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John Athayde

@johnathayde.com
2.8K followers 719 following 299 posts

Multidisciplinary Designer, Musician, Permaculturist | building @developerux.com | running @meticulous.com | chief stall mucker @sfumato.farm | MSTDN: @johnathayde@ruby.social www.johnathayde.com

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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 1h
youtu.be/amHG16-84l4 I've been using Figma Console MCP from Southleft, LLC and this is one thing I wasn't aware I could do until I tried and... well, it worked. Screengrabs from an iOS app in development, and then having it build those static images into editable Figma frames.
youtu.be
Automatically Generate Editable Figma Files from Screenshots with Figma Console MCP + Claude
I've been using Figma Console MCP from Southleft, LLC, and this is one thing I wasn't aware I could do until I tried and... well, it worked. Screengrabs from an iOS app in development, and then…
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 6h
This is why you gotta read the code when you're working on an app. Yeah LLMs do cool stuff, but then they randomly inject emoji into your app that has a design system with icons. Naughty Claude.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 22/09/2026
Specialization gets a lot of attention. Curiosity matters more. The engineers who keep getting better are the ones who keep asking questions, not the ones who already know the most. Curiosity compounds. www.indierails.com/72
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Sung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
PrismML's Ternary Bonsai 2 27B Based on Qwen3.8 27B, Bonsai 2 27B is 9x smaller than its full-precision counterpart while retaining 98.2% of its aggregate benchmark performance.
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Ayush @ayushn21.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
My rewritten guide on the Rails Asset Pipeline just landed in `main`. This was a big-ish change, streamlining the narrative to focus on Propshaft and how it works. Check it out:
edgeguides.rubyonrails.org
The Asset Pipeline — Ruby on Rails Guides
This guide explains how to handle essential asset management tasks.After reading this guide, you will know: What the Rails asset pipeline does. What Propshaft is and how it serves CSS, JavaScript, and...
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 16/09/2026
I'll be at Rails World Austin next week. Do you have a design or UX problem that's frustrating you? I'll have my roll of architectural trace and we can sketch through it together. Looking forward to talking with everyone on UX, Rails View, Frontend, Design Systems...
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 15/09/2026
"AI is the end of programming." "Nothing is going to change." Both miss what's happening. AI gets us to 80% in 20% of the time. The remaining 20% is where the work still lives. It's the next abstraction layer, not the end. www.indierails.com/72 `#AI`
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 04/09/2026
I've been building PatchVault in Rails since 2013, and the build speed has gone pretty fast since the Opus release right before Christmas last year. A good process of PRD + tickets reviewed by Aaron Francis' "counselors" library and a lot of bin/ci coverage.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 03/09/2026
If your app is vanilla Tailwind UI with the default purple, that's not a brand. Tailwind is a toolkit, a starting point, not a finishing point. Brand has to show up somewhere beyond the logo in the corner. www.indierails.com/72
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 01/09/2026
Most Rails apps get built data-model-first. The shift is to start with the user's story: who shows up, what they're trying to do, how easily they can do it. The data model follows. Not the other way around. www.indierails.com/72
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 14/07/2026
After a few months of evening and weekend work, I've published v1.1 of my open source software that turns a raw legal code into a lovely, deeply interconnected website. It's been nine years since the last release! cc: @krusynth.bsky.social, @johnathayde.com
github.com
Release v1.1 · statedecoded/statedecoded
Modernized the entire codebase from PHP 5 to PHP 8, fixing hundreds of incompatibilities so that the software runs on currently supported versions of PHP and MySQL 8. Added a Docker-based developme...
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 07/07/2026
In 2014, Sam Crigman caught me on the escalator at RailsConf Chicago. He wanted to talk Procore UX. That conversation turned into setting the operating model for design embedded in scrum teams. Domain knowledge mattered. www.indierails.com/72
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 30/06/2026
Engineers tell me "I can't design." I push back. Route structure, response payload, field naming. All of it shapes the user's experience. You're designing in code whether you call it that or not. www.indierails.com/72
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 23/06/2026
Users don't read. They scan. The squint test takes 5 seconds: squint at your screen, see what jumps out, that's what the user notices first. If your CTA has the same visual weight as everything else, it's invisible. www.indierails.com/72
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 16/06/2026
The most common Rails UI problem is key-value pair dumping. Half the labels in any Rails app are doing zero work, because a dollar sign already tells you it's a price. Cut the labels the data speaks for. www.indierails.com/72
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 21/05/2026
Watching the storms over Afton from Stony Point.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 12/05/2026
@amyhoy.bsky.social Hap hap happy birthday!
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Kevin Murphy @kevinjm.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
John Athayde is starting things off at @blueridgeruby.com, stepping out of the garden and on to the stage. @johnathayde.com
John on stage at Blue ridge Ruby
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FastRuby.io @fastruby.io · 30/04/2026
Learning from permaculture by @johnathayde.com at @blueridgeruby.com A lot of lessons we can learn from permaculture and apply to sustainable software development and maintenance #blueridgeruby
Learning from permaculture: sustainable software development 

