C++ on Briar Patch

The Death of Design Patterns

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 23:46:51 -0700

Every now and then, I see Design Patterns floated as a kind of next-step resource for programmers after they’ve gotten comfortable with a language, typically an object-oriented (or at least object-aware) one. I don’t particularly have a problem with OOP as a concept, though I agree with its critics that inheritance is overused in teaching materials by several orders of magnitude.

But as for Design Patterns itself, I personally think these days that it only serves as a window into 90s programming philosophy - a historical relic of a bygone age, and one that I’m not all that interested in revisiting (unlike my passion for Software Tools from the 70s).

Something Nicer

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 18:23:35 -0700

I realize I keep bouncing between screeds and fun little project summaries like a meth-addled squirrel, but I don’t want everything I write to be depressing or angry. It would be far too easy to do that, in all honesty, so I’m making myself look on the bright side.

In this case, you might remember me saying something about the flexibility of MUCK descriptions in my post about the line editor project. It went a bit like this:

Line by line

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:55:04 -0700

Ancient History

Since I talked about building things last time, it’s only fair I share the things I’ve been working on. A lot recently has been inspired by old tech. Some of it is probably nostalgia for an era I didn’t really get to experience, but some of it is genuine delight. Lately I’ve been excited by the cutting edge of early-90s internet - the MUCK.

The hell is that? Well, it’s a less grind-oriented variant of the multi-user dungeon (MUD).