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    Justin Searls

    justin.searls.co · Personal blog · on HN since 2019

    Justin Searls, a Ruby and Rails developer, writes about testing, developer tooling, AI assistants, and Xcode.

    Visit blogRSSHN submissions
    ProgrammingAI & Machine Learning
    What HN says

    HN links his posts on the RubyGems dispute and his ChatGPT self-doubt prompt, and commenters discuss his Xcode and Swift tooling experience.

    Stats for nerds
    24HN people shared it
    42linked in comments
    1.2Kstory points
    Feb 2026last shared
    2019people per year2026

    Top posts on HN

    1. 1
      Why agents are bad pair programmers
      2 people · 291 points · first shared 2025 · 229 comments on HN
    2. 2
      Running Games on a MacBook Pro with an EGPU
      1 person · 246 points · first shared 2019 · 151 comments on HN
    3. 3
      Connecting a gaming PC to Apple Studio Display
      1 person · 165 points · first shared 2022 · 309 comments on HN
    4. 4
      Why I'm not rushing to take sides in the RubyGems fiasco
      2 people · 157 points · first shared 2025 · 112 comments on HN
    5. 5
      Sprinkling self-doubt on ChatGPT
      2 people · 144 points · first shared 2025 · 98 comments on HN
    6. 6
      Distributing your own scripts via Homebrew
      1 person · 80 points · first shared 2025 · 14 comments on HN
    7. 7
      Fuckthis.app – Software products for exasperated people
      1 person · 39 points · first shared 2024 · 28 comments on HN
    8. 8
      Full-Breadth Developers
      3 people · 16 points · first shared 2025 · 2 comments on HN
    9. 9
      Ruby makes advanced CLI options easy
      1 person · 12 points · first shared 2025 · Discussion on HN
    10. 10
      I made Xcode's tests 60 times faster
      2 people · 8 points · first shared 2025 · Discussion on HN

    What HN people wrote when they linked it

    • craigkerstiensJul 2024

      I love when friends do this. It's hard to keep up with people and what they're up to. Publishing and letting people subscribe to me is a great way to share things. A few examples of some friends who are doing this:

      Justin Searls (fairly known in Ruby and Rails community) mostly quit a lot of various social channels though publishes on some of them one direction. He started a podcast that wasn't meant to be guests of some specific topic, it's just him updating you on things. What he's working on, what he's learning, random stories, etc. - https://justin.searls.co/casts/

      Brandur who I've worked with at a couple of places (Heroku previously, and now Crunchy Data) who writes great technical pieces that often end up here also has more of a personal newsletter. While there are technical pieces in there at times he'll also talk about personal experiences my favorite one is some of the unique experiences hiking the Pacific Trail (https://brandur.org/nanoglyphs/039-trails).

    • searlsFeb 2026

      This is true of the CLIs that start with `xcode` but not of the CLIs that start with `swift`. As `swift-format` and `swift-test` have come into their own, they're just as reliable as any other language ecosystem. And the difference is indeed staggering. I wrote this guide last summer on extracting all your app's code into a (nonsensically necessary) Swift package dependency simply so you can test it with Swift Testing https://justin.searls.co/posts/i-made-xcodes-tests-60-times-faster/

    • directionlessOct 2025

      Given some of the ways Andre Arko gets described (See https://justin.searls.co/posts/why-im-not-rushing-to-take-sides-in-the-rubygems-fiasco/ for a recent overview) I'm a little wary of what the motivation behind this is.

    • firesteelrainAug 2025

      Take the text and send it to ChatGPT. Then, use this self doubt prompt and you get some alarming results.

      https://justin.searls.co/posts/sprinkling-self-doubt-on-chatgpt/

    • antimatterJul 2019

      Anyone know the type of mouse being used in the photo? https://justin.searls.co/uploads/egpu/IMG_4122.jpg

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