Language design / Meaning / Microarticle
Where the Meaning Lives
Conventions, tags, editors and the definition hiding on page 40. What the file knows, what the tool checks, and what the writer still has to remember.
Read →Knowledge / language / practice
Articles
Essays on the ideas and methods that cross the projects. A reading shelf, rather than a stream of updates.
Interfaces / Language / Microarticle
You Don’t Know You’re Thinking
Menus, styles and the five words you retyped. Familiarity hides the effort. Keyboard shortcuts are another little language.
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AI / Making things / Microarticle
The Something Or Nothing Bus
A budget of zero, an invoice that never existed, and a practical question: would the work otherwise happen? Spanish sounds fun.
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Language / Domain knowledge / Microarticle
What Is a Domain Specific Language?
Practitioner, domain, specific, language. Put them together, order a coffee, and discover the working shorthand you already use.
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Language design / Usefulness / Microarticle
Tools Should Understand the Work
Why build tiny languages? Put expertise into the tool: familiar vocabulary, intelligent defaults and meaningful checks, with less repetition and more attention left for the craft.
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Domain knowledge / Microarticle
Acquiring Domain Knowledge
Reading rules, examining examples, interviewing practitioners, doing the work, and drawing on existing bodies of knowledge. Where expertise comes from, before it becomes a language.
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Computing / Experimentation / Microarticle
AI Makes Computers Fun Again
An Atari 800, animated characters and a game built in weeks. How AI brings the art of the possible back within reach—and makes combining domains exciting again.
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Expertise / Authorship
AI Assertion
AI is an accelerant. A note on investigation, expertise, and using AI to make knowledge clearer without confusing presentation with authorship.
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Graphic novels / Production / Microarticle
Comic Book Production Bible
What belongs in a production Bible: the story, the visual decisions, the working rules and the record of what has been agreed.
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Information architecture / IT security / Microarticle
The Principle of Crushing Inevitability — IT Security Work
A task, an approval and a document. Links, shared identifiers and explicit states should carry the reviewer through the work.
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Information architecture / Comic scripts / Microarticle
The Principle of Crushing Inevitability — Writing Comic Scripts
Carry the identity through the script, the Bible and the artwork. Give collaborators the right reference without making them hunt for it.
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Writing / Brevity / Microarticle
Brevity, Brevity — My Kingdom for Some Brevity!
Brevity for Brevity’s Sake. A crowded Ideas Book, the case against padding, and why these short outlines are already the articles.
Read →Project posts and announcements: CraftSyntax on Substack ↗.