Chris Wellons
Software engineer who writes about low-level and systems programming at nullprogram.com; author of the Elfeed feed reader, the Endlessh SSH tarpit and Enchive.
Chris Wellons did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
Latest GitHub
What they believe
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C11's threads addition to the C standard was under-scrutinized and should not have been added.
This C standard addition did not get nearly the attention is needed and should have been cut (par for the course).
nullprogram.comSaid 20 Sept 2026This on korrents
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Software built under tight hardware constraints tends to have faster, more responsive UI than software built without such limits.
Targeting old 16-bit computers, the authors couldn't afford to build a sloppy, wasteful UI, and so by modern standards the game UI is remarkably fast and responsive.
nullprogram.comSaid 17 Sept 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
20 October
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17 October
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11 October
4 October
3 October
1 October
20 September
From one piece What's been going on in w64devkit the past year 3 beliefs · nullprogram.com
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korrents.com
Frontier AI coding agents can now fix complex compiler bugs like LTO issues in about fifteen minutes.Their words
Strap a frontier AI into a good coding harness, show it what's broken, give it all the sources (source.tar), and ~15 minutes later I have a patch.
What's been going on in w64devkit the past yearnullprogram.com
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korrents.com
CMake tooling is missing a linter that could statically catch most CMakeLists.txt mistakes.Their words
The world needs a good CMake linter, which could catch most cases statically.
What's been going on in w64devkit the past yearnullprogram.com
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korrents.com
C11's threads addition to the C standard was under-scrutinized and should not have been added.Their words
This C standard addition did not get nearly the attention is needed and should have been cut (par for the course).
What's been going on in w64devkit the past yearnullprogram.com
17 September
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Their words
Targeting old 16-bit computers, the authors couldn't afford to build a sloppy, wasteful UI, and so by modern standards the game UI is remarkably fast and responsive.
A custom virtual machine for the Stars! 4X gamenullprogram.com
6 May
26 April
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korrents.com
AI coding assistance now lets a programmer complete in a day work that used to take weeks.Their words
Though now that I can accomplish ~3 weeks of old-way work in a new-way day, this sort of project becomes that much easier to start and finish.
25 April
From one piece My brave new code-signing world 2 beliefs · nullprogram.com
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Their words
The most popular use case is code-signing with self-signed certificates, but that actually makes everything worse.
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korrents.com
How easily an AI agent navigates a UI is objective evidence of how well- or poorly-designed that UI is.Their words
the AI breezes through the GitHub UI, but struggles through the Azure portal - objective evidence of how awful it is.
7 April
From one piece dcmake: a new CMake debugger UI 2 beliefs · nullprogram.com
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korrents.com
Frontier AI models still cannot handle certain deep technical implementation details without human guidanceTheir words
This took some special care, in particular avoiding any C++ standard library I/O functionality. Current frontier AI cannot handle this detail on their own.
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korrents.com
AI tools are now highly effective at generating UI code from a rough natural-language descriptionTheir words
This is just one of many situations I've used AI the past month for UI development, and it's been shockingly effective.
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 12 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
C11's threads addition to the C standard was under-scrutinized and should not have been added.
This C standard addition did not get nearly the attention is needed and should have been cut (par for the course).
What's been going on in w64devkit the past year Said 20 Sept 2026
CMake tooling is missing a linter that could statically catch most CMakeLists.txt mistakes.
The world needs a good CMake linter, which could catch most cases statically.
What's been going on in w64devkit the past year Said 20 Sept 2026
Frontier AI coding agents can now fix complex compiler bugs like LTO issues in about fifteen minutes.
Strap a frontier AI into a good coding harness, show it what's broken, give it all the sources (source.tar), and ~15 minutes later I have a patch.
What's been going on in w64devkit the past year Said 20 Sept 2026
Show 9 more
Software built under tight hardware constraints tends to have faster, more responsive UI than software built without such limits.
Targeting old 16-bit computers, the authors couldn't afford to build a sloppy, wasteful UI, and so by modern standards the game UI is remarkably fast and responsive.
A custom virtual machine for the Stars! 4X game Said 17 Sept 2026
AI coding assistance now lets a programmer complete in a day work that used to take weeks.
Though now that I can accomplish ~3 weeks of old-way work in a new-way day, this sort of project becomes that much easier to start and finish.
I have officially retired from Emacs Said 26 Apr 2026
How easily an AI agent navigates a UI is objective evidence of how well- or poorly-designed that UI is.
the AI breezes through the GitHub UI, but struggles through the Azure portal - objective evidence of how awful it is.
My brave new code-signing world Said 25 Apr 2026
Code-signing with self-signed certificates makes security worse rather than better.
The most popular use case is code-signing with self-signed certificates, but that actually makes everything worse.
My brave new code-signing world Said 25 Apr 2026
AI tools are now highly effective at generating UI code from a rough natural-language description
This is just one of many situations I've used AI the past month for UI development, and it's been shockingly effective.
dcmake: a new CMake debugger UI Said 7 Apr 2026
Frontier AI models still cannot handle certain deep technical implementation details without human guidance
This took some special care, in particular avoiding any C++ standard library I/O functionality. Current frontier AI cannot handle this detail on their own.
dcmake: a new CMake debugger UI Said 7 Apr 2026
Frontier AI now outperforms most human programmers at most programming tasks, with very low defect rates.
AI is now highly skilled at programming, and better than me at almost every programming task, with inhumanly-low defect rates.
2026 has been the most pivotal year in my career… and it's only March Said 29 Mar 2026
There is a large and growing gap between open-weight AI models and frontier AI models.
