DanLuu.com is the personal blog of Dan Luu, known for long-form essays that mix systems thinking with careful measurement and clear writing. The topics range from computer latency and input lag, testing versus informal reasoning, and concurrency bugs, to industry pieces on developer compensation and curated lists of programming blogs worth reading. Many posts include data, historical context, and reproducible reasoning, which is why the site is often cited in courses and shared across the developer community. The design is intentionally minimal, which puts all attention on the ideas.
136 articles from this blog
Analyzes the true value of startup stock options versus cash compensation, questioning if the risk-reward for employees is justified.
The article explores how modern web bloat, like heavy CSS and JavaScript, makes websites unusable for people with slow, dialup-like internet connections.
A critical analysis of Hacker News comments, highlighting their flaws but arguing it's still the best source for niche technical insights.
A critical guide to programming books, offering specific recommendations and anti-recommendations for topics like algorithms and data structures.
Analyzes Joel Spolsky's 'lemons' hiring theory, questioning why great developers are supposedly rare on the job market if they are easy to identify.
Debunks the myth that complex software like Google Search is easy to build, explaining why it requires vast engineering resources.
Analyzes if software developer compensation is becoming bimodal, like in law, using salary data and trends.
A personal story about an unconventional path into programming, challenging the myth of the 'natural born' programmer.
An analysis of concurrency bugs, their prevalence, and the disproportionate debugging time they consume, citing academic studies.
A curated list of insightful programming blogs covering topics like JVM internals, performance, ML, engineering culture, and computer architecture.
A summary and analysis of Google's SRE book, contrasting traditional sysadmin roles with Google's Site Reliability Engineering approach.
An analysis of hiring biases in tech, where experienced candidates are rejected for not fitting a 'trendy' profile from elite schools.
A critical review of the fanfiction 'Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality', highlighting its clever ideas but flawed execution.
An archived blog post introducing quantum mechanics concepts, starting with classical physics and Fermat's principle of least time in optics.
Explains why sampling profilers fail at debugging tail latency and introduces Google's event tracing framework as a solution.
Analysis of Intel's strong 2015 market performance contrasted with the emergence of serious CPU bugs and the expectation of more in the future.
The author explores 'normalization of deviance' by sharing workplace anecdotes where bizarre or unethical practices were considered standard.
Analyzes the debate between working at a startup vs. a big tech company, challenging common claims about earnings and career growth.
Explains why desktop apps corrupt files and the technical challenges of ensuring crash consistency when saving data.
A rebuttal to arguments against using ECC memory, using Google's historical hardware decisions as a case study.
