Blog
Essays on writing big, maintainable applications in modern frameworks.
Four eras of the web: How to survive the next
August 3, 2026
Access on a shared drive, server-rendered PHP, the application in the browser, server rendering again — four eras of the web, and how you survive the next.
Writing a Big Application in Modern Frameworks · Part 2
The Quality of AI Code
July 13, 2026
AI made one hard problem easy — getting code to run. But running was only ever one of the nine qualities. When you don't type the code yourself, the question stops being who wrote it and becomes whether it has the qualities at all.
Writing a Big Application in Modern Frameworks · Part 1
The Qualities of Quality Code
June 26, 2026
What separates quality code from merely good code: nine plain-language, framework-agnostic qualities you can check your own code against — even in the age of AI.
Writing a Big Application in Ext (Part 3)
March 14, 2009
The mistakes beginners make when extending Ext classes, collected from years of forum support — each error, and why it is an error. A running catalogue rather than a finished lecture.
Writing a Big Application in Ext (Part 2)
February 2, 2009
A year on, the pre-configured-classes approach proven on a real ~60,000-line application — and defended against the forum critics who called it an "absolute abomination". What the concept actually is, and why the objections miss.
Writing a Big Application in Ext (Part 1)
April 12, 2008
Once an Ext application outgrows a single HTML page with a script tag, it needs a structure. The first part of a three-part method: pre-configured classes, one class per file, and an application you can actually search, maintain and debug.
Changing the viewpoint to Ext
April 2, 2008
Coming to Ext from the PHP/MySQL world meant unlearning almost everything — the server stops generating markup, and the application moves into the browser. My forum post from June 2007, reposted with a note on how much had already changed by 2008.