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Jon Skeet

@jonskeet.uk
4.1K followers 249 following 1K posts

Christian, husband of @hollywebb.bsky.social father, feminist, software engineer at Trainline, author, Stack Overflow contributor. He/him. (All views expressed are my own, and not that of my employer.)

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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 12h
That's an interesting expectation. Do you think Kemi Badenoch will still be leader at that point? Personally I think the Tories won't recover enough for that to happen unless Reform and Restore both implode pretty completely.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13h
I assume that once the discussion gets going fully there will suddenly be a whole slew of armchair experts on different electoral systems. Some of us will no doubt do some research first, enough to be smug about actually knowing *something* - without really becoming experts in any meaningful sense.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13h
But Burnham has quite a lot of pitch-rolling to do on big changes to go in the manifesto. And a big majority for this parliament, of course. I'm still hopeful the election won't be until 2029 - but I think it could then be a really big one (if you see what I mean).
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 30/09/2026
Buy another pack, and maybe it'll be all right.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 30/09/2026
Very appropriately, seen in Heathrow airport on my way to Copenhagen where I'll be meeting up with @kevlin.bsky.social.
Two screens - one booting and one blue screen.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 28/09/2026
When I was on Xitter, it felt like most of the value was in keeping up-to-date. On BlueSky, I feel most of the value is being reminded frequently that even though there is a lot wrong with the world, there are still many fabulous people, and always more to meet. Thank you, fabulous people.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 28/09/2026
I suspect you can do bulk import of everything by John Bell and Graham Maule.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 27/09/2026
But broadly - yes, absolutely. Particularly the size part. I'm pleased that my election site home page takes less than 10k to load.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 27/09/2026
I'm *slightly* less with you on Javascript than I would have been a few years ago. Just a moderate amount of client-side code can make a huge difference. I'm always surprised that "just write in Markdown and we'll convert to HTML" hasn't become mainstream for web design as far as I've seen.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 26/09/2026
Exactly. We spend so much time working with people, a poor relationship is far worse than occasional less-than-ideal competence. (While also trying to avoid affinity bias, of course.)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 26/09/2026
I have somewhat related feelings about CVs. I can't easily tell how honest the candidate is being about how great they've been in previous roles - but I can read into what qualities they think are important. It's a weird kind of reading between the lines.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 23/09/2026
Have you thought about caramelising the walnuts? I hear that works surprisingly well ;)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 18/09/2026
All 10 fingers in the freezer bags, or all 10 fingers still attached? Big difference...
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
Sometimes the withdrawal of one large donor could be enough to tip a church into being unviable. Basically, having an out-of-proportion positive financial impact can turn into a really difficult decision very easily, and I don't remember ever hearing this being discussed in podcasts, Substacks etc.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
As an example of where I suspect this has been happening outside politics, my guess is that over the last few years since Methodism has started allowing individual churches to celebrate same-sex marriage, there have been large donors who disagree with their local church's policy.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
Do you have a moral obligation to continue donating, even though this is something you feel strongly about? If you decide to *stop* donating, should you give fair warning about that, which could be interpreted as trying to blackmail the party into changing the policy? Basically it's messy.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
Now imagine there's a debate on nuclear power. Maybe there are technological advances which are enough to convince other people, but not you. The party decides to support nuclear power as a policy. What do you do? You still believe in most of the Green party agenda, but this is important to you.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
Not to the extent of the recent Reform donations, but it's material to the party. Maybe you're in the top two or three individual donors. You deliberately don't try to exert undue influence on the party, but the donations are on the electoral commission web site, so it's not like they're anonymous.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
Let's take a hypothetical but concrete example of what I mean. Suppose you're broadly in line with Green party ideals, and you really dislike nuclear energy. The current (UK) Green party policy is for nuclear power to be phased out, so you're fine with that, and you make donations to the party.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
3) It's unreasonable to expect someone to donate to an organisation they disagree with on something really meaningful to them; 4) It's unhealthy for any one individual to have a very significant influence over organisation's policies due to money.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
Basically there are principles which each sound reasonable but can end up conflicting: 1) It's fine for someone to want to support an organisation which shares their broad philosophy; 2) It's fine for an organisation's detailed policies to change over time;
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
Separately to my other thread about the Reform donations, I don't hear much talk about genuine dilemmas around party donations. There was some discussion about what's legal on Newscast yesterday, but I it's worth thinking of the donor perspective, not just the ultra-wealthy, and not just politics.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
