iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 28/08/2025

I spent a lot of time in code designing abstractions that create boundaries around likelihood of change. I like to develop a solid core that I rarely ever touch again. Something well-tested and reliable. That enables me to go wild at the edges, run weird experiments, and not break anything.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 26/08/2025

I know AI code assistants are controversial. But honestly, I'm spending my time: designing software architecture, planning work, reviewing code, documenting best practices, and only diving into deep code-writing sessions on the legitimately difficult problems. It's... kinda nice?

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 25/08/2025

Sometimes I don't mind the AI being a sycophant. I worked hard on this high performance, multi-protocol connection pool. 😅 > The pool is not just "good" - it's production-grade high-performance infrastructure that can handle enterprise-scale multi-tenant workloads without breaking a sweat! 🚀

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 22/08/2025

One cool thing about building developer tools is that I get to add all the nice little touches I like. For example, in a CLI, why can't I get JSON output on like... everything? If I want to wire up automation, parsing text is always fraught with peril. Just give me a data structure I can pipe to jq.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 22/08/2025

One of my favorite uses of terminal-based AI code assistants is telling them my complex queries and letting them rg (or grep), sed, and awk their way through. We do need a reliable language server integration, though, which do a heck of a lot better at deterministic edits like symbol renames.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 21/08/2025

As I'm preparing to open source a project, I am suddenly so self-conscious about my code hygiene. I've been the only one looking at this code, so it's been fine. But I definitely need to clean the stacks of clothes off the chair before we have company.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 20/08/2025

I've been working on MCP developer tools. It has been fun. There are a few MCP gateways out there. They're fine. I've technically built a high-performance, resilient MCP gateway in this codebase, but I'm not currently planning to promote it that way. I think there's a lot of opportunity here.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 20/08/2025

AI code assistants *also* find it difficult to find and fix race conditions. Give me a model that can implement best-effort cleanup of a concurrent resource pool when things go haywire. Then you can start heralding the death of human-led software engineering. Until then, I think we'll be all right.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 19/08/2025

Spending my evening with a Rust project figuring out a Drop implementation on a ConnectionPool that can do a best-effort cleanup of active connections. If the caller forgets to do an explicit call to the close method, I'd like it to be as low-impact as possible. This is hard stuff. But fun!

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 19/08/2025

Confession: I've been cheating on fixing my clippy errors in Rust projects by using Claude. 🫣 cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings 2>&1 | claude -p "Please fix these clippy errors"

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 18/08/2025

As a developer who's getting older, I spend a lot more time on module organization design in my codebase. It's natural for module organization to grow and evolve over time, but what we usually end up doing is trying to stick to older models that might not be as useful.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 31/07/2025

Reading DC Comics for the first time since childhood. Tom King’s Wonder Woman series and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow are really, really good.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 27/07/2025

If your headline about AI is "no more ___" or "the end of ___", I'm probably going to roll my eyes. Here are the latest top 3 things going away because of AI, according to headlines: - network APIs - software developers - the World Wide Web Okay, maybe, but not in your lifetime, buddy. Calm down.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 25/07/2025

Hey, folks! If you’re around at 9am EDT (6am PDT) on Friday, July 25th and are interested in the intersection of APIs and AI, feel free to tune in! www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3gp...

youtube.com

15+ Years of APIs (with Kevin Swiber, API Strategy Advisor)

YouTube video by WunderGraph — Stefan & Jens

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 24/07/2025

I walked around the house showing this to every member of my family. We're definitely going to see this on the big screen. We make an AirBud reference at least once a week. I'm thrilled.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 24/07/2025

Going to see the new Fantastic Four movie at 2PM, because I really don't want to see spoilers. I'm looking forward to it! Early critic reviews have at 88% on the Tomatometer. That's pretty good.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 23/07/2025

Product development is not product assembly. In a past life, I worked as an industrial engineering technician in the automotive industry. We were applying Lean Manufacturing practices. In development, you minimize waste and maximize value. In assembly, you optimize for speed and efficiency.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 22/07/2025

I love that the door burst was practical and not CGI. I wouldn’t want to enter a room like this, though. I hate making a mess.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 19/07/2025

Possible hot take: AI code agents are actually more effectively used in large feature creation than in small bug fixes. Reasoning: It requires a lot of meticulous planning and design by the developer to get high quality work from LLMs. That time might not be worth it for small bug fixes.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 18/07/2025

“Agents” is a boring name. We had the right idea with “daemons”. Why don’t we go with “djinns” or “daevas”?

