Peter van Hardenberg

We've built a truly world-class Creators cohort to do this with, such as @ToposInstitute @hashai @inkandswitch @obsidian_llc @JadeMasterMath's Coherence Research @mircogiacobbe's Zeroth Research @amar_hh @DavidCorfield8 @mattecapu @martinkl @pvh @disconcision + many more

I’ve recently accepted the Programme Director role at ARIA, taking over from davidad in running the Safeguarded AI programme. 🧵 about the programme’s strategic vision + our upcoming funding efforts in cybersecurity + we're hiring!

I've been working with @pvh on a local-first task framework at @inkandswitch. It distributes computation across users' computers, keeps working while you're offline, and syncs results back to everyone when you reconnect. First lab note is up. inkandswitch.com/patchwork/note…

@keiko713 Nice bento!

🚅

@iamwil @geoffreylitt @karrisaarinen @thezachbruno @inkandswitch That said, I believe that if you can’t make a living doing something, people will only do it as a hobby. If you want malleable software to serve professional needs there must be professional incentives.

@iamwil @geoffreylitt @karrisaarinen @thezachbruno @inkandswitch I think this is an important part of the broader discourse but also that there’s plenty to say without rolling that in, and doing serious economic research is a lot of work that demands more than just posting what my personal hunches are.

New longform @inkandswitch essay! 📜 Malleable Software by me, Josh Horowitz, @pvh and Todd Matthews. inkandswitch.com/essay/malleabl… It's about why people need agency over their software tools, and how to make that happen. Here's the quick tl;dr... 1/

@statusfailed @f_aezs @sjoerd_visscher Can’t wait to replace it

@pvh @f_aezs @sjoerd_visscher The demo on this page is so sick

there is something interesting going on with edit optics 🤔

@statusfailed @f_aezs @sjoerd_visscher A patch graph is a good analogy. See inkandswitch.com/cambria for our previous efforts

@f_aezs @sjoerd_visscher @pvh I sorta suspect that's a way of looking at it but couldn't give you the details

Ink & Switch is hosting a meetup at the UK's Advanced Research + Invention Agency's offices in a couple of weeks. Come join us? luma.com/home?e=evt-hRr…

Full lineup and schedule for @sync_conf in SF on Nov 12. Link in the 🧵 below 👇 Featuring 👉 @angeliquemari @NotionHQ 👉 @arushibandi @figma 👉 @swyx @cognition 👉 @leeb @OpenAI 👉 @threepointone @Cloudflare 👉 @frankmcsherry @MaterializeInc 👉 @kylemathews @ElectricSQL 👉 @jamesacowling @convex 👉 @aboodman @zero__ms 👉 @schickling @livestoredev 👉 @anselm_io @jazz_tools 👉 @_adamwiggins_ @inkandswitch 👉 @thruflo @ElectricSQL 👉 @cahofmeyr @powersync_ 👉 @b_fiive, @carlsverre, @dittolive and @0xcda7a

@geoffreylitt @inkandswitch Will miss your contributions, but excited to see what you do next. Thanks for a good run.

Life update: last week I wrapped up my time @inkandswitch 🥲 Back in 2019, I remember being intrigued by the work coming out of this mysterious research lab. At the time there was barely even a website! But I could tell they had a big, compelling vision for a more humane kind of computing, and I wanted to be a part of it. I ended up working with the lab every summer while I did grad school at MIT, and then for a couple more years since finishing my PhD. During that time we got to explore all kinds of questions related to malleable software. How do you build a new kind of software environment that end-users can tweak on the fly? How do you weave together the best parts of docs and apps? How do you make tools that compose on shared local-first data? These are huge questions without easy answers, but we always tried our best to share what we found. (See our recent Malleable Software essay for some thoughts on these topics!) Looking back, two things made this a special experience. The first is the world-class collaborators. Each person brought a unique genius to every project, and I learned so much. Small teams of people who care are the best. The second is the unique context and structure of the lab. There aren't many places that are free of the time pressures of companies shipping products, but also free from the peculiar incentives of modern academia. Getting to do the work that we thought mattered, and share it in the ways that we thought would move the needle, was a big challenge and a rare opportunity. There's a lot more I could say about what makes I&S special, but I'll leave it at that for now. I'm super grateful to everyone at the lab, but especially @pvh for taking a chance on hiring me and for leading the lab through an incredible period of growth. There's so much cool stuff brewing and I can't wait to see where the mission goes from here. As for what's next: I'll be continuing to pursue the vision of malleable software, but in a different way! More on that soon...

Reminder (h/t @pvh)

@t_crayford @BenjDicken Those factors are all relevant, with the rise of NoSQL databases allowing developers ironically to embrace non-standard Postgres features like JSONB. The major missing piece I would add is that Oracle bought MySQL and this both damaged community trust and starved development.

@BenjDicken Would be interested in @pvh’s read here.

Serious question: Why is Postgres so popular? As I've spent more time with it the past few months I see many of its benefits, but also many of its flaws relative to MySQL. My thinking: the extension ecosystem + faster dev cycle was/is a big driver of it's surge to popularity.

@amb26ponder @geoffreylitt Looking forward to trying out Infusion sometime. I’ll try and carve out a small block of time to experiment — is it passably ready for a new user?

Thanks to @geoffreylitt, @pvh and team to take the time for an Infusion 6 demo yesterday - genial colleagues to have! I was sobered by @pvh' report that he considers noone alive fully understands how CSS layout happens. Looking forward to the CSS- initiative and fully support it!

🚨 The CLOSING KEYNOTE from #JOTB25 is here! In Practical Local-First Software with Automerge, Peter van Hardenberg @pvh explores how shifting logic from server to client can simplify architecture, cut ops pain, and boost offline support. Bonus: he builds a working app live. 📺 Watch: youtu.be/5nTVTIE15zA?si… #LocalFirst #Automerge #OfflineFirst #JOTB25 #distributedsystems

@artman @linear @karrisaarinen @jorilallo Congratulations, @artman. I have great appreciation for you and your team's dedication to the craft.

How did @linear become a Unicorn? Gradually, and then suddenly! To become a company valued at more that $1 billion was something that felt almost unreachable when we started the company with @karrisaarinen and @jorilallo more than 6 years ago. But through hard work, good timing and a healthy dose of luck, this milestone drew ever closer as we continued working on our mission to make Linear the standard in building software. Today we’re announcing our Series C, lead by Accel with participation from existing investors 01A and Sequoia among others. Thank you and congrats to the entire @linear team for building this beautiful piece of software. Thank you to all of our customers for trusting us with their business and to all of our investors for believing in us. We're just getting started. -> linear.app/blog/building-…

What if your software was more than just a sealed box that sometimes did what you want? Super excited to have this piece led by @geoffreylitt out there.

Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps inkandswitch.com/essay/malleabl…