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Chris Dickinson

@isntitvacant@hachyderm.io

mastodon 4.6.6

current principal eng at dylibso; former Node.js TSC & NPM registry eng / systems eng (❤️ rust, bash, js, tf) / sometimes illustrator / pets cats; pronouns he/him

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17 Posts

Joined November 15, 2022

Website:

https://www.neversaw.us/

Github:

https://github.com/chrisdickinson

Twitter (RIP):

https://twitter.com/isntitvacant

Posts

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jul 14, 2026

Replying to @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io

Put another way, if a problem statement is really dialed in, the solution falls out from it (as do the other options, & why they may not work)

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jul 14, 2026

an admission and lukewarm take, apropos of nothing: I find the usual tech spec substructure of “options considered” and “pros and cons” really itchy I think it’s good-in-theory but in practice it becomes makework, & I’d generally rather see more focus on the problem statement!

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Feb 24, 2026

redesigned my website. bonus main page content: git HEAD shots over the years. ever wondered what I looked like as an awkward teen? wonder no more:

https://www.neversaw.us

www.neversaw.us

Chris Dickinson

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Feb 03, 2026

This has been a fascinating experience, working on a rust service for $dayjob that ingests data whose shape and meaning in the domain was unknown to me at the beginning of the month.

It’s been a lassoing experience: hold the data as loosely as possible (as json), then gradually define it as necessary. Opposite to most of my rust experience, where “thinking about the exact structure of the data” had been front-loaded.

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jan 25, 2026

Replying to @munificent@mastodon.social

@munificent@mastodon.social well put! (another element of meaning, other than time, might be “vulnerability”: in the sense that all craft is rehearsal for later work, making something for someone else gives them a marker of where you were and how you thought about that craft. Which can be scary! You put a piece of a version of yourself into the work— as you were when you made that work — and you trust the receiver will value that piece, just as it reflects how you value them.)

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jan 24, 2026

Replying to @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io

and I’m thinking about this from the lens of your typical, run-of-the-mill CRUD-y HTTP REST API. as you know, this kind of API pushes you towards the “row-major” object model & away from “columnar” SOA. If I pick at “why”: it strikes me that the REST API is a narrow interface, and the effect of the narrowing is to widen the data representation in both directions. (put another way, the data is made more general to reduce its cardinality & make it more cache-friendly) the alternative being something like graphql, which widens the interface (while tunneling over a single http endpoint)

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jan 24, 2026

so I’m revisiting “data oriented design” (because —who knew?— structs of arrays actually work really well with sqlx) and this quote jumped out at me:

“if you link your operations by related data, such as when you put methods on a class, you make it hard to unlink your operations when the data changes or splits, and you make it hard to split data when an operation requires it to be together for its own purposes”

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jan 01, 2026

Replying to @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io

(also, TIL about soa_derive – https://docs.rs/soa_derive/)

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jan 01, 2026

Replying to @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io

I've shaved one yak over this break, don't tempt me with a SECOND yak

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jan 01, 2026

Replying to @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io

This falls out from the requirements on INSERT queries in postgres (having to decompose the array-of-structs into a series of arrays to UNNEST) but pops up when querying, too ("enrich this list of ids from another query")

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jan 01, 2026

I'm realizing all at once that what I really want from sqlx isn't `query_as(RowType)`, it's to query into a struct of arrays.

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jul 03, 2023

Replying to @squillace@hachyderm.io

@squillace@hachyderm.io That means a lot — thank you!

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jul 01, 2023

Replying to @amoroso@fosstodon.org

@amoroso@fosstodon.org Whoops, it's over here: https://www.neversaw.us/2023/05/10/understanding-wasm/part1/virtualization/

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · Jul 01, 2023

OK! Without further ado, here it is. Part 2 of "Understanding WASM", "Whence WASM", written to answer the questions "what makes WASM different from the JVM?" and "what exactly *is* a 'virtual ISA'".

Please enjoy the attached footnotes and bibliography/list of relevant links!

https://www.neversaw.us/2023/06/30/understanding-wasm/part2/whence-wasm/

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · May 12, 2023

Replying to @sunfish@hachyderm.io

@sunfish ack yes, thank you. I flubbed the “web components” part — I meant “wasm components”!

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · May 12, 2023

Replying to @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io

@sunfish (A follow-up third question that just occurred to me: have I accidentally committed a category error by responding to your call for WASI questions with questions about WIT and wasm components? 😅)

Chris Dickinson @isntitvacant@hachyderm.io · May 12, 2023

Replying to @sunfish@hachyderm.io

@sunfish I had two pretty-basic questions!

Is WIT intended for audiences outside of standards bodies? (I see it used to define things like wasi-http, but do you picture WIT being adopted by, e.g., platform teams inside of companies?)
Where would you recommend someone go to start playing with WIT and web components? wasmtime+jco?

Chris Dickinson

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Chris Dickinson

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