A Blog

Words & Writing

Writing code, Ruby on Rails, AI, developer tools, the craft of building software, life, careers, love, the future, and everything in between.

Code

Design Previews for Ruby on Rails

You are iterating on a design. Maybe you are redesigning your dashboard. Maybe you are trying three different layouts for a landing page. Maybe Cla...

Dec 18, 2025 6 min

Code

I Ran GPT-5 Against My MacBook. The Laptop Won.

I just watched a $3,000 laptop beat OpenAI’s best model at something that actually matters. Not at generating poetry or philosophical musings. Pla...

Oct 28, 2025 7 min

Code

Generating Audio Waveform Images in Ruby

Audio waveforms allow us to visualize the waveform of an audio file - displaying the amplitude of the audio signal over time. They are often used i...

Jul 27, 2023 5 min

Code

Why Teach and Learn Ruby?

As the Co-Founder and Dean of Flatiron School I thought it important to write a response to the recent implication that because a school switched t...

Jun 29, 2018 13 min

Code

What I Wish I Knew Before Teaching Myself How to Code

These days, I get to teach people to program at Flatiron School, but I’m personally self-taught—I’ve been teaching myself teaching myself ...

Sep 16, 2016 9 min