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My name is David Foster. Check out the cool software I’ve written.

My articles may also be of interest.

Featured Projects

HandBrake Subtitles ☆

Extends the popular HandBrake ripping and transcoding tool to enable processing subtitles from files, including the SSA subtitles found commonly in anime.

RDiscount ☆

Converts Markdown text to HTML, in Ruby. Includes many useful Markdown extensions.

TypedDict ☆

Python typechecker support for recognizing structured dictionaries with specific named keys mapped to specific value types. Ubiquitous in JSON.

Uhuru ☆

A translation assistant for reading Japanese text quickly.

Featured Articles

• Mar 25, 2017 » How to Design Large Programs with Abstraction and Encapsulation ☆
• Apr 02, 2016 » Roles on Software Teams ☆
• Sep 13, 2015 » State of the Union in Programming Languages (2015) ☆
• Dec 20, 2014 » Spectrum of Languages by Hardware Distance ☆
• May 11, 2013 » Programming for Perfectionists (P4P): A Book Outline ☆
• Feb 20, 2013 » Visual Guide to Programming Language Properties ☆
• Jan 15, 2013 » Things I Wish I Knew Before Working in Industry ☆
• Jan 08, 2013 » Programming is Fun. But What Matters is Solving a Real Problem. ☆

Recent Articles

• Jan 20, 2021 » I no longer trust The Great Suspender
• Feb 02, 2020 » Power Naps
• Jan 18, 2020 » Stress
• Jun 27, 2019 » OS Abstractions are Failing Us
• Jan 06, 2019 » Dependent Types: Impressions of a software practitioner
• Dec 15, 2018 » Timecharts
• Nov 24, 2018 » Why isn't the external link symbol in Unicode?
• Sep 23, 2018 » The Flat Module Pattern in JavaScript
• Jun 02, 2018 » Performance Testing
• Apr 07, 2018 » Unsound type systems are still useful

See all articles…

Miscellaneous

Much information related to my activities prior to 2010 can also be found on my old site.