John presenting his talk and the first slideObserve and Interact.
Catch and Store Energy.
Obtain a Yield.
Apply Self-Regulation.
Use Renewable Resources.
Produce No Waste.
Principles
Design from Patterns to Details.
Integrate Rather Than Segregate.
Use Small and Slow Solutions.
Use and Value Diversity.
Use Edges and Value the Marginal.
Creatively Use and Respond to Change.The different seasons at the farm. A slide showing the different seasons at the farm EVERY CODEBASE YOU INHERIT IS SOMEONE ELSE'S
HORSE FARM.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 27/04/2026
This is a slide from my talk this week at Blue Ridge Ruby connecting Permaculture with Sustainable Software Development. Lots of cute animals and lots of fun concepts to help you shift frame on how we approach this work. I hope to see you there!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 09/04/2026
Couldn't happen to a nicer piece of software. Buh bye, Publisher!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 02/04/2026
I love chatting with @jeremysmith.co and I am really looking forward to both giving this talk and hanging out with everyone at Blue Ridge Ruby. Get your tickets asap!
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Patrick Brosset @patrickbrosset.com · 26/01/2026
Hundreds of HTML elements, anchored to each other randomly, by using the CSS anchor positioning feature. Because, why not? A new kind of popup hell. This, and other fun experiments at patrickbrosset.com/articles/202...
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Benjamin Borowski 🍁 @typeoneerror.com · 25/01/2026
It's quite insane. As a firefighter, we have CISD (critical incident stress debriefing) any time there's an on-scene death. And this is dying of natural causes/accidents—watching state murder, live, is not good for you. Please talk to a professional. I would say "if impacted", but, you are.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 21/01/2026
I had so much fun in our wide ranging conversation with Jeremy and Jess. Check out the pod!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 25/12/2025
Merry Christmas! Kransekake complete! Not as perfect as the formal bakers but I’m happy. Much better than last year’s!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 24/12/2025
So it begins! Stollen done, pies wrapped, (all gluten free!), smoker going with a ham from our friends farm and brisket from our own, and kransekake is up next!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 28/11/2025
Most of the world prompts AI, saying "build me a house" and then complains that it sucks when it's not the house they had in mind. Tools like this prompt generator help see the possibility of specificity that you can get to: f-stop.vercel.app
f-stop.vercel.app
f-stop.ai | Professional AI Scene & Prompt Director
Generate cinematic, photorealistic prompts with true camera physics.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 28/11/2025
Black Friday time! 50% off "Typography for Developers". Fix the basics of your application look and feel with good typography. learn.developerux.com/p/type-is-de...
learn.developerux.com
Typography for Developers
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Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast' 10/10 response, no notes
Image of the mechanical ladder outside the Louvre

Text below says WENN'S MAL WIEDER SCHNELL GEHEN MUSS (When you need to move fast)

