Top all-time · #948
Avdi Grimm
Personal blog · devblog.avdi.orgprogramming
Avdi Grimm writes avdi.codes, a personal blog at devblog.avdi.org about programming. Since 2012, 69 different Hacker News readers have linked it 87 times, most often “The Passion Gospel”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (21) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Avdi Grimm's blog for Ruby explanations and tips, his Emacs reboot series, and posts tied to his Confident Ruby book. Several call the blog worth reading.
- Recommended for · 7 comments
- Called tremendously worthwhile for following the emacs reboot; a good explanation of Ruby topics; well worth reading with clear writeups; 'Everything by Avdi' i
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 21 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Avdi Grimm, Code Cleric
Most-linked posts?
- The Passion Gospel4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2014-02-10
- A List of Programming Screencast Series3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-06-24
- /2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2012-12-12
- Let's stop telling programming newbies to learn Vim (or Emacs)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-10-16
- The Inescapable Pragmatism of Procedures2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-12-04
- Why DuckDuckGo is better for web development2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-02-17
- Array Set Operations in Ruby2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-08-27
- Hell's code kitchen2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-10
- Ruby Null Objects and Falsiness2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-06-07
- In which I make you hate Ruby in 7 minutes [video]2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-05-11
What Hacker News says?
I started following along with Avdi Grimm as he rebooted his .emacs a while back, and it has been tremendously worthwhile. I am very glad I adopted his technique of splitting up my .emacs into multiple smaller files, and using packages in emacs24 has cleaned up things even further. http://devblog.avdi.org/category/emacs-reboot/
Comment linking /category/emacs-reboot/
on “Start Using Emacs – A Thorough Guide for Beginners”Submitted Linux has better hardware support than OS X as a story · 241 points
HN discussionAbout that passion... [1] [1] http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/02/10/the-passion-gospel/
Comment linking /2014/02/10/the-passion-gospel/
on “How to be a great software developer”Submitted The Moderately Enthusiastic Programmer as a story · 129 points
HN discussionMy question too. Given that I can get a list of open source projects that I can work on for free with GitHub Explore[1] I am wondering what this provides me that is worth any money, not specifically $30. To take it one step further, why should I pay you for a list of free projects, when I can get paid to work on projects with other sites like Rent A Coder[2]? The list of features implies that I will effectively only…
Comment linking /2013/06/21/a-list-of-programming-screencast-series/
on “The Great Code Club”Submitted How a keyboard changed what I look for in an editor as a story · 120 points
HN discussionNot exactly. Turns out you can sell via Amazon, or you can sell directly, but if you use the undocumented Amazon-only tool to construct your .mobi, you can't sell that directly. And Amazon is now blocking the output of many/all other ebook construction software so you can't use Send to Kindle or email. USB is the only option to load a book. http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-eboo...
Comment linking /2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-ebook-authors/
on “Amazon/Hachette Business Interruption”Submitted Ruby Is Defined by Terrible Tools as a story · 115 points
HN discussionI run http://letscodejavascript.com , which is a screencast for professional JavaScript developers. It's not exactly a SaaS, but as a subscription business, it runs on the same fundamentals: rate of acquisition, churn, customer lifetime value, cost of acquisition, etc. We have X00 subscribers and gross low six figures. The show is bootstrapped and profitable, but not yet enough of a success to allow me to hire addit…
Comment linking /2013/06/21/a-list-of-programming-screencast-series
on “Ask HN: When did people start paying for your SaaS and why?”Submitted Underscores are stupid as a story · 95 points
HN discussionAlternatively one could use NullObjects for the Optional use case: http://devblog.avdi.org/2011/05/30/null-objects-and-falsines...
Comment linking /2011/05/30/null-objects-and-falsiness/
on “Refactoring Ruby with Monads”Submitted A List of Programming Screencast Series as a story · 88 points
HN discussion> Nobody talks about duckduckgo because they're search results are better than google's, they talk about them because duckduckgo is all about your privacy. 'Nobody' is such a strong word. http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/02/16/why-duckduckgo-is-better-...
Comment linking /2014/02/16/why-duckduckgo-is-better-for-web-development-a-pictorial-guide/
on “Googlebot's recent improvements might revolutionize web development”Submitted Programming in a Mad Max Wasteland as a story · 59 points
HN discussionThen this might interest you: http://devblog.avdi.org/2015/05/11/in-which-i-make-you-hate-...
Comment linking /2015/05/11/in-which-i-make-you-hate-ruby-in-7-minutes/
on “Ruby Is Defined by Terrible Tools”Submitted On BritRuby as a story · 52 points
HN discussionI have been using a Ruby expect-like called Greenletters by Avdi Grimm, introduced on his blog here: http://devblog.avdi.org/2010/07/19/greenletters-painless-aut... It's available via rubygems or github: https://github.com/avdi/greenletters
Comment linking /2010/07/19/greenletters-painless-automation-and-testing-for-command-line-applications/
on “Expect – A tool for automating interactive applications”Submitted The Inescapable Pragmatism of Procedures as a story · 50 points
HN discussionAvdi Grimm gives a good explanation: http://devblog.avdi.org/2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/
Comment linking /2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/
on “Github Ruby Styleguide”Submitted Why DuckDuckGo is better for web development as a story · 42 points
HN discussionExceptional Ruby is indeed fantastic. If you like it, you may be interested in Avdi's current book project "Confident Ruby": http://devblog.avdi.org/2012/06/05/confident-ruby-beta/
Comment linking /2012/06/05/confident-ruby-beta/
on “Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book”Submitted A late-night rant about OOP and parametric dispatch as a story · 38 points
HN discussionLooks pretty cool, though it is a pretty daunting task to convince all gem developers to test/make their gems compatible. Perhaps this could make http://devblog.avdi.org/2015/08/11/what-its-like-to-come-bac... easier ;)
Comment linking /2015/08/11/what-its-like-to-come-back-to-a-ruby-project-after-6-months/
on “Ruby on Guix”Submitted Let's stop telling programming newbies to learn Vim (or Emacs) as a story · 33 points
HN discussionBTW, enko is referring to Part 2: http://globaldev.co.uk/2013/09/ruby-tips-part-2/ And I agree...I've been programming in Ruby for awhile and only lately had learned about the `Array()` conversion, which I learned through Avdi Grimm's "Confident Ruby" book (he blogged about Array several years ago: http://devblog.avdi.org/2009/10/21/array-ifying-values/ ). Such a small thing, but as you note, can greatly impact the…
Comment linking /2009/10/21/array-ifying-values/
on “Ruby Tips Part 4”Submitted The Passion Gospel as a story · 23 points
HN discussionand and or are control-flow modifiers like if and unless. http://devblog.avdi.org/2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/
Comment linking /2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/
on “Ruby Demystified: and vs. &&”Submitted Rumors of Ruby’s Demise as a story · 9 points
HN discussionI agree that it's ugly, but also in some languages you can get into trouble because of operator precedence. This is why ruby and perl have the operators `or` and `and` as well as || and &&. http://devblog.avdi.org/2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/
Comment linking /2010/08/02/using-and-and-or-in-ruby/
on “JavaScript Hacks for Hipsters”Submitted Let’s stop telling programming newbies to learn Vim (or Emacs) – Virtuous Code as a story · 8 points
HN discussion
