Blogrolls

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WordPress used to have link management built into core. All the code is technically still there, but it’s been disabled by default for many years. You can re-enable it with the Link Manager plugin, which is where the code will theoretically move eventually. Included along with this link management code is an OPML generator.

I was recently reading about how micro.blog has a blogroll feature that exposes the OPML at a .well-known path. Dave Winer has also been writing about blogroll discovery.

Blogrolls obviously aren’t new, but coming back to this idea seems important. Improving discovery for the distributed/social web seems important.

I wrote a quick WordPress plugin, to complement the Link Manager plugin, that adopts some of these new ideas. Namely:

  • Exposes the blogroll at /.well-known/recommendations.opml
  • Adds a link element with rel="blogroll" to the <head> section
  • Adds a source:blogroll to your RSS feed
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My first concert “after” the Pandemic was Andrew McMahon and Zac Clark in October 2021. I remember being thrilled about doing something that felt normal again.

Zac Clark at The Rave in Milwaukee

Zac Clark has collaborated with McMahon on various tours and musical projects. His music often features introspective lyrics and melodic compositions, reflecting his influences from rock, folk, and pop genres. Both artists are celebrated for their ability to connect deeply with their audiences, making their performances together a memorable and impactful experience.

While you’re here, I recommend his album, Holy Shit.

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We just take for granted that Open Source software is secure because people can review the source code. Unfortunately people very often don’t review the source code. This is how under-appreciated and under-funded maintainers end up being susceptible to bullying.

Write Dumb Code

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This article from 2018 is on the front page of Hacker News again today.

The best way you can contribute to an open source project is to remove lines of code from it. We should endeavor to write code that a novice programmer can easily understand without explanation or that a maintainer can understand without significant time investment.

The author also mentions:

Every line that you write costs people time. It costs you time to write it of course, but you are willing to make this personal sacrifice. However this code also costs the reviewers their time to understand it. It costs future maintainers and developers their time as they fix and modify your code. They could be spending this time outside in the sunshine or with their family.

This is just as true for closed source code as open source. Source code is read orders of magnitude more times than it’s written. We should optimize it for the reader and optimize it to be easily improved.