Tech — Work — Ramblings

by Mike Kalvas

I see you're not using JavaScript (which is awesome!) on one of my pages that uses it to provide a better experience. If you see something not working right, please let me know. My site should work exactly the same without it apart from any exceptions noted here.

I use prism.min.js to do syntax highlighting. It clocks in at 23kb total in size. Since the majority of the writing I do involves coding, I personally find this to be a worthwhile trade off. If you choose to keep this disabled, rest assured, the code examples are still there, they just may have some extra whitespace and obviously no syntax highlighting.

I do no tracking at all and am a zealot about keeping my pages as small as possible. If you're reading a page of mine that transfers more than about 250kb over the wire (including my most gratuitous indulgence — fonts) I've messed up.

So, if you'd like to have a slightly richer experience, consider enabling javascript for my site and I promise your trust won't be misplaced.

202109251125 Post-apocalyptic software

Software whose evolution has become lost technology, harrowing to operate or extend. It's more of a ritual or art to keep it running.¹

If the post-apocalyptic system can be left alone then we should abandon it or allow it to stay in stasis forever. If we need to use it actively or make any changes then it needs to be rewritten or reclaimed (202109251102 Reclaiming software systems).

Larson, W. (2019, July 28). Reclaim unreasonable software. Irrational Exuberance. https://lethain.com/reclaim-unreasonable-software/ ↩