Rebuilding from first principles
The protocol for learning by rebuilding things that already exist.
I rebuild things that already exist — a Pomodoro timer, an Obsidian-like editor, pieces of a terminal. Not to ship them. To find the wall the original authors hit, and hit it myself.
The protocol
- Pick something you use daily and take for granted.
- Rebuild the smallest honest version — small is fine, faking the hard part is not.
- Write down where you got stuck. The stuck points are the curriculum.
- Read the real implementation only after suffering. Before: trivia. After: decisions.
Current rebuilds
| Project | Rebuilding | The wall so far |
|---|---|---|
| tomatte | A Pomodoro timer | Menu bar apps and the macOS lifecycle |
| (editor) | Obsidian-style notes | Plugins are an architecture, not a feature |
| (terminal) | How a shell talks to the kernel | PTYs, detail by detail, step by step |
Stuck points archive
This section grows as I get stuck, which is to say: constantly. Each entry is one wall, what finally made it click, and what the click generalized to.