“Hey ChatGPT, draw the optimal route for survival to cross the US in the early 1800s”

Sunday funday coding. It’s aliiive.

Screenshot of five different styles of rendering SDF (signed distance field) fonts

I've written up my understanding of SDF and MSDF fonts, and how to use them with msdfgen+webgl: www.redblobgames.com/articles/sdf...

(I'll post it on my blog soon too)

I should do that more too. It makes my day!

Dear researchers: Is AI all you've got? Are we missing the next big innovation because of the over-fixation on AI?

Is AI all you’ve got?

austinhenley.com/blog/dearres...

Quote from Jason Roberts: www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increa...

“The amount of serendipity that will occur in your life, your Luck Surface Area, is directly proportional to the degree to which you do something you’re passionate about combined with the total number of people to whom this is effectively communicated.”

Simulating the ladybug clock puzzle 3Blue1Brown shared a fun puzzle that stumped me, so I wrote a simulator to understand it.

I made a simulator for the math puzzle shared by @3blue1brown.com in his latest video. It stumped me! Try it out:

austinhenley.com/blog/ladybug...

2026 is the year we ship!

I canceled my book deal I've always wanted to write a book, and I was close, but not this time.

I canceled my book deal. What do I do with the draft now?!
austinhenley.com/blog/cancele...

Teaching track boosts research metrics.

Langjam Gamejam A 7-day challenge to create a programming language and then use it to build a game.

You can participate too!

langjamgamejam.com

My December project: Implement a programming language and then use it to make a game. I’m calling it Langjam Gamejam.

Thanksgiving Day goal: Get below 20 open tabs.

The last day of Techstars. It was 12 weeks of building and learning every day. Highly, highly recommend.

Link to the blog post by @krismicinski.bsky.social: kmicinski.com/functional-p...

I know what I’m doing this weekend: building a compiler in five projects

So that’s how it works.

For sure. Kept it vague while we narrow down the MVP and get feedback. It’s been fun trying to figure out that answer ourselves and also not over promise anything…

The urge to move off grid and make gameboy games in assembly.

Read the original paper by Sam Lau and Philip Guo: lau.ucsd.edu/pubs/2025_an...

The design space of AI coding tools 10 design dimensions based on 90 AI coding tools.

Read my post here: austinhenley.com/blog/aidesig...

The design space of AI coding assistants based on an analysis of 90 tools.

They identified 10 design dimensions covering where the tool lives, how you ask it, who starts it, etc. I wrote a blog post summarizing the findings…

Today’s coding session.

We are starting a company to rethink email Email is the same as 20 years ago. Time for something better.

I’m starting a company…

austinhenley.com/blog/startin...

Baby's first type checker Let's build a Python type checker in 300 lines of code.

This weekend’s fun project? A baby type checker for Python.

austinhenley.com/blog/babytyp...

Another semester begins at Carnegie Mellon.

I want to get back to my 2021 productivity.

New course coming this fall where we apply the latest and great AI dev tools to all aspects of development.

You know it’s going to be good when there are typos. Taught by the esteemed @abegel.bsky.social and me.

Assessing students in the era of AI How do we know if students are learning if ChatGPT is doing the work?

How would you grade students knowing that ChatGPT can ace most assignments?
austinhenley.com/blog/aihomew...