Sign in

David van Geest

@dvgi.ca
14 followers 31 following 23 posts

Software developer, Torontonian, all-weather cyclist. I build core libraries, services, and tooling for Hopper's dev teams, in Scala and Python.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by David van Geest
Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 22/07/2026
Arthurian Connector xkcd.com/3274/
Comic. Cursed Connectors #158: The Arthurian (can only be unplugged by a rightful heir to the British throne) [one side of the cord connection is a sword; the other is a stone with a hole in the center]
434437608
Reposted by David van Geest
Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 06/07/2026
Types of Tornado Alert xkcd.com/3267/
8-panel Comic. (1) Tornado Warning [tornado in the distance of a house] A tornado has been detected; take shelter (2) Tornado Watch [Person with bun talking to another person pointing at diagrams on screen] Conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form (3) Tornado precaution [person] Tornadoes happen sometimes, so be ready (4) Tornado Inkling [Person with hand on face] No tornadoes yet, but we have a feeling (5) Tornado Suspicion [Person looking up at clouds] Weird clouds have been observed (6) Tornado Premonition [Person looking at birds flying in tornado shape and two birds sitting on scythe-like structure with skull beneath] Tornado portents and omens have been observed (7) Tornado Recollection [Person with thought bubble containing tornado] Tornadoes have occurred in the past (8) Tornado Contemplation [Person sitting and saying, “Wow.”] Tornadoes are very big and powerful
434769938
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 29/06/2026
A very common data type error is using an ordered sequence when a set is more appropriate. Often, ordering is not important, but there's an implicit assumption that elements are actually unique. Usually of little consequence, but really triggers me. We've had sets for a long time, this isn't C!
100
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 25/05/2026
People ask me "I'm at this spot in Toronto, where should I eat/drink?". And I consult my curated map for the answer. Might as well put it out there for everyone? I've either been to the place and liked it, or it's been well-reviewed and I'm interested to try it. maps.app.goo.gl/MirHza4b4zi8...
maps.app.goo.gl
000
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 12/05/2026
So many great takes in this article. The result of programming is not just a product, it's also a programmer. larsfaye.com/articles/age...
larsfaye.com
Agentic Coding is a Trap | Lars Faye
Remaining vigilant about cognitive debt and atrophy.
000
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 12/05/2026
I don't know who picked this photo, but 10/10 A+ @carrietait.bsky.social @mattscace.bsky.social
000
Reposted by David van Geest
Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 20/04/2026
Europa Missions xkcd.com/3234/
3-panel comic. (1) (A person with a picture of a spacecraft behind head.] PERSON 1: There are now three spacecraft headed to Europe: NASA’s *Europa Clipper*, which will investigate Europa’s subsurface ocean, (2) [Person is gesturing at a picture of a different spacecraft while talking to a person with a ponytail and a person with short hair.] PERSON 1: ESA’s *Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer*, which will study the topography and chemistry of Europa and the other moons, (3) [Person with a picture behind head of a Zamboni with a rocket launcher underneath] and the NHL’s *Zamboni Voyager*, which plans to resurface Europa. PERSON FROM OFF-PANEL: Oh no. PERSON 1: We tried to stop them, but the league is set on an expansion.
352839474
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 02/04/2026
Code review has always been an important way for teams to build a shared understanding of what they are building, and why. We might need a new way to do that, but failing to recognize this role while eliminating human code review will lead to disaster. www.davidpoll.com/2026/02/code...
davidpoll.com
Code Review Is Not About Catching Bugs
My former Parse colleague Charity Majors – now CTO of Honeycomb and one of the strongest voices in the observability space – recently posted something that caught my attention. She’s frustrated wit...
000
Reposted by David van Geest
Dinosaur Comics! @qwantz.com · 27/03/2026
Chris Doppler, or "CD" for short, sadly never went by "CD" for short. www.qwantz.com/index.php?co...
T-Rex: One day in 1803, Mr. and Mrs. Doppler had a kid - whom they named Chris Doppler.

T-Rex: And Chris Doppler would go on to name MANY different effects after himself!T-Rex: Young Doppler discovered if he pinched his cheeks it hurt them some, and named that "the Doppler Effect". But nobody cared about that, so when he was a teen he called the way hickeys formed when he smooched people too hard "the Doppler Effect".
Dromiceiomimus: Didn't take?
T-Rex: IT DID NOT TAKE, no.
Utahraptor: Damn. Doppler keeps striking out with these many effects!
T-Rex: TRUE!

T-Rex: But then, one day when he was 38, he decided to name how the frequency of a wave can seem to change depending on the relative speed of its observer and its source "the Doppler Effect" - and this time, it took.
Utahraptor: Doppler was so excited to finally have an effect named after him that he LITERALLY DIED!!Off panel: Eleven years later.
T-Rex: Yeah, turns out it's not good to be THAT excited for THAT long
618324
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 10/02/2026
How to use a SaaS product in 2025: 1. Open it up 2. Dismiss 18 hojillion popups about shitty AI features 3. Try to remember what it was I was actually trying to do
000
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 31/12/2025
This. www.joanwestenberg.com/the-rime-of-...
joanwestenberg.com
The Rime of the Ancient Maintainer
Every culture produces heroes that reflect its deepest anxieties. The Greeks, terrified of both mortality and immortality, gave us Achilles. The Victorians, haunted by social mobility, gave us the sel...
000
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 27/10/2025
Is it just me, or does Python still not have a real mitigation versus Dependency Confusion attacks? PEP 708 seems kind of dead? Meanwhile JVM repositories have been verifying group ID ownership (largely via domain control) since... forever? Even NPM sort of has it together with scoped packages.
000
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 30/07/2025
I run a coding interview where we ask the candidate to not use AI. Have had several candidates seemingly ignore this and type in the optimal solution with no thought. But my favourite is when someone clearly uses an AI, gets a buggy solution, and is totally unable to fix it. Instant karma.
010
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 03/07/2025
An oft-overlooked facet of the Bezos API mandate: [...] the team must plan and design to be able to expose the interface to developers in the outside world. [...] This single-handedly prevents a ton of unhealthy coupling between internal services. Want to use other services' IDs in yours? Too bad.
110
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 04/06/2025
I saw this title and thought, "Wow, first Go gets generics and now it gets Either? They've really made progress!" Dear reader, they have not. go.dev/blog/error-s...
go.dev
[ On | No ] syntactic support for error handling - The Go Programming Language
Go team plans around error handling support
010
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 29/05/2025
I migrated my Scala OSS libs to central.sonatype.com from OSSRH (which is shutting down at the end of June), and it was actually pretty easy using sbt-ci-release. Kudos to @eed3si9n.com for the support there and in SBT.
central.sonatype.com
Maven Central
Official search by the maintainers of Maven Central Repository.
141
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 11/04/2025
I'm a relatively wealthy person living in a great city that sometimes struggles to maintain its infrastructure and services due to lack of funding. Of course I am willing to donate to help out! At least this is what I tell myself after getting a parking ticket.
000
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 11/04/2025
Look, nested methods are great sometimes. But if you nest 10 methods, each many hundreds of lines, inside a single method, we are going to have words.
001
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 08/04/2025
That sinking feeling when a critical SaaS vendor is a little _too_ responsive to your issues (proactively solving them!), even though you pay them very little.
000
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 30/01/2025
There are times when I think I would choose AWS over GCP just to avoid gRPC and protobuf.
120
David van Geest @dvgi.ca · 30/01/2025
oh hello. Enjoy this pic of my new-ish bike I guess? I'm sure I'll be back to blabbing about software in no time.
030