Top all-time · #1357
Fatih Arslan
Personal blog · arslan.io · on HN as farslanprogrammingdesignproductivity
Fatih Arslan's personal blog at arslan.io covers programming, design and productivity. Since 2014, 51 different Hacker News readers have linked it 114 times, most often “Taking an indefinite sabbatical from my projects”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-05, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Fatih Arslan's blog for posts on his homelab, desk setup, fountain pens, books read and product reviews such as bags and notebooks, plus Go and open source burnout.
- Recommended for · 2 comments
- One commenter says they love the writings; another loves a passage on reading books as a father of two kids.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
I’m an Engineer with a passion for Design. I enjoy writing about everyday occurrences, especially the inspirations that drive me, and my journey.
Most-linked posts?
- Taking an indefinite sabbatical from my projects7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2018-10-10
- The ultimate guide to writing a Go tool5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2017-09-14
- iPad Pro as Development Machine4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-01-07
- How to write idempotent Bash scripts3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-07-07
- Plotter Notebook System3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-02-24
- Use a Go Module Proxy3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-08-02
- My two-part desk setup3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-11-18
- Automatic dark mode for terminal applications3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-02-15
- Review of the MoErgo Glove80 Keyboard3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-04-22
- Alacritty integration with Tmux3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-02-07
What Hacker News says?
Thanks. On an unrelated note, what happened to significantly decreasing your contributions to X? https://arslan.io/2024/04/07/my-feelings-about-x-formerly-tw...
Comment linking /2024/04/07/my-feelings-about-x-formerly-twitter/
on “I designed a Dieter Rams-inspired iPhone dock”Submitted I designed a Dieter Rams-inspired iPhone dock as a story · 1509 points
HN discussionQuestion for the OP (farslan). I do apologise in advance if this is something you wouldn't want to discuss, but do you think a notice such as this would have prevented you from burning out in regards to your open source projects? You have contributed immensely to the go community and I expect the decision to take a step back from open source contributions was hard and that you probably have revisited it often. I won…
Comment linking /2018/10/09/taking-an-indefinite-sabbatical-from-my-projects/
on “Open-source, not open-contribution”Submitted The Barbican as a story · 728 points
HN discussionHe has a writeup about the office and desk setup too: https://arslan.io/2025/11/18/my-two-part-desk-setup/
Comment linking /2025/11/18/my-two-part-desk-setup/
on “The lamps in my house”Submitted How to write idempotent Bash scripts as a story · 655 points
HN discussionThat's why the module system is designed to facilitate corporate artifact caches. [0] [0] https://arslan.io/2019/08/02/why-you-should-use-a-go-module-...
Comment linking /2019/08/02/why-you-should-use-a-go-module-proxy/
on “The Zen of Go”Submitted Why I left Medium and moved back to my own domain as a story · 482 points
HN discussionSee https://arslan.io for his bag reviews.
Comment linking /
on “Go at Digital Ocean”Submitted The lamps in my house as a story · 350 points
HN discussionIt was definitely the Fuji X Half review. https://arslan.io/2025/06/14/fujifilm-x-half-is-it-the-perfe... And I must make a correction, he doesn't explicitly mention trusting his kids with a 5k Leica. He's using a 10k M11 as a family camera and he lets his wife use it. Still, I'd imagine a family with this type of money would have no issue giving the kids 500$ MacBook. I should of brought up the thread where someone…
Comment linking /2025/06/14/fujifilm-x-half-is-it-the-perfect-family-camera/
on “MacBook Neo”Submitted How to write idempotent Bash scripts (2019) as a story · 330 points
HN discussionFor anyone interested, I made the complete opposite change and moved from the U.S to Turkey: https://arslan.io/2020/12/20/why-i-left-the-us/
Comment linking /2020/12/20/why-i-left-the-us/
on “On leaving Turkey (2021)”Submitted Visiting the annual Braun collectors fair as a story · 242 points
HN discussionThe problems with this 'funding experiment': - If he does advertising, everyone will eventually start doing it. Then everyone will start using adblockers, defeating the purpose originally planned for. It's a classic case of the Tragedy of the Commons situation [0]. This experiment would have never worked in the long term and only benefits those who do it in the beginning momentarily. - He created a github issue thre…
Comment linking /2018/10/09/taking-an-indefinite-sabbatical-from-my-projects/
on “Recap of the `funding` experiment”Submitted Calendar types in watches as a story · 179 points
HN discussionStumbled on his other article[1] on HN recently and I forgot to subscribe (RSS). I love the writings. Reading this article (Homelab Setup), I was thinking, that this is way overdone. Then, I quickly browsed around and love this guy’s life — Fatih has good taste. I'm inspired by the Homelab setup. 1. https://arslan.io/2024/05/05/braun-borse-2024/
Comment linking /2024/05/05/braun-borse-2024/
on “My Homelab Setup”Submitted Useful Techniques in Go as a story · 165 points
HN discussionI love exiftool. I wrote a more practical blog post on how to use it to manage thousands of photos and update the EXIF data easily with it. You can update the EXIF data based on the file modification time, based on an EXIF field, file name, etc.. there is so many things you can do. Here is the blog post if anyone is interested: https://arslan.io/2018/04/18/tips-tricks-to-batch-edit-exif-...
Comment linking /2018/04/18/tips-tricks-to-batch-edit-exif-metadata-of-photos/
on “Exif.tools – A multimedia file metadata tool”Submitted iPad Pro as Development Machine as a story · 139 points
HN discussionOh my—I actually just mentioned Kitty for diplomatic reasons as some folks feel it's a friendlier alternative to Alacritty. I've personally never used it myself. Alacritty has recommended using tmux from the beginning (originally it planned to never even implementing scrollback and recommended tmux instead, but they caved and now there is native scrollback). I believe I used this article when I switched over from iT…
Comment linking /2018/02/05/gpu-accelerated-terminal-alacritty/
on “Getting Started with Tmux”Submitted Review of the Kinesis Advantage360 Professional as a story · 110 points
HN discussionOk. Let me try to spoil you. You are looking for this https://plotterusa.com And here is a review from Fatih Arslan at https://arslan.io/2025/02/24/plotter-notebook-system/
Comment linking /2025/02/24/plotter-notebook-system/
on “I Started a "Dirt Notebook"”Submitted My Homelab Setup as a story · 98 points
HN discussionThe guy is obviously passionate about his fountain pens: https://arslan.io/2025/12/19/a-look-at-my-fountain-pens/
Comment linking /2025/12/19/a-look-at-my-fountain-pens/
on “My two-part desk setup”Submitted Automating my gate door via a smart relay as a story · 79 points
HN discussionYeah, I love this part too: https://arslan.io/2025/12/26/books-i-read-in-2025/ > If I’m reading a book, once the kids are asleep, I have 3–4 hours each evening, and I also have free time on the weekends. So it’s possible to read a lot of books as a father of two kids. I could probably read even more if I stopped spending time on other things, like writing for my blog, learning piano, or doing industrial design. I th…
Comment linking /2025/12/26/books-i-read-in-2025/
on “My two-part desk setup”Submitted My Homelab Setup as a story · 72 points
HN discussionHis Studio Display 3D printable model MacBook holder: https://arslan.io/macbook-holder-for-apple-studio-display/
Comment linking /macbook-holder-for-apple-studio-display/
on “My two-part desk setup”Submitted Fujifilm X half: Is it the perfect family camera? as a story · 69 points
HN discussion
