Reflection

I read a post on the Haskell Discourse this week that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. It’s called How to keep enjoying programming in a world of LLMs, written by a developer who goes by turion, and halfway through I had that slightly uncomfortable feeling of reading something I could have written. Or at least, something I’ve been circling for months without quite landing on. Go read it. It’s long, it’s thoughtful, and it’s (by the author’s own declaration) 100% human written. Which, these days, is worth mentioning. ...

I never posted why I paused development on So This Is How I Die. If you’ve been following the devlog, you’ll know the story up to a point. The slow progress, the balancing act with client work, the occasional “I’m having a hard time” entry that I posted because solo dev accountability sometimes means confessing that nothing is on fire, you’re just tired. What you won’t find is a post that says this is where I stopped, and here’s why. ...

2025 was an interesting year. I’m writing this post in March 2026, not December 2025 or January 2026 as is customary, because guess what? 2026 hasn’t been a picnic either. As with 2024, I’m still extremely grateful for the support I’ve received since starting PiForge. While the company faced its first real challenges with contracts and late payments, we managed to navigate through them and come out stronger. The new office has been a game-changer, and having a split between work and home has been great. ...

Trigger warning: This post contains opinions. Specifically mine. It also contains a confession or two, which I’m not thrilled about, but here we are. I don’t have many people in tech I actively look up to. The industry is drowning in loud, obnoxious voices who are very good at having opinions and very bad at having done anything. But Carmack is one of the rare exceptions. He’s always been the quiet, thoughtful one. The hacker in the original sense; someone who understands systems deeply enough to bend them, who ships because building is the point, not the clout. I’ve written before about my own struggle with that identity vs. the need to actually make money, that tension between doing the craft and doing the business. Carmack, for most of his career, has never had to compromise on that. He gets to just build. ...

🧩 I fell into a trap. One I’m often warning others not to fall into. Two of them, actually. 💻 The solution I’m building for one client isn’t necessarily a hard problem. There are existing solutions, but we want a simple MVP at lowest cost, so most paid services are off the table. With our custom integration needs, we decided to roll most of it ourselves. No, this wasn’t the trap. ...

🌱 As 2024 enters the rear-view mirror and we look forward to 2025, this is usually an opportune time to reflect and plan. Those who know me personally are aware that 2024 was a challenging year with personal loss and challenges in the extended family, as well as some health issues, but it was also one with opportunity and challenges (some I chose for myself). 💼 I’m extremely grateful for the support I’ve received after starting PiForge. It’s been an amazing start for a new company, and while the last few months have been challenging with deadlines and extra hours, I look forward to what that means for the future. ...

Right, so it’s been a minute since I last posted something. Like many other companies this last year, we weren’t spared layoffs. While I still have my job, my team has been greatly reduced, both from people leaving when they saw the signs and from people being let go. So while fighting survivors guilt and an increased workload, posting hasn’t been my first priority. But while doing my day to day and trying to keep my head down and deliver as much as possible as quickly as possible, I noticed something. And I’m not sure how I feel about it, other than we need to talk about it. ...