/Evan Hahn

My Failed Attempt To Shrink All Npm Packages By 5% tl;dr: “In 2022, I had an idea that could decrease the size of all newly-published npm packages by about 5%, and it was completely backwards compatible. This would have improved performance and reduced storage costs. I eagerly pitched this idea to the npm maintainers, convinced it was a clear win. But after a few months, my proposal was rejected. To be clear: I think this was the right call! Here’s what happened. I hope this story will be useful to others.”

featured in #585


My Programming Beliefs As Of July 2024 tl;dr: This is a collection of things I believe about computer programming as of today. It’s based on my own experience. Evan discusses: (1) How to approach tasks. (2) How to design software. (3) Nitty-gritty coding details. (4) Interpersonal dynamics. (6) High level / career topics. 

featured in #529


The World's Smallest PNG tl;dr: This post describes this file in more detail and tries to explain how PNGs work along the way. The smallest PNG file has four sections: (1) The PNG signature, the same for every PNG: 8 bytes. (2) The image’s metadata, which includes its dimensions: 25 bytes. (3) The image’s pixel data: 22 bytes. (4) An “end of image” marker: 12 bytes.  

featured in #477