 mins

  You already know this. Unless you've been under a magically floating rock for a couple of weeks. Please go check it out: nativephp.com I'm still working on the Tauri driver, but Marcel did an...
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• Finally! 17th Apr '23 • 7 mins

  I haven't been super vocal about this very much over the past few months (I maybe need to be better at that?), but you may know that I left Elvie back at the end of October 2022. I was there for...
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• Moving from Medium 31st Jan '23 • 4 mins

  I finally did it! I took the plunge and am running my own blog. It's been many years since I ran my own site 'properly'. And now that it's practically free, it was about time. For the eagle-eyed...
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• Autonomy: What it is and what it isn’t 11th Aug '22 • 10 mins

  Goldilocks Autonomy One of the principles of the Agile Manifesto: Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job...
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• 4 Years In 13th Feb '21 • 2 mins

  4 Years In I’ve been at Elvie 4 years already! I can’t quite believe how quickly the time has gone by or the amazing things we’ve accomplished as a team. 2020 was by far the hardest year, but in...
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• Spelunking desktop apps saves time 20th Apr '20 • 5 mins

  Spelunking desktop apps saves time A tale of restoring Tower bookmarks I’m a big fan of Tower, a native Git GUI for Mac and Windows. I was really lucky to be working with Joel Gascoigne on a...
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