There's a huge, growing gap between open weight models and the frontier. Models you can run yourself are toys.
2026 has been the most pivotal year in my career… and it's only March Said 29 Mar 2026
AI will make hand-written code a luxury only the wealthy can afford to produce.
AI makes programming so cheap that only the rich will write code by hand.
2026 has been the most pivotal year in my career… and it's only March Said 29 Mar 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 12 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Uses Latitude 7490
I use various Dell computers, including right now as I currently type this on a Latitude 7490.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Liked ODROID-C2
I also rely significantly on a home server built from an ODROID-C2. In the past this role had been filled by older Raspberry Pi models, but the ODROID is well-suited as a server.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Loved Debian
I strongly prefer Debian, but Ubuntu is also acceptable.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Show 9 more
Liked mpv
I use mpv for most media consumption. Its minimalistic keyboard interface is perfectly suited for my needs.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Uses OpenBox
I dislike big desktop environments, so instead I use OpenBox - bare-bones, without any task bar, start menu, etc.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Uses uBlock Origin
I also use uBlock Origin and uMatrix for privacy, security, and efficiency.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Liked Tridactyl
Firefox is my favorite web browser. This is in large part due to Tridactyl, an add-on that makes the interface Vim-like, which makes the interface far more capable.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Loved Firefox
Firefox is my favorite web browser. This is in large part due to Tridactyl, an add-on that makes the interface Vim-like, which makes the interface far more capable.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Liked xterm
For the terminal emulator itself I usually use xterm because it's so configurable and featureful.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Uses tmux
To manage this setup, I'm nearly always using tmux, a terminal multiplexer.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Loved Vim
I use NeoMutt as my email client. It lets me comfortably compose all my mail in my favorite text editor, Vim.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Uses NeoMutt
I use NeoMutt as my email client. It lets me comfortably compose all my mail in my favorite text editor, Vim.
usesthis.com 4 Oct 2019
Where they publish
Blog nullprogram.com Long-running blog on C, Emacs and systems programming.
Recent
- tugz: a new deflate library with three applications 13 Oct 2026 I spent a week creating a new deflate implementation from scratch in C named tugz to provide an Info-ZIP-compatible zip program for w64devkit 2.10.1 (released today). I also replaced busybox-w32’s deflate-based unzip, g…
- A new, bespoke static site generator to replace Jekyll 4 Oct 2026 My blog began as a blosxom (Perl) site running on a VPS. In 2011 I moved to the new GitHub Pages, with the site generated statically by Jekyll (Ruby) on a GitHub server. It was a no-brainer: easier, faster, and cheaper,…
- What's been going on in w64devkit the past year 20 Sept 2026 The past year has been exciting for w64devkit, which like any software distribution is never complete. Peter0x44 joined as co-maintainer, and has pushed the project in good, new directions, with ideas I would never have…
Show 5 more
- A custom virtual machine for the Stars! 4X game 17 Sept 2026 Stars! is a 1995 4X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) for 16-bit Windows 3.1 that I first played ~28 years ago. While Windows is famously backwards compatible, it’s notoriously difficult to play Stars! today.…
- Concurrent, atomic MSI hash tables 6 May 2026 Readers will be familiar with Mask-Step-Index (MSI) hash tables, a technique for building fast, open-addressed hash tables in a dozen lines of code. If multiple threads or processes access an MSI table with at least one…
- I have officially retired from Emacs 26 Apr 2026 This article was discussed on reddit and on Hacker News. This past Tuesday I typed C-x C-c in Emacs for the last time after 20 years of daily use. Though nearly half that time was gradually retiring it, switching to mod…
- My brave new code-signing world 25 Apr 2026 The new w64devkit release two weeks ago is the first to be code-signed with my identity, verified by Microsoft’s certificate chain. Currently only the release packaging is signed — the self-extracting archive and its pa…
- dcmake: a new CMake debugger UI 7 Apr 2026 CMake has a --debugger mode since 3.27 (July 2023), allowing software to manipulate it interactively through the Debugger Adaptor Protocol (DAP), an HTTP-like protocol passing JSON messages. Debugger front-ends can star…
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
GitHub @skeeto Elfeed, Endlessh, Enchive and other projects.
Recent
- w64devkit — Portable C and C++ Development Kit for x64 (and x86) Windows 20 Oct 2026
- solitaire — Sawayama Solitaire clone in C++ and SDL3 for web and desktop 20 Oct 2026
- twenty-four — 24 arithmetic puzzle as a C++/Wasm PWA 20 Oct 2026
Show 14 more
- aas-sign — Azure Artifact Signing utility and action 20 Oct 2026
- dcmake — CMake debugger 20 Oct 2026
- quilt.cpp — Quilt implemented in C++ 19 Oct 2026
- tugz — tiny unity gzip 19 Oct 2026
- u-config — a smaller, simpler, portable pkg-config clone 19 Oct 2026
- New reposshd — minimal SSH server for Windows XP 18 Oct 2026
- skeeto.github.com — Personal website/blog 17 Oct 2026
- dotfiles — My personal dotfiles 12 Oct 2026
- october-chess-engine — Java Chess Engine 12 Oct 2026
- elfeed2 — The Elfeed feed reader experience without Emacs 11 Oct 2026
- tinycodec — A lossless codec like QOI 3 Oct 2026
- mazelog — Mazelog Monthly Challenge Solvers 1 Oct 2026
- emacs-aio — async/await for Emacs Lisp 30 Sept 2026
- StarsVM — Win16-on-Win32 host for Stars! (4x game) 27 Sept 2026
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.