RSS feed for Ben Hoyt's technical writing https://benhoyt.com/writings/ 3600 In which I have some fun with Claude Opus 4.6, a seemingly indecisive AI coding agent. https://benhoyt.com/writings/indecisive-ai-agent/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/indecisive-ai-agent/ Mon, 13 Apr 2026 07:55:00 +1200 Dependencies are a huge supply chain security risk; the more of them you have, and the more often you update, the bigger the attack surface. https://benhoyt.com/writings/dependencies/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/dependencies/ Fri, 3 Apr 2026 00:45:00 +1300 Discusses some design choices used in Jubilant: Python subprocess.run to wrap a CLI tool, a code generator to convert Go structs to Python dataclasses, and the use of uv with a simple Makefile to run commands. https://benhoyt.com/writings/jubilant/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/jubilant/ Sat, 13 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +1300 Shows how much the performance of Go has improved from version 1.0 through to 1.22 (including PGO) -- in its compiler, runtime, and libraries. https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-version-performance-2024/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-version-performance-2024/ Sat, 13 Apr 2024 18:00:00 +1200 How I solved the One Billion Row Challenge (1BRC) in Go nine times, from a simple unoptimised version that takes 1 minute 45 seconds, to an optimised and parallelised version that takes 3.4 seconds. https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-1brc/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-1brc/ Sun, 03 Mar 2024 16:00:00 +1300 How I switched my side project from using Amazon S3 for file hosting to using Tigris (which is built on Fly.io infrastructure). It was a good experience overall, but there were a few quirks. https://benhoyt.com/writings/flyio-and-tigris/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/flyio-and-tigris/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 22:00:00 +1300 This is a transcription of Jim Lawless's interview with Ben Hoyt on his Stray Pointers podcast. We discuss Forth, C, CGI, Python, Go, and AWK. https://benhoyt.com/writings/stray-pointers-interview/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/stray-pointers-interview/ Sun, 04 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +1300 Not technical writing, but Jim Lawless interviewed me on his "Stray Pointers" podcast. We discuss Forth, C, CGI, Python, Go, and AWK. https://sites.libsyn.com/481983/discussing-programming-languages-with-ben-hoyt https://sites.libsyn.com/481983/discussing-programming-languages-with-ben-hoyt Tue, 16 Jan 2024 17:00:00 +1300 Describes a simple Markov chain algorithm to generate reasonable-sounding but utterly nonsensical text, and presents some example outputs as well as a Python implementation. https://benhoyt.com/writings/markov-chain/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/markov-chain/ Sat, 11 Nov 2023 17:30:00 +0100 Advice for how to (and how not to) apply for a software engineering job, particularly for the written parts of the interview process. As a bonus, some tips for your resume/CV. https://benhoyt.com/writings/how-to-apply/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/how-to-apply/ Tue, 26 Sep 2023 17:30:00 +1300 A discussion of the minimal version of Make included in 'The AWK Programming Language', as well as a Python port of the AWK program. https://benhoyt.com/writings/awk-make/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/awk-make/ Mon, 11 Sep 2023 09:00:00 +1200 Describes the WordStar diamond, a wonderful set of key bindings from the 1970s, and how you can use it in 2023 on Linux or Windows. https://benhoyt.com/writings/wordstar-diamond/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/wordstar-diamond/ Thu, 17 Aug 2023 12:15:00 +1200 A variable's name is more important than its type, so the name should be more prominent and come first in declarations. https://benhoyt.com/writings/name-before-type/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/name-before-type/ Mon, 07 Aug 2023 08:00:00 +1200 A brief look at the proposed enhancements to the Go standard library HTTP request router, net/http.ServeMux: matching on HTTP method, and supporting wildcards in matched paths. https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-servemux-enhancements/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-servemux-enhancements/ Mon, 31 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +1200 In which I rewrite my toy pygit client in Go to see how suitable Go is for simple scripts. https://benhoyt.com/writings/gogit/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/gogit/ Sat, 29 Jul 2023 16:30:00 +1200 Short, meaningful names that take context into account are better than long, verbose names that don't. https://benhoyt.com/writings/short-names/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/short-names/ Mon, 03 Jul 2023 21:00:00 +1200 An article about lookup tables in Forth that I co-authored with Hans Bezemer (creator of 4tH) when I was 16. https://benhoyt.com/writings/forth-lookup-tables/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/forth-lookup-tables/ Sat, 01 Jul 2023 22:10:00 +1200 When designing Python packages, decoupling the file structure from the package's API makes your package easier to import and use. https://benhoyt.com/writings/python-api-file-structure/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/python-api-file-structure/ Fri, 30 Jun 2023 22:50:00 +1200 Principles I've found useful for designing good Python library APIs, including structure, naming, error handling, and type annotations. https://benhoyt.com/writings/python-api-design/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/python-api-design/ Sun, 18 Jun 2023 21:00:00 +1200 How I switched hosting my Go-based side projects from Amazon EC2 to Fly.io, significantly simplified deployment, and saved a bit of cash while I was at it. https://benhoyt.com/writings/flyio/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/flyio/ Mon, 27 Feb 2023 10:00:00 +1300 This article describes GoAWK's code coverage support, which was contributed by Volodymyr Gubarkov. https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk-coverage/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk-coverage/ Sat, 10 Dec 2022 13:41:00 +1300 In 2022, disk I/O is very fast, and not usually the performance bottleneck in programs. This article digs into some numbers. https://benhoyt.com/writings/io-is-no-longer-the-bottleneck/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/io-is-no-longer-the-bottleneck/ Sat, 26 Nov 2022 22:20:00 +1300 What our crowdfunding startup microPledge was, why it failed, and what we learned from the process. https://benhoyt.com/writings/micropledge/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/micropledge/ Mon, 14 Nov 2022 20:00:00 +1200 Translating Rob Pike's simple and elegant C regex matcher to Go. https://benhoyt.com/writings/rob-pike-regex/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/rob-pike-regex/ Fri, 12 Aug 2022 14:00:00 +1200 How I build my website benhoyt.com with GitHub Pages, Jekyll, a simple HTML+CSS layout, Sublime Text, and Sublime Merge. https://benhoyt.com/writings/tools-i-use-to-build-my-website/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/tools-i-use-to-build-my-website/ Tue, 02 Aug 2022 19:00:00 +1200 Why and how I added proper CSV support to GoAWK, my POSIX-compatible AWK interpreter. https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk-csv/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk-csv/ Tue, 10 May 2022 09:30:00 +1200 Describes Prig, which is for Processing Records In Go. It's a text processing tool like AWK, but it uses Go as the scripting language. https://benhoyt.com/writings/prig/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/prig/ Sun, 27 Feb 2022 18:20:00 +0100 Shows how much the performance of Go has improved from version 1.2 through to 1.18 -- in its compiler, runtime, and libraries. https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-version-performance/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-version-performance/ Fri, 4 Feb 2022 09:30:00 +1300 How I sped up GoAWK by switching from a tree-walking interpreter to a bytecode compiler and virtual machine interpreter. https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk-compiler-vm/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/goawk-compiler-vm/ Thu, 3 Feb 2022 22:25:00 +1300 A discussion of AWKGo, a simple compiler that translates a useful subset of the AWK text processing language into Go source code. https://benhoyt.com/writings/awkgo/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/awkgo/ Mon, 22 Nov 2021 00:10:00 +1300 My re-implementation of the code from the official Go tutorial 'Developing a RESTful API with Go and Gin', using only the standard library, adding tests, and fixing issues. https://benhoyt.com/writings/web-service-stdlib/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/web-service-stdlib/ Wed, 17 Nov 2021 07:00:00 +1300 Simple Lists is a tiny to-do list web application written in Go, with old school server-side rendering and no JavaScript. https://benhoyt.com/writings/simple-lists/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/simple-lists/ Mon, 4 Oct 2021 07:30:00 +1300 A critical but informative look at the new structural pattern matching feature in Python 3.10, with real-world code examples. https://benhoyt.com/writings/python-pattern-matching/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/python-pattern-matching/ Mon, 20 Sep 2021 19:30:00 +1200 An overview of Mugo, a single-pass compiler for a tiny subset of the Go programming language -- just enough to compile itself. https://benhoyt.com/writings/mugo/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/mugo/ Mon, 12 Apr 2021 20:30:00 +1300 An explanation of how to implement a simple hash table data