Underneath is more German text which translates as "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 18/10/2025
Speaking at 10:30 this morning at NOVA Code Camp (novacodecamp.org ) today! (18 October). Come say hi!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 04/09/2025
#RailsWorld Day 1 in the books. From our fun morning boat ride with the Baltic Ruby crew to DHH's keynote, the great hallway track in a beautiful space here in Amsterdam, and the random cat in the window spotted on the way through... Lots of great talks and new and old Ruby Friends.
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Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
I’m a consultant. I’ve seen inside every kind of organization. Good managers/leaders doing important work don’t run their teams ragged, and especially don’t brag about it.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 28/07/2025
Playing with the Ladybird browser: A browser and rendering engine built from scratch (and not just on top of Chromium). Kinda fun to do the build from source ... feels a bit like 15 years ago. github.com/LadybirdBrow...
github.com
GitHub - LadybirdBrowser/ladybird: Truly independent web browser
Truly independent web browser. Contribute to LadybirdBrowser/ladybird development by creating an account on GitHub.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 25/07/2025
The RailsConf talks have been released! Here’s my talk on UX for Rails devs. Thanks to everyone who came out and I hope you enjoy it! youtu.be/ybUhVeTqGN4
youtu.be
RailsConf 2025 UX & Design for Rails Devs: Elevating the "One Person Framework"... by John Athayde
YouTube video by Ruby Central
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 22/07/2025
WebDev has forgotten the utter pain of slow FTP. Stuck on a low-speed pool wifi and trying to FTP parts of a WordPress site. The sheer number of hours I spent in Adobe ImageReady trying to crunch images smaller so I could upload the site in less than an hour… countless.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 16/07/2025
Alright Ruby Friends, let's do this (thanks @joemasilotti.com for building it!) rubyfriends.app/profiles/QPDR
rubyfriends.app
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 10/07/2025
Really enjoyed @marcoroth.dev ’s talk on Herb - herb-tools.dev and a new way to handle view templating. Lots to dig into and I look forward to playing with it on a few of my projects. So much new coolness in the View layer!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 10/07/2025
Thanks to everyone who came out to my @rubycentral.org RailsConf25 talk! The Typography for Developers class is live as of today! learn.developerux.com/p/type-is-de...
learn.developerux.com
Typography for Developers
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 07/07/2025
It’s scything time again. Clearing out the overgrown garden and feeding the trimmings to the cow and boy goats before I head off to @rubycentral.org ‘s RailsConf this week in Philly. Hit me up to talk hobby farming, permaculture, or UX for rails devs. I’m presenting Thursday right before lunch!
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 30/06/2025
Bringing out my old standbys for work soundtrack, hoping it will help get the juices flowing this AM. First up? The Thievery Corporation masterpiece “The Mirror Conspiracy”: music.apple.com/us/album/mir...
music.apple.com
Mirror Conspiracy (Remastered 2022) by Thievery Corporation on Apple Music
Album · 2000 · 15 Songs
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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 23/06/2025
Meta’s web-to-app tracking proves you’re right to distrust Meta, and we need to end surveillance advertising.
eff.org
Protect Yourself From Meta’s Latest Attack on Privacy
Researchers recently caught Meta using an egregious new tracking technique to spy on you. Exploiting a technical loophole, the company was able to have their apps snoop on users’ web browsing. This tr...
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 23/06/2025
Holy shit. One of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's first-look images. This image is 3,840×2,160 but the original image is 40,000×21,047 px. Virtually every pixel is a star or a galaxy. VIRTUALLY EVERY PIXEL
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Noel Rappin @noelrappin.com · 24/05/2025
I haven't mentioned this here much, but @pragprog.com has a @humblebundle.com with 19 Ruby and JavaScript ebooks for $18 or pay-what you will for smaller bundles or larger charitable donations. About one day left... www.humblebundle.com/books/javasc...
humblebundle.com
Humble Tech Book Bundle: JavaScript, Scripting, and Web Development by Pragmatic
Level up your scripting skills in Java & more with this library of coding and programming courses—pay what you want and support charity!
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Kevin Carey @kevincarey1.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
If you make me change my password and then reject it because I've already used that password, may your milk go sour, your company go bankrupt, your children forsake you, your fields lie fallow, and your name be whispered as a warning and a curse until the end of your days.
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John Athayde @johnathayde.com · 25/05/2025
Ugh. For my local friends. Take note:
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Chris Plummer @chrisplummer.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
If you load this page it contacts 82 IP addresses executing 256 separate HTTP transactions to download 18MB of data writing 64 cookies to your device to tell you “no”
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Adrie van der Luijt @traumainformedcontent.com · 25/05/2025
Why do government emails feel like they’re written by robots with no clue about real life? I share my experience with Companies House after my dad died and how trauma-informed content could make a world of difference. #TraumaInformed #ContentDesign #PublicSector #DigitalGov #EmpathyMatters
workplaceinsights.co.uk
Death, deadlines and bureaucratic blindness: How Companies House still gets trauma-informed content so utterly wrong - Workplace Insights by Adrie van der Luijt
Government emails from Companies House often lack trauma-informed content and empathy, compounding the distress of bereavement or crisis.
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Hà Phan @hpdailyrant.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
I could imagine this scenario where you interview a PM and you ask, “How did you arrive at the insight to form this hypothesis?” And the PM would say that they conducted research using AI. I could imagine a myriad of follow up questions to interrogate that answer.
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Hà Phan @hpdailyrant.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
A lot of designers have been tasked with these kinds of manipulative friction design at one point or another. It’s not UX in the sense of advocating for users—it’s manipulative interface design, incentive-aligned interface design serving business goals, not user needs.
ux.in
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