The five best design links, every weekday

Category: Programming

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waspdev.com

Some software bloat is OK

The software efficiency in an era of fast CPUs, gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of storage.

frederickvanbrabant.com

Architectural debt is not just technical debt

Code debt are the hacks you put in place to reach a deadline; architectural debt are the decisions that come back to bite you six months later.

cubic.dev

The real problem with AI coding

The problem with AI coding isn't technical debt. It's comprehension debt.

blog.joemag.dev

The new calculus of AI-based coding

Agentic coding instead of vibe coding—much less exciting, but in our industry boring is usually good.

justoffbyone.com

Measuring engineering productivity

A lightweight system for measuring engineering productivity that puts the overhead on managers, not engineers.

jessylin.com

The continual learning problem

How do we keep updating the parameters of a model without breaking it?

jamesshore.com

The accountability problem

How do we define software department accountability so our business partners don’t do it for us?

boydkane.com

Why your boss isn’t worried about AI

When it comes to understanding the dangers of AI systems, the general public has the worst kind of knowledge.

austinhenley.com

The design space of AI coding tools

10 design dimensions based on 90 AI coding tools.

stavros.io

Why is everything so scalable?

We’ve been in “FAANG architecture by default” hell for a while now.

rosswintle.uk

Software can be finished

You probably don’t want to build “finished software”. But what can we learn by thinking about it as a concept?

spotifyapi.report

State of Spotify web API report 2025

Understanding Spotify’s new API restrictions and finding practical alternatives.

a11y-collective.com

When to use Modal vs Dialog components

Implementation patterns, accessibility guidelines, and best practices for creating user-friendly interfaces.

hojberg.xyz

The programmer identity crisis

On AI, creativity, and craft.

bharath.sh

Vercel vs Cloudflare: two philosophies of building for developers

Neutral observations on the Vercel vs Cloudflare race to win the edge and developer mindshare.

mrkaran.dev

AI and home-cooked software

AI is enabling a new category of personal software. Welcome to the era of home-cooked applications.

hacker-laws.com

Hacker laws

Laws, Theories, Principles and Patterns that developers might find useful.

antropia.studio

To AI or not to AI

A two-week experiment building an app with full AI assistance, exploring both the promise and frustrations of LLM-based development workflows.

seangoedecke.com

What is “good taste” in software engineering?

Technical taste is different from technical skill.

blog.nilenso.com

The common sense unit of work

What if we were to model a typical software development lifecycle in code?