rcmnd

Thomas Ptacek

Security researcher; co-founded Matasano Security and Latacora, writes at sockpuppet.org.

6 things

MagitSoftware

loved

Magit is still the best thing going. For now.

Post about building a personal macOS Markdown viewer with an agent, and what Emacs culture predicts about that.

sockpuppet.org ↗·2026-05-12

Math AcademyCourse

liked

I like Math Academy a lot and have a bunch to say about it

Post arguing developers should build native GUIs instead of terminal UIs. He spent the previous year working through its curriculum.

sockpuppet.org ↗·2026-08-20

LazygitSoftware

liked

I want to see a native UI built to capture everything that’s great about Magit or Lazygit (without having to build it myself).

Post arguing developers should build native GUIs instead of terminal UIs. Naming the TUI tools whose qualities he wants preserved in native UI.

sockpuppet.org ↗·2026-08-20

ClaudeSoftware Anthropic

liked

But Claude isn’t just a replacement-level SwiftUI developer. Claude is actually good.

Post about building a personal macOS Markdown viewer with an agent, and what Emacs culture predicts about that.

sockpuppet.org ↗·2026-05-12

tmuxSoftware tmux project

recommended

I use a similar process to build TUI apps (tell your agent to use tmux to test the TUI, it works a treat).

Post arguing developers should build native GUIs instead of terminal UIs. His workflow tip for having an agent test a terminal UI.

sockpuppet.org ↗·2026-08-20

ElectronSoftware

disliked

Electron isn’t good. But it’s always been good enough.

Post about building a personal macOS Markdown viewer with an agent, and what Emacs culture predicts about that. He blames Electron for the flicker in his Signal client.

sockpuppet.org ↗·2026-05-12

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The small bar beside a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The bar shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Full and green is recent. It drains, and turns amber and then grey, as the post gets older.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The bar is empty after about:

A striped bar means the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no bar.