Top all-time · #2229
Brett Slatkin
Personal blog · onebigfluke.com · on HN as bslatkinprogrammingsystemssecurity
Brett Slatkin writes One Big Fluke, a personal blog at onebigfluke.com about programming, systems and security. Since 2010, 36 different Hacker News readers have linked it 86 times, most often “Experimentally verified: “Why client-side templating is wrong” (2015)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-12-18, and you can follow it by feed.
Brett Slatkin's personal site
Most-linked posts?
- Experimentally verified: “Why client-side templating is wrong” (2015)5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2015-01-19
- Let's remove verbs from HTTP 2.02 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-08-09
- You only get 1,000 lines of code a week2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-11-17
- The case for dynamic, functional programming2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-22
- What's awful about being a {software engineer, tech lead, manager}?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-04-11
- Why am I building a new functional programming language?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-03-05
- Bootstrapping WebFinger decentralized discovery with WebFist2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-06-25
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-08-09
What Hacker News says?
The talk that had the most influence on how I write software is Robert 'Uncle Bob' Martin's "Architecture: The Lost Years" [1]. Being a Ruby conference keynote, it helps if you know how Ruby on Rails works, but the lessons apply to all software. Another one would be "Let It Crash! The Erlang Approach to Building Reliable Services" by Brian Troutwine. [2] I don't know if you would call it "technical" but Brett Slatki…
Comment linking /2013/05/video-cohort-analysis-talk-at-google.html
on “Ask HN: What are some of the best technical talks you've heard?”Submitted Go's power is in emergent behavior as a story · 222 points
HN discussionThis would break a cool indieweb "hack" with DKIM - webfistbump, which lets folks participate in webfinger even if their email provider doesn't support webfinger, like gmail: https://www.onebigfluke.com/2013/06/bootstrapping-webfinger-... (I suppose you could just re-opt into webfistbump every time your email provider is about to publish their DKIM key)
Comment linking /2013/06/bootstrapping-webfinger-with-webfist.html
on “Ok Google: please publish your DKIM secret keys”Submitted Realistic alternatives to Apple computers as a story · 197 points
HN discussionhttps://eklitzke.org/ http://www.onebigfluke.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What programming blogs do you follow?”Submitted It is ridiculously easy to refactor Go as a story · 149 points
HN discussionOne of the long-standing challenges in the federated identity space has been that most of the solutions are built around domain names, which are a pain for most users to create on their own. There's a sense that people would prefer email addresses as their identifiers, but without some server help that's hard to do. The WebFinger protocol works well for translating email addresses into something that could be used f…
Comment linking /2013/06/bootstrapping-webfinger-with-webfist.html
on “Bluesky and the AT Protocol: Usable decentralized social media”Submitted You only get 1,000 lines of code a week as a story · 124 points
HN discussionBrett Slatkin wrote a positive review from the perspective of an experienced Go programmer: http://www.onebigfluke.com/2016/03/book-review-go-programmin...
Comment linking /2016/03/book-review-go-programming-language.html
on “With book on Go, Kernighan guides students at Princeton and beyond”Submitted Let's remove verbs from HTTP 2.0 as a story · 113 points
HN discussionI also like the idea of Keybase.io, though I wish it was based on something a little more decentralized. The unfortunately-named WebFist looks cool: http://www.onebigfluke.com/2013/06/bootstrapping-webfinger-w...
Comment linking /2013/06/bootstrapping-webfinger-with-webfist.html
on “Refusing to verify myself: I am liz on Keybase.io”Submitted The case for dynamic, functional programming as a story · 99 points
HN discussionReading the earlier post, it seems the extra need is an escape key, which probably wasn't explicitly written since, you know, it's not exactly a differentiator among non-Apple laptops. http://www.onebigfluke.com/2016/10/lamenting-progress.html
Comment linking /2016/10/lamenting-progress.html
on “Realistic alternatives to Apple computers”Submitted Experimentally verified: “Why client-side templating is wrong” (2015) as a story · 69 points
HN discussionThat article is here: http://www.onebigfluke.com/2016/04/whats-awful-building-soft... Referenced from this article.
Comment linking /2016/04/whats-awful-building-software.html
on “What is the best part about being a Software Engineer?”Submitted Overcoming burnout as a story · 53 points
HN discussionYet another reason to remove verbs from the HTTP spec: http://www.onebigfluke.com/2013/08/lets-remove-verbs-from-ht...
Comment linking /2013/08/lets-remove-verbs-from-http-20.html
on “Node.js incorrectly parses HTTP methods”Submitted Why cohort analysis? as a story · 43 points
HN discussion"And thus spoke someone who has never built a REST API" Here are Brett's projects: http://www.onebigfluke.com/ Maybe you've heard of some of them? PubSubHubbub, Google App Engine, Camlistore, Google Consumer Surveys.
Comment linking /
on “Let's remove verbs from HTTP 2.0”Submitted Dyeing the cheese orange – Beware of benchmarks as a story · 35 points
HN discussionHere's my take on why open standards matter (from March '12): http://www.onebigfluke.com/2012/03/diversity-powers-growth-w... - Open standards are important because they promote competition and diversity. - The opportunities of today exist because someone in the past thought about the long term. - Open standards are an investment in our collective future.
Comment linking /2012/03/diversity-powers-growth-why-open.html
on “Meet the Hackers Who Want to Jailbreak the Internet”Submitted What's awful about being a {software engineer, tech lead, manager}? as a story · 25 points
HN discussionThe premise that server-side HTML generation is faster than client-side HTML generation is simply false. See here for experimental confirmation: http://www.onebigfluke.com/2015/01/experimentally-verified-w... Why would offloading computation to a heavily-taxed central server speed anything up? It doesn't make much sense. Nor is HTML generation a bottleneck in most realistic applications.
Comment linking /2015/01/experimentally-verified-why-client-side.html
on “Progressive Enhancement Makes Me Sad”Submitted Over-specialization is the curse of our profession as a story · 25 points
HN discussionI have some suggestions for Garry: http://www.onebigfluke.com/2013/02/blog-platforms-will-not-l... "To actually commit to the claim of being 'the most durable blog platform ever created' and 'made to last forever', a blog hosting service should either: A) Require new users to bring their existing domain. OR B) Have users register for a new domain during sign-up. "
Comment linking /2013/02/blog-platforms-will-not-last-forever.html
on “Garry's Posthaven”Submitted Experimentally verified: “Why client-side templating is wrong” as a story · 18 points
HN discussionTry to use minification and concatenation, then it will be just 1 js file. Blanket assumptions about server rendering are not enough close to reality: http://www.onebigfluke.com/2015/01/experimentally-verified-w...
Comment linking /2015/01/experimentally-verified-why-client-side.html
on “Sonny – Fast single page app engine”Submitted Hacker News Disappoints as a story · 18 points
HN discussionNotes on the new edition from the author - https://www.onebigfluke.com/2019/10/i-wrote-a-new-edition-of...
Comment linking /2019/10/i-wrote-a-new-edition-of-my-book.html
on “Effective Python › the Book: Second Edition”Submitted "I will never use Python in production ever again" as a story · 14 points
HN discussion
