Ken Youens-Clark
@kyclark.bsky.social
Programming, bioinformatics, algorithms, cycling. MS/BA. He/him. Works in Wheeler Lab at U of AZ. Author of Command-Line Rust (2024, O'Reilly), Mastering Python for Bioinformatics (2021, O'Reilly), Tiny Python Projects (2020, Manning)
Shout out to Fishbone, who was singing to my white-college-boy ass back in the early 90s about fascism. Not something I ever thought about growing up, and they were trying to get me to see it.
November 3, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Shout out to Fishbone, who was singing to my white-college-boy ass back in the early 90s about fascism. Not something I ever thought about growing up, and they were trying to get me to see it.
My ride share car smells like air freshener and pot. Reminds me of the summer I lived in a house with six band mates and there was a cinnamon air freshener in the bathroom and the keyboard player came out and said “Mmm cinnamon dump!
October 20, 2025 at 8:25 PM
My ride share car smells like air freshener and pot. Reminds me of the summer I lived in a house with six band mates and there was a cinnamon air freshener in the bathroom and the keyboard player came out and said “Mmm cinnamon dump!
I've release a new user interface for mdrepo.org, an open repository of molecular dynamic simulations for proteins, written in Elm (specifically Elm Land). The original version used React/JS and was slow and failed with exceptions. The Elm version should have zero runtime exceptions. #elm-lang
MDRepo
mdrepo.org
September 26, 2025 at 5:10 PM
I've release a new user interface for mdrepo.org, an open repository of molecular dynamic simulations for proteins, written in Elm (specifically Elm Land). The original version used React/JS and was slow and failed with exceptions. The Elm version should have zero runtime exceptions. #elm-lang
Tried to call my step-dad and got his voice mail with the message recorded by my mom, who died in June.
August 28, 2025 at 5:41 PM
Tried to call my step-dad and got his voice mail with the message recorded by my mom, who died in June.
A friend shared a lovely Dijkstra essay. It's short enough to read in a few minutes, and is damning of the current attempt to replace our brains with AI generated writing and vibe coding.
www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcr...
www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcr...
E.W.Dijkstra Archive: On the foolishness of "natural language programming". (EWD 667)
www.cs.utexas.edu
August 28, 2025 at 4:26 PM
A friend shared a lovely Dijkstra essay. It's short enough to read in a few minutes, and is damning of the current attempt to replace our brains with AI generated writing and vibe coding.
www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcr...
www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcr...
I've become increasingly disappointed my publisher, @oreilly.bsky.social, leaning so heavily into vibe coding. They canceled my Rust course in which I attempt to methodically teach how to learn Rust by writing it oneself. They fired the really good acquisition editors who brought me on board.
“Our focus this time is going to be on agentic coding. We’re moving beyond simple chatbots to AI systems that can plan, execute, and collaborate—transforming how we build software.” Read on The AI Journal: bit.ly/3Jzk5wv @timoreilly.bsky.social
O’Reilly to Host Second AI Codecon on Coding for the Agentic World | The AI Journal
O’Reilly, the premier learning platform for technology professionals, today announced the second virtual conference in the AI Codecon series. Coding for the
bit.ly
August 27, 2025 at 5:07 PM
I've become increasingly disappointed my publisher, @oreilly.bsky.social, leaning so heavily into vibe coding. They canceled my Rust course in which I attempt to methodically teach how to learn Rust by writing it oneself. They fired the really good acquisition editors who brought me on board.
A friend would ride with his mom to drop his sister off for piano lessons. Every time, his mom asked him if he'd like to take lessons, too. Every time, he said no. One day, he decided he would say yes the next time his mom asked. She never did, and he never studied the piano.
August 26, 2025 at 10:36 PM
A friend would ride with his mom to drop his sister off for piano lessons. Every time, his mom asked him if he'd like to take lessons, too. Every time, he said no. One day, he decided he would say yes the next time his mom asked. She never did, and he never studied the piano.
I don't understand the government taking 10% of Intel profits. Like, isn't that what taxes are supposed to be?
August 22, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I don't understand the government taking 10% of Intel profits. Like, isn't that what taxes are supposed to be?
My one food service experience was 27 years ago at a Cracker Barrel in Lewisville, TX, my last semester in college after my folks kicked me off the payroll after a huge fight over my girlfriend.
Cracker Barrel has updated their logo for the first time in 48 years
August 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM
My one food service experience was 27 years ago at a Cracker Barrel in Lewisville, TX, my last semester in college after my folks kicked me off the payroll after a huge fight over my girlfriend.
I like Weird Al but not weird AI and this is a very confusing time for me.
July 21, 2025 at 8:59 PM
I like Weird Al but not weird AI and this is a very confusing time for me.
My retirement plan is somewhere between outfitting a Tuff Shed or cliff-diving a la Midsommar with the backup head hammer.
June 17, 2025 at 11:32 PM
My retirement plan is somewhere between outfitting a Tuff Shed or cliff-diving a la Midsommar with the backup head hammer.
My current project is continued support and development on this. It's really cool.
mdrepo.org is still live and kicking, and still accepting new contributions.
If you've ever thought to yourself "self, I wish there was a place that I could share all my molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, to support findability and re-use", I have great news!
I present to you: MDrepo, an open repository of MD simulations for proteins:
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
I present to you: MDrepo, an open repository of MD simulations for proteins:
academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
June 2, 2025 at 4:07 PM
My current project is continued support and development on this. It's really cool.
