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Thomas Ballinger
8,590 posts
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Thomas Ballinger
@ballingt
@anthropicai prev @convex_dev @observablehq @dropbox @recursecenter
Duboce Triangle, San Francisco
ballingt.com
Joined December 2010
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  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Oct 13, 2016
    I'm excited to share dalsegno.ballingt.com, a live programming environment that rewinds to when the function you just changed last ran.
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    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Sep 7, 2024
    thanks I hate it
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    Tim Chase
    @gumnos
    Sep 7, 2024
    Replying to @ballingt
    Create some sort of benign-but-actual-problem and append that to the file?
    31K
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jan 21, 2019
    Replying to @jessfraz
    Intercept readline calls to add undo to any interpreter that uses readline ballingt.com/interactive-in… m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcg1Ku…
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    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Mar 19, 2023
    OK I get it, giving LLMs access to other tools is a big deal, @langchain and friends matter. @simonw and @geoffreylitt and @genmon have written about this very well, less advanced writing coming from me soon
    An example session of using OpenAI API to make a chatbot-like thing that has access to a REPL. It's just using JavaScript for multiplication here, but the implication is it could be doing screen scraping or a million other things you can do with a programming environment.
    34K
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Oct 1, 2019
    Me news: I've left Dropbox to move on to the next thing, @observablehq! I get to deliver a keynote at @PyConBlkn on Friday! I'm teaching another compilers class at @BradfieldCS starting in a couple weeks! Right now I'm in Frankfurt airport tweeting instead of making slides!
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jun 12, 2016
    Best buds: @brandon_rhodes's pypi.python.org/pypi/adventure… and bpython (I've always wanted undo in text adventure games!)
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    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jan 10, 2017
    Happy to report that today is my first day at Dropbox! ballingt.com/2016
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jan 21, 2019
    Replying to @ballingt and @jessfraz
    LD_PRELOAD sounded scary at first but then I read that it was fun and easy so went with it
    Screenshot of Google search result showing Julia Evan's blog post about LD_PRELOAD being fun and easy
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Mar 13, 2017
    any blog post with a genuinely excited "Now I get a different error!" is one I will love
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    🔎Julia Evans🔍
    @b0rk
    Mar 12, 2017
    "calling a C function from Rust" by @jeffowler blog.jfo.click/calling-a-c-fu…
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jan 24, 2018
    Six years ago today I found out I was going to be part of the @recursecenter community. My sincere thanks to everyone who has helped make this community so great.
    user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jan 24, 2012
    I'll be attending #hackerschool starting in three weeks! I'll be working furiously at my job until then so they don't hate me!
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jul 25, 2025
    Replying to @theo
    I did a small run (2) a couple weeks ago, it's such a vibe
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    8.6K
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jun 12, 2017
    I learned another git thing! Show isn't just for viewing commits: git show commit:main.py prints the full main.py file at that commit!
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jan 8, 2020
    in case you're unfamiliar this isn't tuition abatement, RC is free; this is paying peoples rent real proud to have been a part of this
    user avatar
    Recurse Center
    @recursecenter
    Jan 7, 2020
    Replying to @recursecenter
    💵 We've granted over $1.6 million to over 360 programmers who are women, trans, non-binary, Black, Latinx, and/or Native American. 🖥️If you want to spend six or twelve weeks learning, doing research, creating art or music, or making progress on a personal project, apply to RC!
  • user avatar
    Thomas Ballinger
    @ballingt
    Jan 27, 2019
    We made a language that compiles to Python 3.6/7 bytecode in a @BradfieldCS class I'm teaching and sharing it with @replit was a cinch! repl.it/@thomasballing…
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