Tanagram is no longer a nights-and-weekends project — I'm now working on Tanagram full time, with support from Pear.
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2024
09-02
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2024
06-04
Tanagram Roadmap: June 2024
Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace during May averaged about 1.5 workdays per week.
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2024
05-04
Tanagram Roadmap: May 2024
Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace during April averaged about 1.5 workdays per week.
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2024
04-07
Tanagram Roadmap: April 2024
Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace during March averaged about 1.3 workdays per week.
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2024
03-05
Tanagram Roadmap: March 2024
Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace during February averaged about 1.5 workdays per week.
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2024
02-06
Tanagram Roadmap: February 2024
Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace during January averaged about 1.0 workdays per week.
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2024
01-07
Tanagram Roadmap: January 2024
Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace during December averaged a bit under 1.0 workdays per week; I was on vacation for much of the month
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2023
12-03
Tanagram Roadmap: December 2023
This is my 23rd monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (I'll stop counting after this one; see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.0 workdays per week; some personal errands and day-job projects have kept me busier than usual.
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2023
11-05
Tanagram Roadmap: November 2023
This is my 22nd monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.0 workdays per week; some personal errands and day-job projects have kept me busier than usual.
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2023
10-01
Tanagram Roadmap: October 2023
This is my 21st monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.5 workdays per week.
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2023
09-03
Tanagram Roadmap: September 2023
This is my twentieth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1 workdays per week, maybe a little more.
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2023
08-05
Tanagram Roadmap: August 2023
This is my nineteenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.5 workdays per week, maybe a little more. I was on vacation in the beginning of the month and came back to Tanagram in mid-July.
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2023
06-28
Tanagram Roadmap: July 2023
This is my eighteenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.5 workdays per week. This month's update is out early because I'm going on vacation for the next few weeks, possibly with limited internet. I'll be back in mid-July.
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2023
06-05
Tanagram Roadmap: June 2023
This is my seventeenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.5 workdays per week, minus about a week for vacation.
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2023
05-04
Tanagram Roadmap: May 2023
This is my sixteenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.5 workdays per week, minus about a week for vacation.
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2023
04-02
Tanagram Roadmap: April 2023
This is my fifteenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.5 workdays per week.
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2023
03-04
Tanagram Roadmap: March 2023
This is my fourteenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged a bit less than 1 workday per week.
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2023
02-06
Tanagram Roadmap: February 2023
This is my thirteenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1.5 workday per week.
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2023
01-08
Tanagram Roadmap: January 2023
This is my twelfth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). Tanagram remains a nights-and-weekends project. My progress pace over the past month has averaged about 1 workday per week for two weeks; the rest of my time was spent on vacation, packing, and resting over the holidays.
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2022
12-03
Tanagram Roadmap: December 2022
This is my eleventh monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
11-06
Tanagram Roadmap: November 2022
This is my tenth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
10-02
Tanagram Roadmap: October 2022
This is my ninth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
09-04
Tanagram Roadmap: September 2022
This is my eighth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
08-07
Tanagram Roadmap: August 2022
This is my seventh monthly public roadmap update for for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
07-04
Tanagram Roadmap: July 2022
This is my sixth monthly public roadmap update for for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
06-04
Tanagram Roadmap: June 2022
This is my fifth monthly public roadmap update for for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
05-08
Tanagram Roadmap: May 2022 + Demo #3
This is my fourth monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
03-06
Tanagram Roadmap: March 2022
This is my third monthly public roadmap update for Tanagram development (see previous updates here). I'm publishing this update to document my progress and hold myself accountable, and also provide a place to share some thoughts about what I plan to work on next.
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2022
02-07
Tanagram Roadmap: February 2022
This is my second monthly public roadmap for Tanagram development (see January's here). As with last time, I'm publishing this roadmap because I believe doing so will increase my accountability for progress. It also gives me a place to write a paragraph or two about the mildly-to-moderately interesting bits I'm building away from the terseness of Twitter or the temptation to add more padding for a full-length blog post.
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2022
01-03
Tanagram Roadmap: January 2022
I've been writing monthly roadmaps for Tanagram development in private for a few months. For 2022 I've decided to publish them, in part because I believe doing so will increase accountability for progress, and also because writing these for an audience will force me to be more precise with what I have in mind and enable clearer did-I-or-didn't-I comparisons.
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2021
10-29
Tanagram: Creating a Database-Based Codebase
I've been working on Tanagram, a programming environment that's trying to make it easier to browse codebases and build programs by turning code into data. This post is a refinement of previous ideas (see previous posts here), and although it doesn't look much different from demo 2, a lot of changes have gone in under the hood. Until this past week, my blog has been a standard Phoenix site — most of the URL routes were standard Phoenix paths, rendered by Phoenix controllers and views. Making a change to these routes required a code change and a deploy. But no longer: I've implemented my blog routes using building blocks provided by Tanagram, and adding or removing routes now just requires a few clicks:
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2021
07-24
Tanagram Demo #2
I've been working on a new way of writing and working with software. This is the second demo (demo #1 here), and although this, too, looks like a toy, I think it's a good encapsulation of what I'm trying to solve with Tanagram. In short, Tanagram is a programming environment that's trying to make it easier to browse codebases and write glue code (i.e. boilerplate code; code where remembering the exact syntax is harder than the logic itself) by putting codebase concepts into a database and replacing some typing with a GUI.
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2021
05-09
Tanagram Demo #1
I've been working on a new way of writing and working with software. Although it's still very early along[^3] and looks very much like a toy, I'd like to share a demo:
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2021
02-13
The Database Inside Your Codebase
Navigating codebases of any meaningful size is difficult. Most of a programmer's time is spent jumping through the codebase, reading or skimming to build a mental model of the constructs and conventions within it. These constructs — among them: the DSLs, interfaces, and taxonomy of types that exist — are arguably the most important precursor to understanding where and how to make changes. But these constructs only exist in programmers' heads. It's difficult or impossible to navigate most codebases through the lens of those constructs; programmers lack "code browsers" that present the underlying code independently of files and the filesystem hierarchy. Yet code browsers that can do so — and we'll look at some examples below — would be incredibly useful. This is because instances of these constructs can be thought of as records in a database, albeit an ad-hoc, poorly-specified database that can only be queried through carefully-crafted regexes[^10].
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2021
01-29
Computers Have Gone Wrong (And It's All Software's Fault)
Computers Have Gone Wrong (And It's All Software's Fault)
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2020
11-13
Building A New Blog
I've moved my blog off of Wordpress — in part because of limitations with Wordpress.com's hosted offering[^0] — and onto a custom-built site[^1].
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2020
07-27
Computers Aren't Fun Anymore
Throughout The Dream Machine, a history of the early days of computing, tinkering and having fun was a recurring theme throughout the decades. I wasn't around to experience the early days of computers myself, but they seemed to be genuinely exciting and rewarding. In the words of MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle: computers empowered their users, making them feel smart[er], "in control", and "more fully participant in the future".
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2019
08-08
Documenting Some Thoughts Around Tanagram
Tanagram is the name of a project idea I’ve been thinking about for a while. I trace the idea’s lineage back to a little prototype I built in late 2013. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I’ve revisited this idea (or at least something directionally-related) countless times in intervening years.
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