Brent Simmons

Writes NetNewsWire, a free and open source RSS reader for Mac and iOS.

He/him.

Blog: https://inessential.com
Microblog: https://micro.inessential.com
NetNewsWire: https://netnewswire.com

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Last Notes

2026-09-02 16:11:07 GMT

Reminder: Apple is not your friend, even with a new CEO. Apple will continue to do some good things and some very bad things. Any feelings of love you have toward Apple is not reciprocated: Apple has no feelings. It’s a multi-trillion dollar company that, like every other corporation, would like your money but does not care about you, or your values, at all.

2026-08-24 22:08:34 GMT

Tech Choices: https://inessential.com/2026/08/24/tech-choices.html

2026-06-13 14:52:16 GMT

Dog in my neighborhood.
https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/media_attachments/files/116/743/362/033/631/310/original/05e47c08e4a4d938.jpg

2026-03-02 17:56:26 GMT

Before sending Apple any money this week, remember that Tim Cook attended a private screening of the Melania documentary at the White House later in the same day that Alex Pretti was murdered by this administration. He knew about it and went anyway.

2026-02-13 22:16:49 GMT

People:
2014: OMG RSS is still around!
2015: OMG RSS is still around!
2016: OMG RSS is still around!
2017: OMG RSS is still around!
2018: OMG RSS is still around!
2019: OMG RSS is still around!
2020: OMG RSS is still around!
2021: OMG RSS is still around!
2022: OMG RSS is still around!
2023: OMG RSS is still around!
2024: OMG RSS is still around!
2025: OMG RSS is still around!
2026: OMG RSS is still around!
Maybe in 2027 we’ll stop being surprised!

2025-10-12 15:39:55 GMT

There is no CEO of RSS.

2025-08-28 17:32:57 GMT

On my blog: “And it seems retro in the worst way that we’re still using anything other than a scripting language for most of our code. We should be using something simple and light that can configure toolbars, handle networking callbacks, query databases, manage views, and so on.”
https://inessential.com/2025/08/28/easy-app-writing.html

2025-08-26 00:21:00 GMT

Tough Season in the Apple Fields: https://inessential.com/2025/08/25/tough-season.html

2025-08-16 00:29:14 GMT

- reply

There isn’t anything in the RSS spec about not embedding iframes — you can put any HTML you want in there. (I’m not saying iframes are a good idea or bad idea, just that they’re not illegal in RSS.)
https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html

2025-08-15 17:08:37 GMT

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If you’re doing something like this — <description><b>This is bold</b></description> — then some RSS readers will not handle it as you hope. Better to use CDATA or encode the angle brackets.

2025-05-14 23:42:07 GMT

Developers, me included, started selling software on the internet in the mid ’90s. The App Store didn’t save us from that.
Many developers, large and small, had been selling on the web for more than 10 years by the time the App Store appeared.

2025-03-09 22:05:49 GMT

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Same in Seattle! This is one of my happiest days of the year.

2025-02-17 22:57:44 GMT

Just today I learned about Codeberg, “a non-profit, community-led effort that provides Git hosting and other services for free and open source projects.”
I have open source projects, and plan to have more, and getting away from big-corporation-owned services is an extremely attractive idea. I also like, for obvious reasons these days, the “Hosted in Europe, we welcome the world” part. https://codeberg.org/

2024-11-05 22:07:53 GMT

Reminder — in 2020, at the end of election night, it looked quite bleak. It took several days before enough of the votes were counted to show Biden as the winner.

2024-11-04 19:53:11 GMT

People who don’t vote have agreed to have government imposed upon them, without their say. I don’t know why anyone would agree to that.

2024-10-16 20:28:23 GMT

No surprise — I agree very much with Cory Doctorow’s advice to use an RSS reader.
And, even though I write an RSS reader, I also agree wholeheartedly with this part:
“Don't worry about which RSS reader you start with. It literally doesn't matter.”
Just pick one! Based on anything. You can shop around, or not, later.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/

2024-10-14 23:48:44 GMT

Seattle-area folks — reminder! Thursday Oct. 17 is the Seattle Xcoders 20th anniversary meetup.
All are welcome! We’ll be at Bale Breaker in Ballard. Not exactly sure if we’ll be at our normal spot outside or in that one easily-spotted side room — I’ll update when I know more.
Starts at 7 pm. Scheduled to go to 9 pm, but it tends to go a bit longer.
I hope to see you there! 🐣🐥🎩

2024-09-10 22:23:44 GMT

You don’t *still* use RSS — you use RSS. You can drop the “still” part.

2024-08-27 03:23:47 GMT

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I think the answer is: no, not really, and that’s not a good goal.
Definitely do things that are healthy for body and brain! But not because you’ll get more good coding hours — do those things to take care of yourself (not least so that you can help take care of others).
Don’t count on more programming capacity — count on less over time. You want to concentrate on improving your skills over improving your capacity.