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 19/06/2025

Y’all, the kids are protesting ICE on Roblox. This is amazing. youtu.be/s1RSD9-qHTI?...

youtu.be

The Surprising Way Kids Are Protesting ICE.

YouTube video by Parkrose Permaculture

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 19/06/2025

The race is long, and your fortune can change.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 15/06/2025

When people leave jobs, they’re often careful to not “burn the bridge”. However, it’s more often the employer who sets that bridge on fire, as that’s the power dynamic. So my advice to a lot of folks is… Be cautious when revisiting those ashes. Keep moving forward. It gets better.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 13/06/2025

I’m really sick right now. But I’m thinking about my love of comic books since childhood and my love of movies, too. Millennials were lucky to be around for the birth of comic book movie franchises.

Martyn @martyndavies.me · 10/06/2025

Reposted by Kevin Swiber

Always great to have @swiber.dev on for a chat!

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 02/06/2025

I just went to a music festival. I made people cry from the jokes I told. I made people cry from the support I gave them. Why the fuck do I keep making people cry? My goal is to leave people feeling nonplussed. This is completely plussed.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 02/06/2025

“Funny haha or funny queer?” Both, I hope?

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 26/05/2025

Rich kids never played kick-the-can.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 25/05/2025

I’ve reached a point in my life that I can finally handle awkward misunderstandings with grace. And now I think most communication is, in fact, the act of figuring out awkward misunderstandings between people with different ideas. It’s tricky business.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 16/05/2025

Me on every flight: I’m so sorry if I’m encroaching upon your space. I have unusually wide shoulders. 😬

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 12/05/2025

I’m giving a presentation at a conference in a few days. I have 30 slides. I’m thinking about moving the whole thing to an Excalidraw presentation. Realistically, it might be a very narrow group of people who would like that. But I’m thinking about it.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 10/05/2025

Branding question. I have a developer tools product I'm going to launch. It will have an AI component, as everything must these days. Which TLD should I use for the domain name: .com, .ai. or .dev? .com = trustworthy + boring, .ai = eye-catching + possibly grift, .dev = developer + not serious.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 09/05/2025

Should I sign up for a paid job I can do while I’m in NYC next week or should I protect my energy because travel exhausts me? I’m mulling it over.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 09/05/2025

I’m trying to follow my greatest excitement with no attachment to the outcome.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 07/05/2025

We don't talk enough about professional allies and adversaries. I'm fortunate to have a lot of great relationships. But you don't make it this long without a few enemies. And that's okay. Not all conflict can be resolved. Sometimes, people just clash. I analyze my role in these cases, as we should.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 07/05/2025

Say you're a terrible coworker without saying you're a terrible coworker. "I spent 4 hours interacting with 0 humans and 4 AI coworkers, and it felt exactly like working with humans."

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 06/05/2025

I'm having fun working on my OpenAPI Language Server. I don't have feature parity with some other LSP servers in this space yet, but it's nice to see the progress. It's a labor of love.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 06/05/2025

Is there a calendar scheduling service (like Calendly) that allows you to set a maximum threshold on allocated time per interval? Like, I don't want to be in meetings for more than 4 hours in a day. I would like that.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 01/05/2025

I've been writing posts for my business site (API stuff). Not an outrageous number of views, but that's okay. I'm shocked 2,000 people even care enough to load the page. Almost all the traffic is coming from LinkedIn. I have zero cool points.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 29/04/2025

I’m enjoying building dev tools right now. But I’m not ready to publish anything. I hear all the advice on launching early, and I probably will. I just know I like a little polish on my tools when I evaluate. If I don’t get an immediate wow, I might not ever go back.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 29/04/2025

There are so many posts on “vibe coding” now. I keep liking them thinking they’re parodies. But apparently they’re 100% serious. Reality is far off from the hype on this one. But I appreciate the aspiration.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 29/04/2025

Almost 15 years ago, I created an API format named Siren. I'm still seeing it pop up in new ways from time to time. I recently learned that whenever you're using a streaming service that includes ads, you're probably using Siren. Even on smart TVs. Including Prime Video. Pretty cool, huh?

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 28/04/2025

Just booked my travel for APIDays NYC in mid-May. Who’s gonna be there? I’ve got some open spots on my dance card.

Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 26/04/2025

I put a lot of quality and care into writing code. I can also prototype rapidly. But once I commit, I go all in. I spend a lot of up-front effort getting the fundamentals rock solid. It always helps me go faster in the long run.

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Kevin Swiber @swiber.dev · 26/04/2025

On my 3rd iteration of writing the best parser for YAML authoring in code editors. I need it for the product I’m building. I think I’ve got a solid approach this time. The work is kinda boring but the research papers are fun!