← Feed

Posts

• View post

  It's the first Monday of the month, which is a great time to document something for the first time with a README file https://github.com/ddbeck/readme-checklist

• View post

  "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! https://ddbeck.com/notes/release-notes-2026-w34/

• View post

  My "Release notes" for week 35, 2026, featuring HTML processing instructions, XSLT's formal discouragement, and fortnightly browser releases https://ddbeck.com/notes/release-notes-2026-w35

• View post

  It's the first day of the month. Perhaps you'll join me in documenting something with a fresh README file? https://github.com/ddbeck/readme-checklist

• View post

  My "release notes" for week 36, starring feature investigations and CSS anchor positioning data https://ddbeck.com/notes/release-notes-2026-w36

• View post

  "Release notes" for week 37, a quiet week in client work, thanks to another successful Write the Docs Berlin https://ddbeck.com/notes/release-notes-2026-w37

• View post

  "Release notes" for week 38, 2026: measuring the "coverage gap," grouping web platform features, and tidying up descriptions. https://ddbeck.com/notes/release-notes-2026-w38

• View post

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

• View 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. https://ddbeck.com/notes/wtdberlin2026-highlights #WriteTheDocs

• View post

  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. https://ddbeck.com/notes/stow-and-dotfiles

• View post

  Serious open source docs work has a cost. I wrote down every way that I know of that gets docs authors and maintainers paid. https://ddbeck.com/where-does-the-money-come-from/ #WriteTheDocs

• View post

  It's the first of the month and you know what that means: time to document something with a README file https://github.com/ddbeck/readme-checklist #WriteTheDocs

• View post

  I took some notes on Peter Hilton's prescriptions for solving the team tech blog problem and suggest one of my own https://ddbeck.com/notes/tech-blog-problem-solved

• View post

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

• View post

  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. https://ddbeck.com/notes/jj-copy-file-from-revision

• View post

  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. https://ddbeck.com/fosdem2026/

• View post

  It's the first of the month, which is a great time to document something you haven't documented before with a README file https://github.com/ddbeck/readme-checklist

• View post

  Spec fiction or that which was specified but never implemented https://ddbeck.com/notes/spec-fiction

• View post

  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. https://ddbeck.com/notes/jq-object-entries-keys-and-values

• View post

  New note: jaq is "Pandoc for structured data" https://ddbeck.com/notes/jaq-structured-data

• View post

  It's the first of the month and you're no fool. Why not share what you know by writing a README file? https://github.com/ddbeck/readme-checklist

• View post

  A note on @jmac's "assertions documents," Cunningham's Law, and a skill development pattern in tech writing https://ddbeck.com/notes/cunninghams-law-is-a-core-skill/

• View post

  xkcd 2347 is the unofficial logo of FOSDEM

• View post

  If you came to my talk at FOSDEM, "Stop chopping onions and extend Markdown without tears," thank you! My talk page has credits, slides, and further links. (This page works now, if you tried to go to it earlier.) https://ddbeck.com/fosdem2026/

• View post

  A reader recently wrote to me asking about how to organize docs, especially planning and design docs, in a new open source project. I blogged my response. #WriteTheDocs #documentation https://ddbeck.com/where-do-open-source-docs-go/

• View post

  Hey, web specification authors: I dare you to title a spec without a Pascal case "Web" prefix. I bet you can't do it!

• View post

  If you work with many Git remotes or submodules, you can save time on fetches with parallel jobs https://ddbeck.com/notes/git-fetch-parallel-jobs/

• View post

  You might know camelCase or snake_case or kebab-case, but do you know Tall Man? https://ddbeck.com/notes/tall-man-lettering/

• View post

  Notes on pandoc for the people, the pandoc that runs in your web browser https://ddbeck.com/notes/pandoc-for-the-people

• View post

  Today's the first Monday of the month, which is a great time to document the undocumented with a README https://github.com/ddbeck/readme-checklist