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Rach Smith

@rachsmith.com
3.1K followers 434 following 303 posts

Writing the React, fighting with the application state, designing the GraphQL APIs, cursing the TypeScript errors, learning Golang, migrating the databases, and admiring the amazing content at codepen.io. rachsmith.com

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Reposted by Rach Smith
Shaw @shaw.city · 24/07/2026
The new @codepen.io 2.0 is now the default experience. If you wanna give it some ✨ Classic flair ✨, check this out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMxX...
youtube.com
CodePen 2.0 But Make It ✨Classic✨
YouTube video by CodePen
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 23/07/2026
I worked on this new Editor for 5 years y’all. 5 gd years. codepen.io/2
static.klipy.com
Paul Rudd: Who Would've Thought? Not Me
ALT: Paul Rudd: Who Would've Thought? Not Me
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 27/05/2026
hello, I’ve been largely offline lately… just too busy with IRL stuff. Anyway, this is the newest member of our family, Teddy Bear.
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Chris Coyier @chriscoyier.net · 10/03/2026
The way our @codepen.io 2.0 editor deals with npm packages is pretty cool. 1. Detect package usage 2. Create/edit `package.json` file to reflect needed packages 3. Inject an `<script type="importmap">` into any HTML produced by compiler Here's using React in 53 seconds.
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Shaw @shaw.city · 06/03/2026
codepen.io/beta
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 22/11/2025
How good is being a full-stacker? You can make anything you want!!
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Amy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
can you imagine making a feature that's so awful you have the most creative people on national television calling it a piece of shit and telling you to "FUCK OFF." on national tv.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 27/10/2025
I’ve been rewriting one of my home-cooked SvelteKit apps with Go and @data-star.dev. Had to wrap my head around the paradigm shift (I’ve never tried HTMX) and deepen my understanding of Go templates… but now that’s done, I’m loving the simplicity of this stack!!
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 15/10/2025
🙌
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Reposted by Rach Smith
henry ✷ @strange.website · 14/10/2025
yea so this is no big deal. ive been taking the lead protein powder for about six months and the only noticeable change is that lately I'm really into using LLMs to unlock critical strategic business insights
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 11/10/2025
It's a long story but basically we've been without broadband for an entire week so I've had to survive on my spotty 4G connection. Most of the web doesn't work with a shitty connection but the worst offender for me and my needs has been github.com.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 10/10/2025
📝 Who needs a flying car when you have display: grid rachsmith.com/who-needs-a-...
rachsmith.com
Who needs a flying car when you have display: grid
How good is the platform now.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 05/10/2025
📝 A letter to myself: Strategies rachsmith.com/strategies/
rachsmith.com
A letter to myself: Strategies
When you put something in the oven and need to remember to take it out, or put washing in the machine and need to remember to hang it out, or need to do anything else time-sensitive like take medicati...
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 03/10/2025
Shouts to the @ynabofficial.bsky.social team for making some top quality web software. I've been using the site for 8 years, have not run in to anything buggy or broken even *once*. I can do everything with the keyboard!
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Reposted by Rach Smith
jenn schiffer 😎 @jennschiffer.com · 27/09/2025
i just want software that leaves me the fuck alone you know what i mean?
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 25/09/2025
Anybody else compulsively hit ⌘+S no less than 5 times per save?
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18/09/2025
of all the things I am not going to buy, this is the thing I am not going to buy the most
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 17/09/2025
A still from Phil Collins' performance of In The Air Tonight in 1990, dressed like he came straight from IT support.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 17/09/2025
blog.jim-nielsen.com/2025/why-mak...
blog.jim-nielsen.com
Why Make a Website in 2025? - Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Writing about the big beautiful mess that is making things for the world wide web.
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Jason Lengstorf @jason.energy · 31/08/2025
solved an edge case style override in @astro.build using CSS layers a little while back and got around to writing it up still extremely happy with Astro and its technical choices to lean heavily on web standards. makes stuff like this feel so natural 💜 codetv.dev/blog/astro-c...
codetv.dev
CSS overrides without important using layers in Astro components
We used to need `!important` to override styles, but it’s not 2021 anymore and there’s a better way: CSS layers.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 25/08/2025
As a kid I was resentful about being made to learn classical piano while other kids got to play pop songs. Now I’m like why would I want to play pop when Beethoven is lit.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 22/08/2025
When I go back to a dynamically typed language (Ruby) after working in a statically typed language (Go) I wonder how I even built *anything* with this thing. Golang has ruined dynamically typed languages for me. (except for JavaScript of course… my ride or die.)
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 10/08/2025
today’s drawing: ghosts - redrawing the little guys my kid drew for his haunted house. Tag yourself, I’m bottom left.
A digital drawing of 5 ghost characters with various expressions.The same small ghost characters: drawn on paper, cut out and sticky-taped on to a coffee table with toys and books on it.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 10/08/2025
I think this might make me officially old and crotchety but I think iOS/iPadOS 26 looks terrible and I hate it 👵🏻😭
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 10/08/2025
Month notes & numbers No. 15 rachsmith.com/mnnm/15/
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 09/08/2025
today’s drawing: froggy
a drawing of a green tree frog sitting on a branch
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Annie Sexton @anniesexton.com · 22/07/2025
I love CSS folks. They are soldiers of joy and delight. The world is burning and AI debates have people at each others throats and CSS peeps keep being like “check out this dancing turtle I made out of divs 🥰”
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 29/06/2025
people talking up their agents always be sounding like this
media.tenor.com
