text editors
I use notepad.exe dozens of time a day. Given the severely limited functionality of Notepad, it’s incredible that it has taken me this long to find a suitable replacement for what is, evidently, a core part of my developer toolkit. Check out Notepad2: The original Notepad shipped with
software development concepts
Thanks to my friend, Geoff Dalgas, for pointing out an interesting article at kuro5hin.org, which analyzes the comments inside the recently leaked Microsoft Windows NT/2k code. Very amusing, with some surprising insights into the mindset of the coders working at Microsoft: In the struggle to meet deadlines, I
programming languages
💡This list was last updated September 2025. Why are updates to my reading list so rare? Because computers change a lot in 10 years, but people don’t. To make better software, you need to understand how people work, and that is what the books I recommend tend to focus
coding horror
I’m Jeff Atwood. I live in Alameda, CA with my partner, two cats, one three children, and a whole lot of computers. I was weaned as a software developer on various implementations of Microsoft BASIC in the 1980s, starting with my first microcomputer, the Texas Instruments TI-99/4a. I