Hacker News: ryanbigg

NPM: Putting the Brown in Brownout

ryanbigg — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 23:21:23 +0000

Article URL: https://ryanbigg.com/2026/04/npm-putting-the-brown-in-brownout

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47969588

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Hanami for Rails Developers – Part 1

ryanbigg — Mon, 06 Oct 2025 10:11:00 +0000

Article URL: https://ryanbigg.com/2025/10/hanami-for-rails-developers-1-models

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45489703

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by ryanbigg in "What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?"

ryanbigg — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 08:27:17 +0000

Great advice here! I especially like the idea of 50 minute meetings.

I’ve been lightly enforcing a rule of my own too: “no agenda, no attenda”

New comment by ryanbigg in "Hidden interface controls that affect usability"

ryanbigg — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 07:16:58 +0000

Ironically the article is barely readable on an iPhone…

Show, Don't Tell

ryanbigg — Sun, 04 May 2025 23:17:46 +0000

Article URL: https://ryanbigg.com/2025/05/show-dont-tell

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43890451

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by ryanbigg in "The Story Behind “100 Go Mistakes and How to Avoid Them”"

ryanbigg — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 23:44:58 +0000

On the topic of copy editing you raise: I wrote a book in DocBook for Manning in 2010. DocBook is XML, so I structured it with opening / end tags on their own line, content in the middle. As you would with a HTML document.

After copy editing multiple chapters, they sent it back to me with all the content on a single line. I was so incredibly upset that they ditched all my painstaking format that I almost abandoned the project there + then.

It sounds like from your experience that it has barely changed. I ended up moving to self-publishing so I have a greater control over the whole process. I wrote it up long-form here: https://ryanbigg.com/2015/08/my-self-publishing-success-stor...

Ghosts 'N' Stuff

ryanbigg — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 19:32:28 +0000

Article URL: https://ryanbigg.com/2025/02/ghosts-n-stuff

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43017259

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by ryanbigg in "Surnames from nicknames nobody has any more"

ryanbigg — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 20:21:11 +0000

I wonder if Fitzgibbon fits this pattern? Fitz being “the bastard son of…” and Gibbon, like ape? Or perhaps Gibbon has another meaning?

React Is Fine

ryanbigg — Wed, 27 Nov 2024 22:35:08 +0000

Article URL: https://ryanbigg.com/2024/11/react-is-fine

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42260492

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by ryanbigg in "Writing a book in the age of open source"

ryanbigg — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 00:41:16 +0000

The "Writing" section here has huge "draw the rest of the owl" vibes. (I say this as an accomplished author of 10 tech books.)

Yes, it's worth optimising for your productivity. It's not the be all and end all. I've written at my desk with the comfiest chair (A Mirra) I have, and the most ergonomic keyboard for my needs (Ergodox EZ). I write at cafes with just the laptop. I write on the couch at odd but comfortable angles. I write on public transport squished against strangers.

I love using AsciiDoc as the tooling (asciidoctor + friends) give me output that looks decent, and the way I _input_ into that is not mind-breaking like Docbook is. Asciidoctor gives me a PDF which I then style how I like with CSS and then can put on leanpub.com and sell for real dollars.

The way I would put the writing section for tech books is this:

Start with the _topics_ you want to cover. Make these the chapters. Then dive into each topic and figure out what you want to say about the topic. Usually 3-4 main points per chapter. These come out to be your subheadings. Order the chapters from beginner-to-advanced concepts or in a way that makes sense for the book you're writing. For the books I've written it's usually start with a simple base app and then incrementally build things on top of that.

New comment by ryanbigg in "Using alternative browser engines in the European Union"

ryanbigg — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 07:58:26 +0000

This is weasel wording but with actions. I’d expect better from Apple

New comment by ryanbigg in "The economics of writing technical books"

ryanbigg — Sat, 29 Jun 2024 21:44:04 +0000

I have written a few tech books:

https://ryanbigg.com/books

Off these, I’ve made $65,000USD. That’s over 13 years. None of these books have sold anywhere near as close to the Unicorn Project! (Which imo is fanfic for the tech-inclined)

The money is nice, but hearing from people who’ve read the books (especially those who ask questions!) is the best part.

Huh, maybe it is the friends we make along the way after all.

New comment by ryanbigg in "Caniemail.com – like caniuse but for email content"

ryanbigg — Tue, 07 May 2024 01:39:20 +0000

What an excellent resource! (And yes Outlook is a pain and supports so very little!)

We've tried building email templates for notifications for our apps where I work, and it has typically been a pain. We have since swapped to using mjml (https://mjml.io/) to build the templates, and it's working wonders. The output seems the be the most compatible with all different devices that we've tested on.

The other tool we enjoy using is Litmus (https://litmus.com), which allows you to throw in an email template and see what it looks like on all kinds of apps and devices. Other thread here mentions https://testi.at/ as well, which we've also had success with.

All of these have been really invaluable to designing emails for our apps.