Daniel D. Beck

Serious open source docs work has a cost. I wrote down every way that I know of that gets docs authors and maintainers paid.

Also, when I'm focused and not juggling nine projects, I can write *a whole lot of words* at a time. That is what decades of writing a lot of words will do! When I produce a long document it is because I ran out of time to edit it down, not because I squeezed a robot. 🌬️

A note on where to redirect the completionist (or know-it-all) impulse to overexplain technology to learners, inspired by a @nedbat.com blog post

In September, I helped organize Write the Docs Berlin 2026. In between my formal responsibilities, I got to take advantage of some of the conference events too. Here are my personal highlights from the conference.

The first of the month is for fresh starts, so why not start with a new README file? github.com/ddbeck/readm...

Great moments in Scottish engineering history: James Watt tries to work out how his phone attaches to his selfie stick.

We (civil engineers) take this shit *extremely* seriously. My grumpiest, most disciplinary take is that I've always been deeply uncomfortable with CS calling itself "engineering" because -- individuals as exceptions, of course -- it does /not/ have a safety and ethics culture.

"Release notes" for week 38, 2026: measuring the "coverage gap," grouping web platform features, and tidying up descriptions.

"Release notes" for week 37, a quiet week in client work, thanks to another successful Write the Docs Berlin

My "release notes" for week 36, starring feature investigations and CSS anchor positioning data

It's the first day of the month. Perhaps you'll join me in documenting something with a fresh README file?

My "Release notes" for week 35, 2026, featuring HTML processing instructions, XSLT's formal discouragement, and fortnightly browser releases

To anyone who does not live in Paris but visits the city at regular intervals (as I do), the transformation has been staggering: Paris has been reclaimed from cars. It can be done, and could be done in London too. It is all about political will and taking the risk of being unpopular - for a while.

"Release notes" for week 34, 2026. This is the first entry in an experiment I’m running for a few weeks, to write a summary of the things I completed as part of my work for clients. Perhaps it’s interesting!

blont manc

New note: jaq is "Pandoc for structured data"

The syntaxes jq uses for extracting an object’s keys, values, and entries are confusingly dissimilar. One of them is not like the others. A brief note with examples.

Spec fiction or that which was specified but never implemented

It's the first of the month, which is a great time to document something you haven't documented before with a README file

I finally added video of my talk "Stop chopping onions and extend Markdown without tears" to my site. It's my guided tour of a few little-used extension points in Markdown.

With Git, I sometimes check out a single file, such as a shell script, from another branch. I didn't know how to do this with Jujutsu, so I took notes on how, plus why jj's equivalent confuses me.

Had to reset the clock for "time since hearing a dick joke made on stage at a tech conference" which was standing at years 🙁

I took some notes on @hilton.org.uk's prescriptions for solving the team tech blog problem and suggest one of my own

I deal with PDFs more regularly than I prefer, but I don't mind too much because I have some go-to tools. A new note dusted off from my drafts folder

It's the first of the month and you know what that means: time to document something with a README file

Good summary of models of funding in OSS! The article is focused on docs, but these payment options are common across all OSS work. Regarding commissions: if you want commissions, you should consider copying examples like Geomys, which make it easier for corporations to pay you for OSS work.

I cleaned up some disused dotfiles (and worse, code to manage to said dotfiles) and ended up taking some notes on some software I really like: Stow.

The `jj` version control system generates branch names that leave something to be desired. I took notes on an alternative template.

Computer science is the art of preventing computers from doing things. Big NO notation is used to formally specify how many things you have prevented the computer from doing.

Looking forward to working with @yanthomas.dev to devote some love to the @biomejs.dev docs so they better serve the entire community: readers, contributors, reviewers, and maintainers!

Last year, I wrote about waking up a sleeping computer remotely. I took some new notes on how I've made it much more convenient.

I think my call to action here is to pay for no-vc non-public small business made software and cut them a little slack on downtime because it’s where your favorite expensive big guys are headed anyway

Every time I see someone talk about Claude I think about how they switched from female to male names as soon as they wanted the robots to seem like experts vs personal assistants.

The fish shell's `set_color` command taught me a little lesson about output streams, escape sequences, and things that aren't magic. Plus, I got a tiny change into the fish docs.

The fish shell's `set_color` command taught me a little lesson about output streams, escape sequences, and things that aren't magic. Plus, I got a tiny change into the fish docs.

I will go to my grave hollering IF YOU TEACH PEOPLE WELL WHILE TREATING THEM WELL THEY CAN LEARN

It's the first of the month and you're no fool. Why not share what you know by writing a README file?

I think people took this thread to be about not using LLMs to replace user research, and sure. But it's really about talking to people and caring about them and what they need when we make things for them.

I recently learned that there's a <q> HTML element. It's the inline counterpart to <blockquote>, except much weirder.

And with that, so ends my last day w Astro Docs. So proud of the docs our community made, & honoured I had the chance to lead them. Open to new adventures in docs/community. If you liked learning, using, or contributing to Astro...maybe some of that was me! Maybe I can bring that to your project!

I took some brief notes on contributing to Git for the first time

How do we get to more than just three web engines owned by three US companies? It's a gargantuan question, with no easy or right answer. I've put together a draft report, thinking about it through a very specific approach - please enjoy: Servo Readiness Report webtransitions.org/servo-readin...