a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a shelf full of books
Alt: A quote from the movie “Anchorman”. Brian Fantana, describing his cologne, says “60% of the time it works every time”.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 15/06/2025
I got 26 😭 www.nicchan.me/blog/youre-n...
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 01/06/2025
Friendship ended with Arc. Now Horse is my best friend. 📝 A stack of browsers rachsmith.com/a-stack-of-b...
rachsmith.com
A stack of browsers
I was a very happy Arc user for a couple of years, but after The Browser Company announced they would no longer be working on it, I started to assess alternatives.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 31/05/2025
📝 Pages CMS rachsmith.com/pages-cms/
rachsmith.com
Pages CMS
Recently I've been experimenting with adding title-less notes to this site, for thoughts the length of a microblog or social post.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 22/05/2025
This movie really had 12-year-old me thinking this is how American High School Proms actually worked. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYD6... 🔗 rachsmith.com/2025-05-22-1...
youtube.com
She's All That: Dance-Off (HD CLIP)
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 15/05/2025
Spotify streaming quality has completely gone to pot. It does this thing where it skips (kind of like an old CD would) and then tries to make up for it by playing the track super fast? It sounds like dog shit and makes my four year old absolutely furious. I’ve pa... 🔗 rachsmith.com/2025-05-16-0...
rachsmith.com
16 May 2025, 6:34 am
Spotify streaming quality has completely gone to pot. It does this thing where it skips (kind of like an old CD would) and then tries to make up for it by playing the track super fast? It sounds like dog shit and makes my four year old absolutely furious.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 11/05/2025
📝 Month notes & numbers №14 rachsmith.com/mnnm-14/
rachsmith.com
Month notes & numbers №14
Notable things from May 2025
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 23/04/2025
me ignoring the growing urge to redesign my personal website
media.tenor.com
a man is sitting at a desk in front of a computer while a woman stands in front of him .
Alt: A scene from the show Parks and Recreation. Ron Swanson sits in a circular desks, swivelling his chair away from a woman who is trying to talk to him.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 21/04/2025
what are your favourite examples of sites that have might have a fairly simplistic design but the type is just really nice….. like the typesetting and font choices just have you going damn, that’s nice.
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Chief among the Ring's powers is its ability to deceive.
Bilbo looking down at the Ring, labeled "Add AI to it" and says, why can't this be our entire product strategy?
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 18/04/2025
📝 The difference between programs and products I am still as in love with programming as I was 15 years ago. Product development, on the other hand, brings me to tears on a weekly basis. rachsmith.com/the-differen...
rachsmith.com
The difference between programs and products
The whole “vibe coding” thing is another reminder that quite a lot of people working in tech don’t understand the difference between programs and products.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 17/04/2025
Not me getting the warm and fuzzies from a lovely compliment about my writing, until I realise its just AI-generated bot activity posting for backlinks 😭 rachsmith.com/2025-04-18-5...
rachsmith.com
18 April 2025, 5:58am
Not me getting the warm and fuzzies from a lovely compliment about my writing, until I realise its just AI-generated bot activity posting for backlinks 😭
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 15/04/2025
📝 A lack of frequency increases the pressure to deliver quality rachsmith.com/a-lack-of-fr...
rachsmith.com
A lack of frequency increases the pressure to deliver quality
I have this story in my head, that the longer I go without writing a note here, the better that note has to be when I do eventually come back and post again.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 15/04/2025
I would be so happy to never have to see an image of Mark Zuckerberg again. rachsmith.com/2025-4-15-17...
rachsmith.com
15 April 2025, 5:36pm
I would be so happy to never have to see an image of Mark Zuckerberg again.
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Reposted by Rach Smith
Ali Spittel @alispit.tel · 02/04/2025
the hard part of software engineering was never the code
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 30/03/2025
📝 Month notes & numbers №13 rachsmith.com/mnnm-13
rachsmith.com
Month notes & numbers №13
Notable things from March 2025
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 28/03/2025
vale.rocks/micros/20250328-1352
vale.rocks
28 Mar 2025 13:52 | Vale.Rocks
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 19/03/2025
Virginia Woolf in her diary, 1920: "Such a good morning’s writing I’d planned, and wasted the cream of my brain on the telephone." Girl, same. rachsmith.com/2025-3-19-5-29
rachsmith.com
19 March 2025, 5:29pm
Virginia Woolf in her diary, 1920:
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 13/03/2025
Every now and then Spotify will throw a song in a generated playlist for a band I’ve never heard of before. Sometimes I’ll look them up and discover that they’re quite new, or they are really really new. Like one song new. No wikipedia entry new. 2000... rachsmith.com/2025-13-3-10-03
rachsmith.com
13 March 2025, 10:03am
Every now and then Spotify will throw a song in a generated playlist for a band I've never heard of before. Sometimes I'll look them up and discover that they're quite new, or they are really really new.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 11/03/2025
📝 In the way I was texting with my best friend. Her mum has cancer, and my friend is going through the brutality of watching it take her piece by piece, just as I did with my own mum 13 years ago. I was thinking about how to respond to the latest message... rachsmith.com/in-the-way
rachsmith.com
In the way
I was texting with my best friend. Her mum has cancer, and my friend is going through the brutality of watching it take her piece by piece, just as I did with my own mum 13 years ago.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 11/03/2025
I was listening to a Chillout Classics playlist when I was hit with a sense memory from 2006: just lying in my bed listening to Moby, in the middle of the day. I remembered that I would often do this on days where I was hungover, or just feeling a bit... rachsmith.com/2025-11-3-14-52
rachsmith.com
11 March 2025, 2:52pm
I was listening to a Chillout Classics playlist when I was hit with a sense memory from 2006: just lying in my bed listening to Moby, in the middle of the day.
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Rach Smith @rachsmith.com · 08/03/2025
📝 Month notes & numbers no. 12 rachsmith.com/mnnm-12/
rachsmith.com
Month notes & numbers №12
Notable things from February 2025
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