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Thorsten Ball

@thorstenball.com
4.9K followers 251 following 732 posts

Author of interpreterbook.com and compilerbook.com. Working at Sourcegraph. Previously Zed. Programming where the rubber hits the road. Writing Register Spill at: registerspill.thorstenball.com

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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 22/01/2026
good good good! how are you nate?
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
Coding! And everything really
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
When Gemini 3 came out I said it's the greatest model of all time. I loved it. But it didn't work for others. This week I'm seriously trying GPT-5.2 and already said it might be better than G3. Today, GPT-5.2 let me down and I wonder... am I... the boy who cried GOAT?
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
lol, but Gastown is now involved with crypto stuff :)
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
I have to admit that my stance on social media is "pinch the top of my nose, don't think too much about it, and keep posting the content I want to see, block and mute everything else" and so far my experience on Twitter has still been good. And I'm very lazy and don't like posting on multiple
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
Yeah... Feels strange, but maybe I'll come back here
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
Oh man, don't get me started on the crypto scam stuff..
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
good to know!
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
Is it safe to mention AI here now or will people call me a dumbass? No snark, genuine question. Main thing on my mind right now is how programming is changing and I love to talk about it. But I don't have the energy to fight over it.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/01/2026
Man, I have to admit that whenever I think about this question I have to pinch the top of my nose.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 20/01/2026
yo yo yo
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 19/07/2025
Oh yeah. Wait for that 1 Mile chapter. Or battery park.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 15/07/2025
Will pass on!
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 15/07/2025
Don't they support "!<command here>" in there?
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 12/07/2025
Arriving with the sound of two thousand angry tambourines, here it is: New issue of Joy & Curiosity! registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/joy-and-cu...
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 09/07/2025
Glad you like it! :(
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 06/07/2025
Oh my god, Marty, would you look at that! What is it, Barbara? Are you okay? Marty, it's... it's... two made-up names and... a new issue of Joy & Curiosity! registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/joy-and-cu...
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 02/07/2025
So sorry to hear, Brian. Man that sucks. Virtual hug
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 28/06/2025
Look, look, look! It's back! The two week break is over. A new Joy & Curiosity. Read it here (if you're not subscribed — wow): registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/joy-and-cu...
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 25/06/2025
I wrote about it in the last or second to last newsletter :)
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 21/06/2025
Extending the summer break: no newsletter this weekend.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 19/06/2025
Not sure I'm following, tbh
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 13/06/2025
I think it comes from gaming
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 13/06/2025
CARO: Robert Moses, who replaced corruption in New York City, was worse than corruption for the democratic processes. In the postwar era many forces were coming together to destroy those processes in New York. But he was the most import— THORSTEN, CARO'S FRIEND: fuck him up bob
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 10/06/2025
Well, just ask someone who says agents can't code?
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 10/06/2025
I don't think agents commit that much, but write a lot of code. 80%?
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 10/06/2025
ampcode.com/news.rss
ampcode.com
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 10/06/2025
Amp now supports subagents. They're very powerful and I wonder whether they will change a lot of things. So I wrote about them: ampcode.com/agents-for-t...
Screenshot of the blog post that starts with this text:

"Amp now has subagents. Here’s what they look like in action:

<screenshot of app showing subagents>

But chances are that the first sentence and even that screenshot didn’t cause your facial expression to change.

After all: who even knows what a subagent is? So let’s start there.

What’s a subagent? If you’ve read How to Build an Agent you know that we define an agent as “an LLM with access to tools, giving it the ability to modify something outside the context window.”

Subagents are tools, too. They are agents that can be started by the main agent, the one you’re interacting with when you use Amp.

[...]"
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 08/06/2025
(And yes! Brilliant post!)
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 08/06/2025
Since you like Go: I've found that implementing an agent yourself and playing around with that is the best learning experience ampcode.com/how-to-build...
ampcode.com
How to Build an Agent
Building a fully functional, code-editing agent in less than 400 lines.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 08/06/2025
Drums being drummed on, rattles, cymbals— A group of people shouting hey, hey, hey— Something's falling out of the sky, thrown out of a plane, what is it? The group of people is pointing towards it. "Hey, it's a new Register Spill!" registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/joy-and-cu...
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 03/06/2025
Haha, es wurden mir PIN/PUK gegeben damit man auch Online was freischalten kann, aber gleich dazu gesagt: "das müssen sie nicht! sie können den brief erstmal irgendwohin legen"
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 03/06/2025
Municipal office in my town let me know that my new personal ID is ready. The Reply-To here translates to: "Please use email from attachment" Welcome to small-town Germany
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 01/06/2025
Yesterday I told my wife "you have to watch this" and showed her the Dyson keynote with the PencilVac and the FluffyCones and said stuff like "look! double lasers!" and "haha, no, wait, the best is yet to come" Today I'm wondering whether she looks at me the same.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 31/05/2025
Wait, what is tha— Someone slipped something under the door. It's... Look, it's a new Register Spill! (Special Saturday Morning Delivery with Special Jujutsu Intro) registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/joy-and-cu...
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 29/05/2025
Okay, okay, `jj split` — that's nice.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 26/05/2025
Small personal update: Heard the idiom “all hat, no cattle” for the first time today and, starting now, I’m going to try to use it as much as possible.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 26/05/2025
@felixge.de and Mitchell Hashimoto both are convinced by it. I trust their opinions, so I'm taking a look. bsky.app/profile/feli...
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 26/05/2025
AGI my ass
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 26/05/2025
Going for it
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 26/05/2025
Because I still might want to use git to fall back.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 26/05/2025
Both? you can use jj on top of a git repository
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 26/05/2025
Here we go, week of jj.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 25/05/2025
This week! I promise
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 25/05/2025
Time to flip that monitor
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 25/05/2025
Someone on LinkedIn took my post on How to Build an Agent, shortened it, removed all the code, simplified, and posted it there, on LinkedIn. If you were to tell me that it's all AI generated — the post itself, the comments, the job titles of the commentators — I'd believe you.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 24/05/2025
Oh you actually notice the traffic? Funny 😃
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 24/05/2025
The pleasant hum of a harddrive, the soothing whirring of a dust-covered fan. Suddenly: the sound of the floppy drive ejecting something. A whirr, a click — a snap! That's... that's not a floppy disk? No! It's a new Register Spill! Read it here: registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/joy-and-cu...
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 24/05/2025
they chose to represent abstractions, and yet it's still useful.
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Thorsten Ball @thorstenball.com · 24/05/2025
(I don't think "I don't believe the hype and yet I measure everything up against what the hype said" is useful/practical in general.) I verify the diagrams and I also don't think it's an issue if it's not 100% correct. If a coworker makes a diagram by hand I often also don't agree with how (...)
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