pketh
pketh.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2020
pketh is a solo developer who builds Kinopio and writes about how it is made, pricing, design principles, and software craft.
What HN saysCommenters recommend it as an example of a true solo developer's blog, point to the Kinopio write-up, and one challenges the 'organic software' metaphor.
27HN people shared it
7linked it in comments
39stories submitted
1.1Kstory points
5 months agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1How Kinopio is Made (using state, localStorage, API, and WebSockets)7 people · 14 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 2Saying Bye to Glitch4 people · 25 points · first shared 2025 · 2 comments on HN
- 3Why Sell Lifetime Plans, in a Default Subscription World?4 people · 9 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Kinopio's Design Principles4 people · 7 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 5In search of organic software2 people · 86 points · first shared 2022 · 44 comments on HN
- 6Dialing Up the Internet Phonebook2 people · 21 points · first shared 2025 · 2 comments on HN
- 7The Lo-Fi Art and Human Tools Era2 people · 10 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 8Why Software Is Slow and Shitty2 people · 8 points · first shared 2020 · 2 comments on HN
- 9The Hybrid Architecture of Kinopio for iOS2 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
- 10How I Build1 people · 244 points · first shared 2021 · 45 comments on HN
- 11Digging into PlantStudio, a bit late1 people · 225 points · first shared 2024 · 41 comments on HN
- 12Making the Kinopio source code public1 people · 219 points · first shared 2024 · 58 comments on HN
- 13The building blocks of offline support1 people · 83 points · first shared 2024 · 30 comments on HN
- 14Redesigning an app, one day a week at a time1 people · 76 points · first shared 2022 · 25 comments on HN
- 15How I do support and community1 people · 38 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
thombee · 2021-05-19
ooh also check out kinopio, a tool that I've recently fallen in love with
https://pketh.org/how-kinopio-is-made.html
https://kinopio.club/
ivanech · 2020-02-08
This is a true solo developer:
http://pketh.org/archives/
It looks like this thread is turning into general blog recommendations. I like these, and they haven't been listed:
https://macwright.org/
https://tonsky.me/
https://nadiaeghbal.com/posts/
surprisetalk · 2025-01-06
Cool people:
• https://tracydurnell.com
• https://www.benkuhn.net
• https://schmud.de
• https://brandur.org
• https://bytes.zone
• https://cassidoo.co
• https://www.chrbutler.com
• https://sive.rs
• https://fasterthanli.me
• https://akkartik.name
• https://www.todepond.com
• https://blog.gingerbeardman.com
• https://gwern.net
• https://interconnected.org
• https://jacobfilipp.com
• https://johnnywebber.com
• https://maggieappleton.com
• https://bernsteinbear.com
• https://pketh.org
• https://rachsmith.com
• https://sonnet.io
• https://stevenscrawls.com
• https://www.bookofjoe.com
• https://winnielim.org
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Cool directories:
• https://blogs.hn
• https://ooh.directory
• https://deadsimplesites.com
• https://peopleandblogs.com
• https://nownownow.com
• https://blogroll.org
• https://kagi.com/smallweb
pketh · 2022-07-24
I wrote a blog post about this very topic, including how I balance user needs with my own aspirations
https://pketh.org/how-i-build.html
shawn-butler · 2022-05-22
Organic farming isn't really about transparency, but obfuscation nor is it always the more sustainable option.
I would rethink your metaphor about organic software[0].
[0]: https://pketh.org/organic-software
elamje · 2021-07-17
For those interested, I found this blog post explaining the tech stack and engineering of the app: https://pketh.org/how-kinopio-is-made.html
mertnesvat · 2022-05-21
Congrats on the launch! I'm also a fan of glitch so congrats on that good job too.
Just out of curiosity have been reading the engineering part and came across with below for not using websockets, confused because debounce and throttle is mainly used to avoid many updates over sockets so it's very well known problem for reactive programming
( https://pketh.org/how-kinopio-is-made.html )
> You might be wondering, why don’t you just update the database with websockets instead of relatively slow API requests?
> The problem with saving data with websockets is that they’re too fast. Authenticating that many messages per second and writing them to disk would be really inefficient. E.g. If you’re moving a card from position x: 20 to x: 420, Kinopio will use websockets to broadcast many updates during the move: moving card x to 21, moving card x to 24, moving card x to 28… potentially hundreds of messages.