Reposted by Ken Youens-Clark
Trying to reconcile how all positive change had to be incremental, studied in perpetuity & ultimately stalled with ‘how are we gonna pay for that?’ but dismantling everything was done quickly, ham-fistedly & with total disregard for cost of money and lives & no institutional guardrails mattered.
May 31, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Trying to reconcile how all positive change had to be incremental, studied in perpetuity & ultimately stalled with ‘how are we gonna pay for that?’ but dismantling everything was done quickly, ham-fistedly & with total disregard for cost of money and lives & no institutional guardrails mattered.
My job at the Univ. of Arizona has been funded by the NSF and NIH. The money runs out pretty soon, so I’m seeking a new role. #Python #Rust #Elm #Bioinformatics
May 6, 2025 at 10:35 PM
My job at the Univ. of Arizona has been funded by the NSF and NIH. The money runs out pretty soon, so I’m seeking a new role. #Python #Rust #Elm #Bioinformatics
My first book, Tiny #Python Projects (Manning, @manningbooks.bsky.social, 2020), has been translated into #Russian.
April 24, 2025 at 10:10 PM
My first book, Tiny #Python Projects (Manning, @manningbooks.bsky.social, 2020), has been translated into #Russian.
I found the #Rust game engine #Macroquad very easy to use in making this little animation of bouncing balls.
March 24, 2025 at 10:19 PM
I found the #Rust game engine #Macroquad very easy to use in making this little animation of bouncing balls.
Can't stress-eat if I don't start stress-baking.
March 14, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Can't stress-eat if I don't start stress-baking.
Her: I don't like these pants. They're too big. What do you think?
Me thinking "This is a trap. Don't answer."
Her: I should probably change. What do you think?
Me: I agree. They're too big and you should change.
Her: I can't believe you don't like my pants.
Me thinking "This is a trap. Don't answer."
Her: I should probably change. What do you think?
Me: I agree. They're too big and you should change.
Her: I can't believe you don't like my pants.
March 10, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Her: I don't like these pants. They're too big. What do you think?
Me thinking "This is a trap. Don't answer."
Her: I should probably change. What do you think?
Me: I agree. They're too big and you should change.
Her: I can't believe you don't like my pants.
Me thinking "This is a trap. Don't answer."
Her: I should probably change. What do you think?
Me: I agree. They're too big and you should change.
Her: I can't believe you don't like my pants.
I'm releasing a fun little #Rust tool called "readr" that will print file/STDIN to the screen slow enough to read, kind of like how computers all seem to work in the movies. FWIW, I was exploring async programming with tokio. crates.io/crates/readr
crates.io: Rust Package Registry
crates.io
February 28, 2025 at 11:40 PM
I'm releasing a fun little #Rust tool called "readr" that will print file/STDIN to the screen slow enough to read, kind of like how computers all seem to work in the movies. FWIW, I was exploring async programming with tokio. crates.io/crates/readr
I usually talk about my work in #Rust, but I've also done a lot with #Python. The GitHub repo for my first book, Tiny Python Projects (Manning, 2020), has now hit 2.5K forks! You can find all the videos on YouTube. github.com/kyclark/tiny...
February 28, 2025 at 5:05 PM
I usually talk about my work in #Rust, but I've also done a lot with #Python. The GitHub repo for my first book, Tiny Python Projects (Manning, 2020), has now hit 2.5K forks! You can find all the videos on YouTube. github.com/kyclark/tiny...
I've always thought "Hot Water Burn Baby" would make a great band name.
February 27, 2025 at 8:48 PM
I've always thought "Hot Water Burn Baby" would make a great band name.
Does anybody in #bioinformatics need a #Rust program to convert Stockholm format into FASTA? I'm using this to split multiple sequence alignments in an STK file into separate FASTA files. github.com/TravisWheele...
GitHub - TravisWheelerLab/stk2fasta: Split Stockholm file into FASTA files
Split Stockholm file into FASTA files. Contribute to TravisWheelerLab/stk2fasta development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
February 4, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Does anybody in #bioinformatics need a #Rust program to convert Stockholm format into FASTA? I'm using this to split multiple sequence alignments in an STK file into separate FASTA files. github.com/TravisWheele...
Here's the link to my @oreilly.bsky.social #Rust course on Monday. If you are a university student, it's very likely that school's library has a subscription to the O'Reilly Learning platform, so it's free to dip in!
learning.oreilly.com/live-events/...
learning.oreilly.com/live-events/...
Basic Rust Programming
Kickstart your Rust journey with Command-Line Programs
learning.oreilly.com
January 31, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Here's the link to my @oreilly.bsky.social #Rust course on Monday. If you are a university student, it's very likely that school's library has a subscription to the O'Reilly Learning platform, so it's free to dip in!
learning.oreilly.com/live-events/...
learning.oreilly.com/live-events/...
The 0.7 version of our #bioinformatics #Rust crate Sufr for parallel creation/querying of suffix arrays includes a deeper test suite that found many bugs I fixed. crates.io/crates/sufr
crates.io: Rust Package Registry
crates.io
January 29, 2025 at 11:05 PM
The 0.7 version of our #bioinformatics #Rust crate Sufr for parallel creation/querying of suffix arrays includes a deeper test suite that found many bugs I fixed. crates.io/crates/sufr
If this dune's Arrakeen,
Don't come a-knockin'.
Don't come a-knockin'.
January 27, 2025 at 8:07 PM
If this dune's Arrakeen,
Don't come a-knockin'.
Don't come a-knockin'.