Many javascript projects have install instructions recommending that people use a CDN like jsdelivr or unpkg to include the code on their website. This has the advantage that it's quicker to get started with, and it's often claimed to load faster. However, it also has downsides when it comes to privacy, security, and systemic risk, and it may actually be slower in some common cases. Here are some reasons not to use a javascript CDN, and some alternatives to consider instead.| Wesley Aptekar-Cassels
If you were creating a web app from scratch today, what database would you use? Probably the most frequent answer I see to this is Postgres, although there are a wide range of common answers: MySQL, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB, etc. Today I want you to consider: what if SQLite would do just fine?| Wesley Aptekar-Cassels
I see a lot of essays framed as writing advice which are actually thinly veiled descriptions of how someone writes that basically say "you should write how I write", e.g., people who write short posts say that you should write short posts. As with technical topics, I think a lot of different things can work and what's really important is that you find a style that's suitable to you and the context you operate in. Copying what's worked for someone else is unlikely to work for you, making "writ...| danluu.com
The brand of simplistic and overzealous moralism that exists online has long been tedious, but the pandemic has made it even more so.| Hazlitt
Dispatches from the confines of heterosexual marriage| jill.substack.com
Recently a security hole in a certain open source Java library resulted in a worldwide emergency kerfuffle as, say, 40% of the possibly hund...| apenwarr.ca
What if all these weird tech trends actually add up to something? Last time, we explored why various bits of trendy technology are, in my o...| apenwarr.ca
In Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, David Graeber makes the case that a sizable chunk of the labour economy is essentially people performing useless work, as a sort of subconscious self-preservation instinct of the economic status quo. The book cites ample anecdotal evidence that people perceive their own jobs as completely disconnected from any sort of value creation, and makes the case that the ruling class stands to lose from the proletariat having extra free time on their hands. It’s a thoughtf...| paulbutler.org
Log libraries and the tendency to open holes in things| rachelbythebay.com
One way a builder culture can fail| rachelbythebay.com
I guess I know something about train wrecks. One night when I was 10 years old, me and my mom were driving home. We came to a train crossin...| apenwarr.ca
A terrible schema from a clueless programmer| rachelbythebay.com
