A useful Github trick is to watch a repo, but with custom notifications so I only get notified on releases.
The upcoming runes system in Svelte 5 looks really nice. I think this will fix most or all of the biggest bugs in Svelte 3 and 4.
I did have some concerns about pages that need to edit complex objects, but it looks like you can write a function to "rune-ify" any object without too much trouble. I made a small project in the Svelte 5 preview REPL to try it out. There are probably some bugs there but that relieved my main concern.
Looking at the compiled code with runes, everything is a lot simpler too. No more need for dirty tracking or passing nested context into components for slots. Slot functions are just closures that directly access the runes in the outer component's state now.
The internal scheduler looks more complex than before, but that's to be expected. Importantly, there are far fewer moving parts and the moving parts aren't being generated by the compiler for every new project, which should both reduce potential for bugs and make it easier to test.
Buzzy is built out enough now that I could show the prototype to my kids. My 6-year-old said I should change the name to Alexa, or maybe Google :)
Up next will be intent detection and web search to help the model answer factual questions, but first I redid some of the web app internals to use a real state machine. First time using XState's type generation helpers, and it works well!
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I'm a co-founder of Carevoyance (acquired by H1 Insights), a sales acceleration tool that analyzes healthcare data and enables healthcare sellers to zero in on their best prospects and generate custom reports and insights with just a few clicks.
I spend most of my time there creating new data analyses, working on the backend API and database systems, and developing tooling to research data anomalies and automate repetitive tasks. Recently I've been active on the front-end too, and have been enjoying the Svelte framework.
In the past I worked almost exclusively in C++ and various assembly languages. Now that I'm more in the web ecosystem, I'm mostly writing Javascript for work, but I'm using Rust more and more as well.
Before starting my own venture, I interfaced with advanced network switching chips at Arista Networks and worked on JTAG hardware debuggers and embedded operating systems at Green Hills Software. Running a small startup feels very different from working at these companies, and it has its ups and downs, but I love it.
I usually have some sort of side project going on, and my most recent obsession is Ergo, a low-code workflow orchestrator that is still in early stages, but coming along well.
Sometimes I wish I could code all day and night, but when not hacking on something or spending time with my family, I enjoy good coffee, nature photography, reading nonfiction and sci-fi, and improving my nascent design and UX skills. I'm also active in my church and run the sound board there every few weeks.
Twitter is probably the best way to contact me, and I'm trying out Mastodon as well. You can also email me at daniel at this domain or find me on Github.
The website is written using SvelteKit, Tailwind, and hosted on Vercel. Icons sourced from the Refactoring UI icon set and iconmonstr.
The prose content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The code can be viewed on Github. The underlying code as well as all code examples are licensed under the MIT license.