structure, with code and examples in the C programming language. https://benhoyt.com/writings/hash-table-in-c/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/hash-table-in-c/ Fri, 26 Mar 2021 20:30:00 +1300 Performance comparison of counting and sorting word frequencies in various languages (Python, Go, C++, C, AWK, Forth, Rust, and others). https://benhoyt.com/writings/count-words/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/count-words/ Mon, 15 Mar 2021 20:30:00 +1300 A vision for the "small web", small software, and small architectures. Also, a bonus rant about microservices. https://benhoyt.com/writings/the-small-web-is-beautiful/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/the-small-web-is-beautiful/ Tue, 2 Mar 2021 06:50:00 +1300 A look at the new os.ReadDir function and os.DirEntry interface coming in Go 1.16, with a comparison to os.scandir in Python. https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-readdir/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-readdir/ Fri, 29 Jan 2021 10:00:00 +1300 An overview of fuzz testing and the go-fuzz tool, as well as a look at the recent draft design for including fuzz testing in the `go` tool (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/829242/ https://lwn.net/Articles/829242/ Tue, 25 Aug 2020 08:00:00 +1200 A look at Sourcegraph, a code search and code intelligence tool (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/828748/ https://lwn.net/Articles/828748/ Mon, 17 Aug 2020 08:00:00 +1200 Compares routing techniques in Go, including five custom approaches and three using third-party routing libraries. https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-routing/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-routing/ Fri, 31 Jul 2020 08:00:00 +1200 A presentation of the Go draft designs for a filesystem interface and a standard way to embed files in a Go binary (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/827215/ https://lwn.net/Articles/827215/ Fri, 31 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +1200 Talks about the valiant but almost-dead 10-year effort to prevent tracking with the Do Not Track header. https://lwn.net/Articles/826575/ https://lwn.net/Articles/826575/ Wed, 22 Jul 2020 11:00:00 +1200 An overview of the new features in Lua 5.4 (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/826134/ https://lwn.net/Articles/826134/ Wed, 15 Jul 2020 11:00:00 +1200 An overview of Hugo, a flexible static website generator written in Go and optimized for speed (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/825507/ https://lwn.net/Articles/825507/ Wed, 8 Jul 2020 11:00:00 +1200 Gives some background, the current state, and potential timeline for including generics in the Go programming language (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/824716/ https://lwn.net/Articles/824716/ Wed, 1 Jul 2020 11:00:00 +1200 Looks at some heavier replacements for Google Analytics, as well as the GoAccess log-based analytics tool (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/824294/ https://lwn.net/Articles/824294/ Wed, 24 Jun 2020 11:00:00 +1200 Discusses what Google Analytics tracks, and presents two lightweight alternatives: GoatCounter and Plausible (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/822568/ https://lwn.net/Articles/822568/ Wed, 17 Jun 2020 11:00:00 +1200 A brief introduction to Go for programmers who haven't used Go before: Why use it? The standard library. And the language itself. https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-intro/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/go-intro/ Wed, 10 Jun 2020 23:38:00 +1200 Describes my port of Adrian Siekierka's "Reconstruction of ZZT" to Go, done in a semi-automated way using a Pascal-to-Go converter. https://benhoyt.com/writings/zzt-in-go/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/zzt-in-go/ Fri, 29 May 2020 17:25:00 +1200 Describes the minimalist philosophy of testing in Go and the built-in testing tools (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/821358/ https://lwn.net/Articles/821358/ Wed, 27 May 2020 12:00:00 +1200 Surveys the AWK landscape, looks at new features in GNU Awk, and discusses why AWK is still relevant in 2020 (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/820829/ https://lwn.net/Articles/820829/ Wed, 20 May 2020 12:00:00 +1200 An overview of what's coming in the Go 1.15 final release in August 2020 (LWN.net). https://lwn.net/Articles/820217/ https://lwn.net/Articles/820217/ Wed, 13 May 2020 12:00:00 +1200 Why you shouldn't try to sanitize user input; instead, escape output correctly. https://benhoyt.com/writings/dont-sanitize-do-escape/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/dont-sanitize-do-escape/ Thu, 27 Feb 2020 19:27:00 +1200 The basics of Search Engine Optimization, written for software developers. https://benhoyt.com/writings/seo-for-software-engineers/ https://benhoyt.com/writings/seo-for-software-engineers/ Thu, 20 Feb 2020 12:00:00 +1200