On Building Software

On Building Software

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Ka Wai Cheung

My 25-Year Career in Web Design Through the Eyes of the Wayback Machine

Remembering the excitement of a new medium, coming to terms with its ephemerality, and rediscovering some embarrassing little treasures.

14 min readMay 10, 2024

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My 25-Year Career in Web Design Through the Eyes of the Wayback Machine

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Ka Wai Cheung

On Transitioning From Software Writing to Just Writing

I guess you become a professional writer the same way you become a professional poker player. One day you just decide this is what you’re…

5 min readMay 11, 2024

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Ka Wai Cheung

How I Build Software (Like a Musician)

5 min readMay 28, 2024

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Ka Wai Cheung

Old School Workarounds: Keeping the Screen Up to Date

Years ago, it was common assumption that when a page loaded, nothing about it would change until you manually refreshed the page.

8 min readMay 10, 2024

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Old School Workarounds: Keeping the Screen Up to Date

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Ka Wai Cheung

Championing the Doer

A pep talk for those of you building software alone

2 min readApr 30, 2024

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Ka Wai Cheung

Recreating Baseball Scoreboards out of Plain Old HTML and CSS

3 min readApr 28, 2024

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Recreating Baseball Scoreboards out of Plain Old HTML and CSS

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Ka Wai Cheung

We Shouldn’t be Surprised That Code Gets That Way

A lesson from a kitchen cleanup

3 min readApr 23, 2024

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Ka Wai Cheung

Flash is Good for Web Designers…and Its Good for the Web.

I wrote this in 2001, during my heyday as a Flash developer, and thought I’d copy and paste it here for perpetuity.

3 min readApr 4, 2024

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Ka Wai Cheung

Professionals are Often Just Sliver Experts

At a big company, you can’t just be an Engineer.

2 min readMar 27, 2024

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Ka Wai Cheung

It’s OK to Want to Work Alone

On my third grade report card, Mrs. Johnson wrote this note:

4 min readMar 25, 2024

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It’s OK to Want to Work Alone

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A collection of short essays on designing, building, and maintaining software for lone wolves and super-small teams.
Editors
Ka Wai Cheung
I write about software, design, fatherhood, and nostalgia usually. Dad to a boy and a girl. Creator of donedone.com. More at kawaicheung.io.

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