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Dave Gauer

Howdy, I’m Dave Gauer. I’ve worked in web technologies since the late 1990s. Some interests: computer programming of all kinds, Linux/BSD/Unix, art, books (genre fiction, computing, history, biographies, art monographs), film, music (metal!), boardgames, and watching small creatures in the back yard.

Latest Posts

Death to WYSIWYG!

ratfactor · 10mo

Oh no! That wiki editing interface was TOO easy to make...

HTML WARDen (a wiki)

ratfactor · 10mo

A new wiki appears! Here's the thing I alluded to in the previous two entries. It's one of those "mini-sites" that appear on this feed from time to time with: A project page, a...

SVG Sourcecode Shapes (A Little Ruby Script that can make a self-portrait in SVG)

ratfactor · 10mo

This is tangentially related to the previous entry. I'm really looking forward to using this little script for its intended purpose. One more thing popped off the paper stack!...

The Project Stack! (an actual paper stack)

ratfactor · 10mo

Clickbait summary: Here's a fun thing you can do with Post-it notes that might save your poor brain from a meltdown...

Small Programs and Languages

ratfactor · 10mo

I really enjoyed the feedback I got on Implementing a Forth. It's a fun subject! I updated it with new notes, an even smaller 'Forth', and a link to this oversized "card" that...

Implementing a Forth

ratfactor · 10mo

This page started as a tiny kernel of three ideas, little more than just some notes. But I think it ended up being a pretty fun read...

Making a first Luanti mod: A new block type appears!

ratfactor · 11mo

Luanti is a FOSS voxel game engine. I made an illustrated tutorial for creating a first mod that makes a new block with a custom texture...

The One-Tree Website

ratfactor · 11mo

The human race can survive my website because of a tree in my front yard...

Forever Worlds

ratfactor · 11mo

We all deserve something shorter and sweeter in the RSS feed for the weekend. This whole concept brings a smile to my face...

Of CSS and Palm Oil

ratfactor · 11mo

Here's an essay I started last month and finally finished. I read something that helped me sort out what happened the last time I put my foot in my mouth online...

I learned Snobol and then wrote a toy Forth

ratfactor · 11mo

As I teased in the previous item, this update links to what basically amounts to a "mini-site" of four web pages and one software repo. This is exactly what it says in the title...

Explanation of the Ratfactor Feed

ratfactor · 11mo

In the next couple days, I expect to be posting a link to a "mini-site" of content about a fun programming subject. With that upcoming example in mind, this seems like as good...

Go read Peter Naur's "Programming as Theory Building" and then come back and tell me that LLMs can replace human programmers

ratfactor · 11mo

In revisiting Naur's paper, I had some additional thoughts about how it applies to our current era...

Famsite - a tiny social site for families

ratfactor · 12mo

An extremely tiny family posting site (lets a handful of people post text and images and that's it!). Written in PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and SQLite. About 1K lines of source...

I'm an American software developer and the "broligarchs" don't speak for me

ratfactor · 13mo

Hello! It feels like ages since my last update. This has been baking quite a while in the oven and it's a great relief (and also a little scary) to put it out into the world....
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