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I previously discussed how the main codebase at Google enforces strict tooling and conventions to allow the codebase to scale. For many years, there was one glaring exception: the IDE. Context: I worked at Google from 2011 to 2024. Some of the information might be approximative, I’ll update it if there are reports. This blog post focuses on the main monorepo at Google (google3). A fragmented…
Many software engineers I know are familiar with the demoscene, but very few follow it actively. Every year, around 2,000 productions are released. Once in a while, a masterpiece like .kkrieger or Elevated becomes famous, but most of the best work stays inside the scene. To filter the noise, juries of demosceners nominate the best productions of the year for the Meteoriks awards. The 2026 nominees…
In the last few days, I built a shoot ’em up game by embedding a tiny custom bytecode VM and rendering the graphics using a fullscreen pixel shader. The result is a 3kB Windows executable. This was done for Langjam Gamejam , a 7-day challenge where you create a programming language and then use it to build a game. The project combines several interests of mine: language tooling , game…
Many people have learned English mainly through TV series and video games. We know that language acquisition happens when someone is exposed to a language that’s mostly understandable, with enough context, visuals, and motivation to make sense of it. But it’s often hard to find good content in your target language. Textbook dialogues can be boring, movies can be too complex, and many…
An AI-generated book A few days ago, I found a newly published book about Starlark (a language derived from Python, intended to be embedded). This caught my attention since I was responsible for Starlark during my time at Google. I was shocked. Starlark is too niche to warrant a full book, and too simple to fill one. I wouldn’t know how to write 100 pages about it. So I took a closer look at…
Have you ever found an anonymous letter in your mailbox, with a riddle leading you into your own home? Here's a true story... It was the end of November, a cold but uneventful day in the quiet French countryside. My parents had arrived at their country house, the kind of place where time slows down, and nothing much happens. As usual, my parents checked the mailbox. Among the usual stack of bills…
Have you ever needed a simple, thread-safe scripting language for your application—one that looks like Python but is safe and easy to embed? I’d suggest Starlark. If you’re looking for a broader overview of the language, check out my previous post: An Overview of Starlark . Here, I’ll explain how it actually works. An embedded language Starlark is a simple, thread-safe…
January 2023 was a chaotic month inside Google. Without warning, the company announced 12,000 layoffs—roughly 6% of its global workforce. Panic set in as employees woke up to find their access suddenly revoked. There were stories of people discovering their fate while on parental leave, others mid-project, or even while on-call. Overnight, the atmosphere shifted from business-as-usual to…
This blog post is part of a series about my travel stories . Sorry for the delays. This was in November 2023. After exploring the Republic of Cyprus, I felt an itch to see the other side—Northern Cyprus. This "country" exists in a peculiar limbo, only recognized by Turkey. Legally, you're supposed to leave the island of Cyprus from the South (the Republic of Cyprus), but the only direct…
After finishing my first half marathon in 2 hours last year , I took a long break from running. Between traveling and taking time off, I didn't train much for a couple of months. But by January, I started to wonder: could I push myself to do a full marathon in the spring? The idea seemed feasible. I gave it a shot, followed a plan, and… it didn’t go well. The training volume felt too…