My name is Erik, and I am a Dutch software developer. I also like to write fiction. One could say I spend a lot of time trying to capture the world in plain text. Source code for the small part of it that can be expressed in logical terms, stories for everything else.
For a terrible half an hour last night I thought Firefox was on the brink of disappearing as an independent browser and rendering engine. I was frightened silly by the rumour that Mozilla laid off significant portions of its browser team. The official press release being full of useless corporate open web blah didn’t…
Short domains are useful for security testing. If you only have a limited number of characters, you need to be able to reference code on a remote server in as few characters as possible. A few years ago, I tried to find a Minimum Viable XSS. The conclusion that I (and others) came to is that 20 characters is the bare…
Here’s my take on JWT* and why I think it’s amazing, after having migrated hundreds of applications in JP Morgan from a legacy authentication solution. *JWT = JSON Web Token 1) Pro: JWT…
Hosting static websites is great. As they only contain static assets to be downloaded by the visitor’s browser - think HTML, CSS, Javascript, Fonts, images - no server-side code such as Java or PHP needs to be run. They’re therefore typically faster to load than dynamic websites, they have a smaller attack surface…
I’m not trying to be coy, but what is the iPhone itself? A business device or a consumer product? Using *or* instead of *and* as the conjunction there is clearly laughable.
Let’s encrypt: an automated certificate authority to encrypt the entire web, Aas et al., CCS’19 This paper tells the story of Let’s Encrypt, from it’s early beginnings in 20…
As of today, Windows trusts 322 root certificates issued by 122 different organizations from 47 countries. This number is quite high, and has been steadily growing over the last few years. And it turns out many of those certificates are not needed at all by the vast majority of Windows users, can be distrusted with no…
Earlier this year, when I went from having only Facebook-login on Wishy.gift to allow registrations with email address and password, one of my concerns was how to implement this is a way that protects the data and privacy of my users. I don’t have any ads or analytics on the site, the users can select whatever display…
This article aims to subdue the rumors that Safari 14 will block Google Analytics (and other similar libraries) by default. It will not.
Prelude In late 2004, I was the Program Manager for Microsoft’s clipart website, delivering a million pieces of clipart to Microsoft Office customers every day. It was great fun. But there wa…
A few thoughts to consider when using React hooks
What to do before adopting every little trend you come across
Analyzing the little guys
We have a couple Mac users in the office so I went around and asked them how to do some things on macOS, which as we all know, is much better than iPadOS at making important, useful UI elements easily discoverable. I talked to 3 people who have been using
CSS grid goes hexagonal.
How can we, as web professionals, help to make the web more energy efficient? From data centres to transmission networks to the devices that we hold in our …
A side-by-side comparison of open-source, self-hosted commenting systems for static sites — so choosing one doesn’t mean opening every repository yourself. Stars, open issues and last-commit dates are refreshed daily. Missing a system, or a column you need? Leave a comment below or open an issue.
Discover why personal websites are the backbone of the independent web. Learn how to build, connect, and maintain your own space on the internet.
If you are in charge of a web site that provides even slightly important information, or important services, it’s time to get static.
I'm a software and network engineer living on the west coast. I currently work at Qumulo writing a petabyte-scale CDN with linearizable reads and writes at every edge. Previously, I worked at Arista Networks doing network automation, large scale digital-twin network validation, and routing for SMPTE2110 networks.
Articles on frontend development and more.
Programmer chronicles.
From personal project to industry standard Introduction added in 2025 When introduced Oklab in 2020, I never expected it to reach as far as...
astrocamel, Blog, Portfolio, George Skouroupathis
Update 7 May 2022: A followup to this post containing significant conceptual advance is Xilem: an architecture for UI in Rust. I consider the Crochet experiment to be mostly negative, as there were a number of ergonomic and functional “paper cuts,” though several of the research goals were met, at least to some extent.
Old Web features — frontend and UI patterns
