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Ryan Townsend

@twnsnd.com

680 followers 200 following 190 posts

Technology Leader & Distinguished Software Engineer • 20+ YOE in Tech, 10+ as CTO • Public Speaker • LessonsofaCTO.com & TWNSND.com

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Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 24d

This is a fun one: what a 1990s PlayStation game studio taught me about software engineering 🎮 youtu.be/86bnEALGiDY

Software Engineering Insight from 1990s PlayStation Game Development

YouTube video by Lessons of a CTO

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 1d

Has this been discussed with Webkit/Apple? I know they had reservations about prerender, but maybe this is a more palatable middle ground?

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 1d

You're welcome!

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 1d

I like it's cute little butt, but that's about it.

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 2d

Northern UK developers: join us tonight in Manchester for a talk on scaling to support hundreds of millions in client transaction volume.

It contains a lot of framework-agnostic advice, so non-Ruby developers stand to learn a thing or two too!

A presentation slide with the title "Millions on Rails: a two-decade retrospective on scaling with Rails"

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 2d

Safari TP 230 includes support for Largest Contentful Paint 🙌 #webperf

IntentToShip @intenttoship.dev · 2d

Webkit: Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 230

Webkit: Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 230

Webkit: Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 230

Reposted by Ryan Townsend

North West Ruby User Group @nwrug.org · 8d

Just one week to go until our next event! Come hear @twnsnd.com share his story – Millions on Rails: A Two-Decade Retrospective on Scaling With Rails
nwrug.org/events/milli...

NWRUG Event: Millions on Rails: A Two-Decade Retrospective on Scaling With Rails, Thursday 16th October

This month, Ryan Townsend will be sharing stories about how he started, scaled, and liquidated a Rails-based startup that at its peak reached £5M ARR: Ryan h...

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 8d

The next evolution from Zstd compression: openzl.org

More info: engineering.fb.com/2025/10/06/d... #webperf

Introducing OpenZL: An Open Source Format-Aware Compression Framework

OpenZL is a new open source data compression framework that offers lossless compression for structured data. OpenZL is designed to offer the performance of a format-specific compressor with the eas…

engineering.fb.com

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 9d

Zurich, St Gallen then took the train down to Grindelwald (near Interlaken).

Definitely also going back one day.

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 9d

Exactly the response I had when I went last year, “holy shit, the photos don’t lie!” Unreal.

Me looking out over a Swiss mountain range

A view looking down from Männlichen to Grindelwald

An evening photograph of low cloud sweeping the mountains above Grindelwald

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 9d

Is this mob programming?

Two ragdolls resting on my right arm on my desk

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 9d

For the second part: I do think a pseudo-element for the min/max constrained area of the first/last slider-segment would be useful, so you could style that differently (for example adding cross-hatching, maybe a right/left border to indicate the stopping point)

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 9d

The use-case I was thinking about is dynamically changing the number of ranges within the group and avoiding having to restyle, but actually with a fresh mind (and coffee), it's clear `nth-child`/`nth-last-child` solves that anyway – so ignore the first half of my reply.

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 10d

👆🏻

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 13d

Admittedly, I didn’t go that deep on the implementation.

Looking now, it’s hard to visualise on my mobile but is it guaranteed the injected scripts won’t also execute synchronously when browser-cached?

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 13d

I guess with continuation you get the `triggerScripts` sooner if there’s no other work.

If I have my logic correct, double rAF lets newly-queued events/timers occur before `triggerScripts`.

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 13d

Depends when you want the code to run, I guess. Generally writing to the DOM should be within a rAF to minimise the chance of layout thrashing.

Plus rAF works across all browsers.

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 13d

It won't let me edit my response, but one further thing I'd like to add would be `::slider-segment` state, e.g. `before`, `after`, `between` (rather than solely relying on `nth-child`) and—most importantly, imo—`capped` for styling areas of the slider which are 'constrained' by min/max.

Reposted by Ryan Townsend

Bramus @bram.us · 14d

At #fronteers #DarkMode, @utilitybend.com proposed the HTML Element.

It unlocks the multi-handle range slider, a pattern you might have already seen when picking a price-range.

Feedback Form (with links to the explainer and demos): docs.google.com/forms/u/0/d/...

Brecht on stage showing some of the demos.

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 13d

✅ Fed back.

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 14d

B, but with two constraints:

1. each release should be useful independently (e.g. it might cover just one use-case within the wider scope)
2. support for each release should be independently detectable (via `@supports` and the usual JS mechanisms)

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 15d

Fwiw @jensimmons.bsky.social I'm totally with you that there could be better names out there.

I use both APIs daily and I still have to look up whether it's 'Command Invokers' or 'Invoker Commands' 🤷‍♂️

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 15d

💯 came to say the same things @utilitybend.com

Also don't Interest Invokers act differently on mobile? (or at least it's being discussed? e.g. tap instead of hover)

Reposted by Ryan Townsend

Leif Niemczik @leifs.website · 16d

messenger.abeto.co

This is freaking insane. The level of polish necessary for this visual fidelity and it all runs flawlessly on mobile. Hats off.

It's a small planet, but someone's gotta make the deliveries.

messenger.abeto.co

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 16d

When you can hear a picture

Ryan Townsend @twnsnd.com · 16d

Looking forward to talking about scaling #RubyonRails to hundreds of millions of yearly client revenue @nwrug.org meetup on Thursday 16th in Manchester, my old university city 🙌

Come join us for free 👉 nwrug.org/events/milli...

NWRUG Event: Millions on Rails: A Two-Decade Retrospective on Scaling With Rails, Thursday 16th October

This month, Ryan Townsend will be sharing stories about how he started, scaled, and liquidated a Rails-based startup that at its peak reached £5M ARR: Ryan h...