Adam Keys

Wrapping up lil’ document editor “research”, starting to write more on it. In short: cross-platform in the Apple ecosystem is possible, but tricky once you get into third-party libraries. Agent coding makes a lot possible, bu... https://therealadam.com/2026/03/07/wrapping-up-lil-document-editor.html

Behind every guitar god there is, literally, a drummer making the odd 7/8 or 5/4 bar sound like 4/4. Paraphrasing Einstein, true guitar gods don’t play at dice or outside of a strict 4/4. (Inspired by: what the heck even is “Black Dog”?)

Squeeze out the trickiest part of the problem, another part of the problem becomes the trickiest. A tale as old as time.

"Today, it seems like the biggest opportunities will be in the third of my opening statements. Building ... https://therealadam.com/2026/03/01/squeeze-out-the-trickiest-part.html

NetNewsWire 2.0

A macOS desktop displays multiple overlapping windows, including a NetNewsWire, Bear, and Ulysses.

A macOS desktop displays multiple overlapping windows, including a NetNewsWire, Bear, and Ulysses.

Blogging (Classic): https://therealadam.com/2026/02/24/blogging-classic.html

Wherein you need feeds, notes, and documents.

I love when/what Matt Webb builds:

"It should be SO EASY to share + collaborate on Markdown text files. The AI world runs on .md files. Yet frictionless Google Docs-style collab is so hard… UNTIL NOW, and how about that for a teas... https://therealadam.com/2026/02/16/i-love-whenwhat-matt-webb.html

dedicated pneumatic tubes for girl scout cookies could fix me. IT COULD FIX AMERICA

Contra my optimism on software estimates, some realism:

"I gather as much political context as possible before I even look at the code. How much pressure is on this project? Is it a casual ask, or do we have to find a way to ... https://therealadam.com/2026/02/10/contra-my-optimism-on-software.html

"Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to change, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.
– Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Waste Books"

You can’t argue with a star!

IMG_4460 Edited.

I went to see an elephant about a birthday.

Book cover of 'The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet' by Becky Chambers on a wooden surface. The cover features a dark space background with a glowing planet in the upper left and an illustration of a spacecraft in the center-right. Bold yellow-green lettering displays the title across the cover. A yellow circular badge in the upper right indicates it is a "Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Series." A quote from Ann Leckie praising the book as "Great fun!" appears near the bottom.

Finished in January but forgot to add it. Everything I’ve read by Becky Chambers is fun SF that makes you feel optimistic for the future of humanity. "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" is no exception—great story, rich world building, likable characters, tackling issues of politics & gender.

Dave Rupert, Write about the future you want:

"There’s a lot that’s not going well; politics, tech bubbles, the economy, and so on. I spend most of my day reading angry tweets and blog posts. There’s a lot to be upset about, so ... https://therealadam.com/2026/02/04/dave-rupert-write-about-the.html

This is not my beautiful agent-driven economy: https://therealadam.com/2026/02/02/this-is-not-my-beautiful.html

Wherein someone’s gonna be wrong about AI

I’ve been reading Power Broker on and off throughout the year (brag). I’m almost five hundred pages in (brag again) and it’s worth it. The writing is as good as the research is deep. Which is to say, it manages to maintain a gr... https://therealadam.com/2026/01/29/ive-been-reading-power-broker.html

Simon Willison:

"If you have significant previous coding experience - even if it’s a few years stale - you can drive these things really effectively. Especially if you have management experience, quite a lot of which transfers to... https://therealadam.com/2026/01/27/simon-willison-if-you-have.html

Wherein we're not here to push Trello cards around
https://therealadam.com/2026/01/17/processes-should-serve-outcomes-not.html

Processes should serve outcomes, not the other way ‘round: https://therealadam.com/2026/01/17/processes-should-serve-outcomes-not.html

Wherein there are cars, light-sabers, and television in my life.

https://therealadam.com/2026/01/15/i-was-back-at-destiny.html

It’s the end-game of typing code as we know it: https://therealadam.com/2026/01/04/its-the-endgame-of-typing.html

Wherein it continues to be about the other things

Joining a new crew amidst a sea change: https://therealadam.com/2026/01/02/joining-a-new-crew-amidst.html

Wherein types, agents, and quality-of-life matter a lot for software development these days.

The hand we dealt: https://therealadam.com/2025/12/26/the-hand-we-dealt.html

Wherein generational life-scripts have downstream consequences.

Three great clarinet-adjacent sentences: https://therealadam.com/2025/12/20/three-great-clarinetadjacent-sentences.html

Coding for the sake of typing in code: https://therealadam.com/2025/12/17/coding-for-the-sake-of.html

Expert typist’s elegy

The Real "Purdie" Shuffle YouTube video by ClassicDrummers

When Bernard Purdie played a session, he'd sometimes put up a sign that said "You Done Hired the Hitmaker."

He was that good.

youtu.be/J8DsNo4KB6Y?...

Why speed matters The one constant that I have observed in my professional life is that people underestimate the need to move fast. Of course, doing good work takes time. I once spent six months writing a URL parser. But the fact that it took so long is not a feature, it is not a positive, it is … Continue reading Why speed matters

> If everything is slow-moving around you, it is likely not going to be good. To fully make use of your brain, you need to move as close as possible to the speed of your thought.

lemire.me/blog/2025/1...

Write some pseudocode. Then tell the agent to turn it into a working implementation.

That's a whole wisdom. 🤷 Don't overthink it!

Make peace with estimates and get good at system design along the way Folks won't stop asking for them, so you might as well get good at estimates

Planning out a project by developing an estimate, rather than just hacking it out, is a way of developing software and enough of a creative effort that you might enjoy it more than sitting in meetings and updating budget spreadsheets!

buttondown.com/therealadam...

Delivering software reduces the demand for estimates. The faster you can deliver software, the less you will need estimates.

Estimating software as a list of tasks scored by effort and variance conveys the most important information required for good-faith use of estimates.

Language models can’t slop their way out of social, human problems, like estimating software projects:

therealadam.com/2025/05/01/...

It won’t change your luck, but it will make you more prepared when it comes ‘round.

If you don’t know Bradford, find that kind of person in your personal/professional network who can deeply consider your job search, from extensive hiring experience, and ask them for an hour of their day to talk things through.