Writing

The Code Less Taken publishes long-form investigations and shorter field notes. Both begin with a technical question and follow the evidence far enough to explain the mechanism, not just the story around it.

Investigations

Long-form pieces reconstruct how a language, system, or technique worked; trace the conditions that shaped its adoption; and test whether its central idea transfers to present-day engineering.

Field notes

Field notes focus on one useful unit: a recovered build, an annotated source, an unusual tool, a protocol, a paper, or a focused comparison. They include the versions, constraints, and unresolved questions needed to interpret the result.

Subjects

Coverage includes uncommon and historical languages, divergent programming models, operating systems, runtimes, protocols, databases, hardware architectures, legacy platforms, and techniques worth reconsidering. Build repair and software archaeology belong here when they reveal how a system actually behaved.

Topics are chosen for what a reader can carry forward: a design mechanism, a documented trade-off, an inspectable artifact, or a sharper question for current systems.

New work will appear on this page and in the RSS feed.