Posts regarding software development.
This week the argument found a name. Uncle Bob Martin, who started coding in the late 60s and wrote the book on clean code, posted that his current strategy is to not read any of the … Read more
Software engineers stopped opening IDEs. Hardware engineers are about to stop opening KiCad. I define Prompt to Metal, explain why the prompt-box startups have no moat, and share five weakly held opinions about where this all goes.
The Model Context Environment Controller is eyes, hands, and a safe front door for agents on Windows; and the same battle-tested remote control for smart-home systems.
Updated July 2026. The original March version of this post is below, revised. The biggest changes: my credentials for giving this advice got stronger (I stopped reading the code entirely; see No-Look Coding and the Five Stages … Read more
For the past few months we’ve been architecting, refactoring, and refining. 146 commits. Dozens of PRs. One PR touched 493 files. The long-awaited Beta isn’t just about revolutionary features. It’s about getting the architecture right and … Read more
Terminal.Gui is a .NET UI framework for cross-platform terminal apps. It started life as gui.cs, created by Miguel de Icaza. Miguel, being Miguel, casually dropped a complete cross-platform console UI stack into the world, made it … Read more
Since the dawn of time I’ve considered the PC (and related devices like Macs, printers, etc…) to be part of my smart home. For some reason, most traditional smart home offerings have treated PCs et.al. as … Read more
Ever since I started programming on an Apple ][+ in 1981, I’ve had a thing for printing. My earliest apps focused on printing and my first money-making endeavor was “Tapes”, which printed casette tape ‘J-cards’ for … Read more
I love git. I love GitHub. But GitHub doesn’t seem to appreciate open source projects that require hosting more than source code. MCE Controller is an open source Windows app intended to be used by non-developers. … Read more
By popular demand (shocking, I know), MCE Controller now supports RS-232 in addition to TCP/IP connections. This means that you can now control any Windows PC via the serial port. MCE Controller is an open source … Read more
I prefer coding on my workstation (30” + 24” LCDs, fast, great chair, etc…). But sometimes want to hack on my laptop (an MBA) when I’m out and about. Here’s my workflow. I am posting this … Read more
MCE Controller allows you to remotely control another Windows PC on your network. For example it allows you to simulate a press of any button on the Windows Media Center IR remote control from another computer; … Read more
A few weeks ago I wrote about Coping with the OSS command line on Windows. In that post, I argued that the Mac is far better for dealing with the current crop of OSS development technologies … Read more
Long time (23 years?) Windows user here. I’m not leaving Windows anytime soon, for a variety of reasons. But I do have a Macbook Air. Parallels lets me run the best apps, whether they are Mac … Read more
[UPDATED: Feb 11, 2012 – Version 1.4.0 Released] MCE Controller enables the remote control of a Windows PC over the network. It runs in the background on a Windows PC listening on the network for commands. … Read more
MCE Controller, allows you to simulate a press of any button on the Windows Media Center IR remote control by sending a text command to a TCP/IP port on your Media Center computer. For example if … Read more
Jim Lyon co-authored the INTERCAL programming language. He’s a dev on my team. We decided that all devs must know this language in order to write code on my project. You should learn it too.
I built MCE Controller as something that would be useful for my own home. I had minor aspirations of making it do more than it does, but the reality is that I don’t really have the … Read more
I’ve released an update to MCE Controller that fixes a bug where it would prevent Windows logoff and shutdown. Head over to http://www.kindel.com/products/mcecontroller to download it. MCE Controller allows the Media Center application of Windows Media … Read more
