Building a San Francisco map feels a bit like cheating
I’ve always wanted a small, animated SVG map of just San Francisco. The city’s open data was already there. Codex made the rest feel easy.
Web Development
Writing on Web Development, newest first.
40articles in this collection2016–2026
4 min
Why I built ChHeader
ModHeader's ad injection put me off. I built ChHeader to edit HTTP headers without ads, with local profiles and source anyone can inspect.
What’s There to Learn from WordPress?
The WP Engine fight, the Valkey fork, and agent-written code raise a harder question: what keeps an open-source project honest?
Optimizing Cubbly After Moving Away from SSR
Removing SSR simplified Cubbly but delayed useful inventory. I compared four client-loading compositions and kept the one that made real route content 31–42% faster.
Removing React SSR from Cubbly to Simplify Lingui
I removed React SSR from Cubbly because maintaining Lingui across the Worker and browser was not worth the speed it bought on a private application.
Evaluating a TanStack Table v9 Upgrade
I wanted to keep a shared table component current without accepting migration work on faith. A side-by-side benchmark made the trade-off much easier to judge.
React Router v8 Learned to Make Upgrades Boring
React Router v8 keeps the framework-mode API familiar and moves v7's future flags into defaults. That restraint matters after an expensive v6-to-v7 migration.
The Best Coding Agent Is the One You Can Keep Using
Grok Build produces useful patches, but its weekly limit changes how I use it. The harness and quota now matter more than the model.
Learning Rust with Claude Code Through Local Hardware Projects
Claude Code lowers the cost of being a Rust beginner. It kept two local-hardware projects moving while I learned the language inside them.
Cloudflare Redirects for Static Blog URL Migrations
I keep changing this blog. One small Cloudflare Worker lets the URLs survive the changes while the site itself stays static.
Papra Was Running. SQLite Still Couldn't Write.
Papra looked healthy on my NAS while registration failed. The browser hid the useful detail: SQLite belonged to the wrong user.
Your Linter Needs to Be as Fast as Your AI
Biome keeps my AI coding loop moving, but it doesn't replace TypeScript. Here is the current setup and the trade-off I kept.
Claude Code Plugins Turn Instructions Into Dependencies
I expected Claude Code plugins to be heavy infrastructure. The frontend-design plugin is mostly Markdown; the marketplace makes it installable and scoped.
Vite’s ?url Import Gives You a URL, Not jQuery
In Vite, ?url changes a JavaScript import into an asset URL import. Here is the fix—and when the suffix is actually useful.
jQuery 4: I Can't Believe They Actually Did It
jQuery 4 finally drops old browser baggage while keeping the DOM API that still earns its place in legacy interfaces.
Tailwind v4 Missed Every Class in My Shared Package
Tailwind v4 rendered my shared components without their utility classes. One @source directive fixed three hours of monorepo debugging.
I Default to React Router Loaders Until Caching Hurts
Six months with React Router loaders changed my default. I add React Query only when repeated fetching, shared data, or polling gives me a reason.
React Compiler Changes When to Reach for useMemo
React Compiler 1.0 moved routine rendering memoization into the build. React.memo, useCallback, and useMemo now need a specific reason.
Rewriting /tag/* to /tags/* with Cloudflare Workers
A small Cloudflare Worker can rewrite /tag/* to /tags/* without changing the main application or dropping query strings.
Cloudflare Pages to Workers: Do You Need to Move?
I moved a static site from Cloudflare Pages to Workers in five minutes. The config was easy; deciding whether a static blog benefits is harder.
Building a Modern Full-Stack Web Application - Part 2
How I deployed the React Router application with Fly.io, Cloudflare, Neon, Docker, and reviewable database migration history.
Building a Modern Full-Stack Web Application: Part 1
The React Router, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, and authentication stack I chose after using LLMs to prototype the alternatives.
Fix Cloudflare 525 Errors with Fly.io
Stale DNS stopped Fly.io issuing my origin certificate. Fixing that cleared the Cloudflare 525 error in this deployment.
Migrating from Remix to React Router v7 - Part 2
The migration took two focused sessions: dependencies first, then 40 files of imports and route types. Typegen was the part worth keeping.
Migrating from Remix to React Router v7 - Part 1
My Remix-to-React Router v7 migration touched 40 files and removed 591 net lines. Imports were easy; TypeScript took the time.
The Cost of Switching from Next.js to Remix
Leaving Next.js for Remix taught me why the annoying-looking use client boundary exists—and what Remix gives up without it.
Vercel EMFILE Errors with Remix on Hobby Plan
My Remix app ran locally and failed on Vercel with EMFILE. The workarounds reduced file churn but could not expose or change the platform limit.
How I Moved This Blog from Node.js to Bun
The package manager was the easy part. File APIs, CI, compatibility checks, and Claude Code produced most of the migration's useful work.
Bun Cut This Blog's Build Time Nearly in Half
Moving this blog from Node.js to Bun cut its build from 37 seconds to 20. Native file and glob APIs also removed code I no longer needed.
OpenAI Playing Catch-Up in the AI Coding Wars
OpenAI talked a ~$3B Windsurf deal. I use Claude Code and Cursor; the story that matters is who owns the IDE relationship, not the model API.
I Would Start with Vite and Make Webpack Prove Itself
The benchmark gap was obvious, but deleting 90 lines of build configuration was the better reason to choose Vite for a modern app.
How Claude Code Built This Blog - Part 2
Claude Code helped build the parser, generator, templates, and Cloudflare deployment. Syntax highlighting and timezones took more work.
How Claude Code Built This Blog - Part 1
I paid about $10 to see whether Claude Code could scaffold the TypeScript static-site generator behind this blog. Most of its choices held up.
Chrome Started Disabling uBlock Origin, So I Switched to Brave
When Chrome began disabling uBlock Origin under Manifest V3, I stopped looking for another extension and moved my browsing to Brave.
Why I Built a Static Blog
A personal blog should be fast on a phone and boring to host — Markdown to static HTML on Cloudflare, no app server.
Back to Blogging: Web Development, AI, and SF
I started writing here again — web development, AI tools I actually run, and what SF startups taught me the expensive way.
Running PHP 5.6 with Apache on El Capitan
The Apache module path was the easy-to-miss part of running Homebrew's PHP 5.6 on macOS El Capitan. Here is the full setup.
Understanding CORS: Basic vs. Preflight Requests
CORS failures that look unrelated often come down to request type, duplicate headers, or credentials. Here is how the browser treats each case.
Upgrading WordPress to PHP 7: Configuration Changes
Ubuntu 16.04 ships with PHP 7, which broke my WordPress. Here's how to upgrade PHP config and point nginx to the new php-fpm socket.
Setting Up CORS Vary-Origin Headers in AWS S3
The exact S3 CORS configuration I used to make responses vary by origin instead of letting a CDN cache the wrong header.
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