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Sandboxes and Worktrees: My secure Agentic AI SetupI’ve been using AI tools since early 2021 when I was invited to test out the Copilot internal alpha at GitHub (where I spent 10 years). I’ve maintained Homebrew since 2009. I’ve now personally hit the “AI writes 90% of my code” (Dario Amodei’s early 2025 prediction for late 2025). I’ve been asked by a few folks to detail my current setup so: here it is.
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This AI Tool Rips Off Open Source Software Without Violating Copyright“The ethics fucking suck. Open source isn’t just source code you download once. It’s an ongoing relationship.”
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What happened to RubyGems and what can we learn?Lessons for non-Ruby projects on non-profits, governance, money and access in open source, drawn from the RubyGems dispute.
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Getting Shit Done in InstitutionsDavid Yee, VP of Engineering at The New York Times and head of its new AI platforms and products mission, joins Mike McQuaid and Neha Batra for a...
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Prompts Pranking PeersI’ve worked from home since 2009. One of (very few) things I miss about working in an office is the pranking potential. Zip-tying phone cables, rotating monitors, changing keyboard layouts, all that good stuff.
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Ruby Central report reopens wounds over RubyGems repo takeover“If your project hasn’t argued about governance or money yet, it will one day. Be prepared and try to do this before it becomes a problem.”
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My Parenting "Screen Time" PhilosophyLike many people who now work with computers, I was told as a child I spent “too much time on screens” and then built a career out of it.
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Package Management Learnings from HomebrewHomebrew 5.0.0 released in 2025. Walk through the major changes in 5.0.0, improving expectations based on other package managers and what they can learn from Homebrew's approach.
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POSSE, Blog and Feed UpdatesHow I leaned harder into POSSE on this site: added a Thoughts section, reshuffled feeds and homepage, wired everything to POSSE Party/newsletter, and what subscribers should do.
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How Homebrew Became Mac's Package Manager with Mike McQuaidMike McQuaid explains how Homebrew grew from a side project into macOS’s de facto package manager and how the project is sustained today.
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Performance Reviews, Done Right
Performance reviews have a reputation for being stressful, confusing and often disconnected from reality. Too often they surface feedback that should have been shared months earlier or reduce...
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Software Estimation ChoicesThe process of software estimation is frustrating for software engineers and those who consume their estimates. Consumers often ask “why can these software engineers not just tell me when it will be done?”.
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The Most Important Skills Going Forward with CTO + Homebrew Maintainer Mike McQuaidMike McQuaid joins Quincy Larson to discuss career lessons and the software engineering skills worth prioritizing next.
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Good Things Take A Long TimeIn tech, 3 years is often considered a “long tenure”. We maintain open-source projects for 2 years, then burn out. We start habits, lose momentum and quit.
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Ruby on (Guard)RailsThe guardrails I love in the Ruby ecosystem and why you should use and love them too.
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Bootstrapping gem.coop Governancegem.coop was announced on Monday. As part of that announcement it was mentioned that I was helping gem.coop set up a governance process, continuing the work I’d first started helping with on RubyGems.