I can see why Reform would want to keep a membership fee, to have *some* barrier to entry... but from a member perspective, why would you feel good about paying it? It's not material to the party, but it might be material to you. I'm sure many people will still keep paying, but it changes dynamics.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
The Reform membership page says "Your contribution helps fund our election campaigns across the country." But does it really? Let's say Reform has 300K members and they're all general members, that's £7.5M - so 10.4% of the donations of the last couple of days.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 13/09/2026
One aspect I haven't seen discussed about the big Reform donations is what impact it has on the "ordinary" members. General membership is £25 a year. Not a huge amount, but not insignificant if you're really struggling.
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Reposted by Jon Skeet
Robin Skeet @saurosys.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I don't believe I'll be running again for the foreseeable future... #running #ultramarathon #run
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 12/09/2026
It should be a question at every hustings - or similar - for every election where a Restore candidate is on the ballot. Then collate those answers. (I understand that each candidate's individual view is different from party policy, but still...)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 12/09/2026
I'm such a @felienne.bsky.social fan-boy. This is amazing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-6-...
youtube.com
AI made me doubt everything about programming by Felienne Hermans - DDD Europe 2026
YouTube video by Domain-Driven Design Europe
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 11/09/2026
One of my sons - @saurosys.bsky.social - is currently (I hope) asleep ahead of a 100km ultramarathon tomorrow. But I bet his feet aren't as elegantly prepared.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 10/09/2026
(To be clear, while there *is* some confusion, I'm pretty sure it'll all be okay, possibly after a short delay... I just thought the communication was amusing.)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 10/09/2026
"Passengers on this train, I'm the driver - please accept my apologies and rest assured that I'm as confused as you are." I'm not sure that we have a shared understanding of "rest assured".
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 05/09/2026
I suspect "A song of patriotic prejudice" would be more up Reform's street.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 05/09/2026
Poohsoc rivalry went as far as having Formal Hall of War in my day. I'm sure I had a write-up of it somewhere...
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 05/09/2026
It really wasn't. At least in my day (1994-1998), we did exactly what we said: read children's stories in silly voices and had mugs of piping hot cocoa. Watching Pulp Fiction at St John's after a meeting, still in our dressing gowns and carrying teddy bears, was interesting...
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Reposted by Jon Skeet
Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
A little 36-hour Bluesky exclusive back-to-school offer on the substack.... 25% off for your first year. (Please feel free to share the link with friends not on here. Can also be used to buy gift subs for kids starting politics A-level / degrees....) samf.substack.com/specialoffer
samf.substack.com
Subscribe to Comment is Freed
Politics, policy analysis, and foreign affairs from Sam and Lawrence Freedman. Click to read Comment is Freed, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 02/09/2026
Somehow I imagine that @jonnysims.bsky.social reading the phone book would be very, very disturbing.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 02/09/2026
And presumably the cadence of change for that process is "once every 2-3 years"?
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 01/09/2026
Given that the last production was cancelled due to Covid, I'll be gutted if this quietly goes away as well. (Fortunately managed to see a superb Mountview production in 2024, but even so...)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 01/09/2026
I initially misread the last part as "and brings the winds out of his trousers" - maybe that's in one of the psalms lost to history...
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 01/09/2026
I wonder how much detail will be given before the election. A mandate for "we should make changes" or even "we should be more proportional" is quite different from "here's a policy that's ready to go." My understanding is that the civil service would be limited in input to the latter, mind you.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 01/09/2026
Those graphs are pretty alarming/astonishing in all kinds of ways...
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 31/08/2026
And a Raspberry Pi, IIRC.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 30/08/2026
Cue protests of "it's not LDAP!" (I'm pretty sure there were competing pages for and against last I looked...)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 27/08/2026
The moon behind the clouds looks amazing here at the moment. This photo doesn't actually capture it well - it's much less bright in reality - but feels cool in itself.
The moon with layers of cloud in front of it, making the glow seem bigger.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 27/08/2026
So hard to guess which interview you might have been listening to ;)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 27/08/2026
FIFA could give him a race relations prize.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 26/08/2026
(Admittedly looking at the Wikipedia page, I don't understand how my Dad and Tim met at all. Will have to ask...)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 26/08/2026
Reading all the posts about Tim Curry, and I just keep thinking that my dad will be sad - because they used to play Monopoly together as kids. (Apparently Tim *always* won, but it's possible that's apocryphal.)
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 25/08/2026
The weird thing is, when I was in university everyone was bragging about uptimes of months or years. How times have changed.
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Jon Skeet @jonskeet.uk · 25/08/2026
Make a band bigger*: They ARE Giants. (In this case only potentially bigger, admittedly.)
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