Top all-time · #9177
Willem L. Middelkoop
Personal blog · willem.com/blogprogrammingwriting
Willem L. Middelkoop's personal blog at willem.com covers programming and writing. Since 2019, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 72 times, most often “Vibe Coding On the power and danger of programming with AI”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for posts on fighting email backscatter spam, making a custom Debian tablet OS on a Surface Go, and building a blog on a 486. Comments cite these as resources.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Willem Middelkoop builds robust software for business and independent apps used by millions. Software developer, entrepreneur and writer, working as a company of one from Limburg, NL.
Most-linked posts?
- Vibe Coding On the power and danger of programming with AI2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-04-15
- Installing dynamo powered lights on my road bike2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-11-03
- /blog/2019-09-10_fighting-backscatter-spam-at-server-level/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-12-05
- Using a 486dx to build a blog (2016)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-22
- Breaking Changes – Upgrading Dovecot 2.3 to 2.4 in Debian Stable2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-06-04
What Hacker News says?
Following the book "The Power of Strangers" I once did an experiment with talking to random strangers, it is amazing what you'll learn from random conversations: https://willem.com/en/2023-10-13_hello-stranger/
Comment linking /en/2023-10-13_hello-stranger/
on “30 minutes with a stranger”Submitted Coding in Vision Pro as a story · 361 points
HN discussionHere is a good blog post [1] that explains backscatter and some ways to help prevent it. [1] https://willem.com/blog/2019-09-10_fighting-backscatter-spam...
Comment linking /blog/2019-09-10_fighting-backscatter-spam-at-server-level/
on “Show HN: I made an open-source anonymous email forwarding service”Submitted Designing my own watch (2020) as a story · 225 points
HN discussionWarning for those running Debian and Dovecot under stable. In this new stable release, an update to Dovecot will break your configuration: https://willem.com/blog/2025-06-04_breaking-changes/
Comment linking /blog/2025-06-04_breaking-changes/
on “What to expect from Debian/Trixie”Submitted Budget Android (€99) vs. Expensive iPhone (€1000) (2018) as a story · 61 points
HN discussionSpot on. Decided to get myself a ThreeJS book instead of vibing my way through. Wrote this post on it: https://willem.com/blog/2025-04-15_vibe-coding/
Comment linking /blog/2025-04-15_vibe-coding/
on “Google to embrace MCP”Submitted Servicing a robot vacuum cleaner (2019) as a story · 44 points
HN discussionOne thing that most non-cyclists may not realise, is that (because of your lower speed) it is actually an advantage to keep your cargo sight when riding through an urban area. (You don't want people steal your cargo while waiting for the traffic lights.) Or, when transporting kids, you want to be able to see them, talk with them, keep an eye on them. I have cycled over 30,000 Kilometers in and around Amsterdam on va…
Comment linking /blog/bike/
on “Reviving a modular cargo bike design from the 1930s”Submitted Saying "No" to Things (2024) as a story · 6 points
HN discussionThanks Zokier for your comments, original author here: The post for most parts was neat, not disagreeing there. But wrapping it up as some sort of empowering life lesson feels so utterly out of touch that I felt like reminding that it is huge privilege to be able to do this sort of thing. Never was it my intention to provide one with "overarching life lessons". Your reaction points out that I still have a lot to lea…
Comment linking /blog/2016-11-21_being-a-volunteer-in-amsterdam-zuidoost/
on “Designing my own watch (2020)”Submitted The Problem with Bitcoin: Everybody Wins as a story · 5 points
HN discussionAlso, here's a blog [i] that installs Debian w/ a customized kernel onto a Surface Go. [i] https://willem.com/blog/2020-03-09_making-my-own-tablet-os/#...
Comment linking /blog/2020-03-09_making-my-own-tablet-os/
on “OpenBSD on the Microsoft Surface Go 2”Submitted Escape from Apple iCloud Photos using free software (2020) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionJust made the switch here to /e/OS on Fairphone: https://willem.com/blog/2025-03-05_durable-smartphone/
Comment linking /blog/2025-03-05_durable-smartphone/
on “Google's Unannounced Update Scans All Your Photos”Submitted I Talk to Strangers as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI don't think handwriting will go away, it might become a "proof of work" in an age of artificially generated texts. I recently started including the manually written manuscripts (that I make on my reMarkable) with my blog posts to show folks I actually wrote them. See https://willem.com/en/2025-08-19_android-photo-library-app/ When everybody is jumping towards AI and digital texts, what remains may become more valu…
Comment linking /en/2025-08-19_android-photo-library-app/
on “The End of Handwriting”Submitted Go Viral on X as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis is the way to do it, good work and great that you posted this. The first release of my 40 million download app was held together by proverbial ducktape - yet the lessons learned from actually releasing it got me to come up with much better updates: https://willem.com/en/2018-02-21_updating-snake-97/
Comment linking /en/2018-02-21_updating-snake-97/
on “9 Years of "Learning to Code" and I Still Couldn't Build a To-Do App”Submitted Debian GNU/Linux on Surface Go 2 Tablet (With LTE) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionCool! This resonates with my "Offline Music" approach (fed with my own CD collection): https://willem.com/blog/2022-07-17_offline-music/
Comment linking /blog/2022-07-17_offline-music/
on “You can still own music”Submitted Host your own calendar and contacts server (CalDAV/CardDAV) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFew years ago my brother threw a beer on my iPhone in an Amsterdam bar. The poor thing didn't like the Dutch brew as much as I do: it died. While waiting for a new phone to arrive, I used an old one that couldn't do anything but texting, calling and... Snake! I decided to try and develop an accurate remake myself - it changed my live! I wrote a post detailing much of the experience, 30M downloads and counting: https…
Comment linking /blog/2018-02-21_updating-snake-97/
on “Examples of games developed by a single developer?”Submitted Using Google Free Android as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHandwritten, vanilla HTML with a self-self built static site generator (reading the HTML files and doing some fancy 'find and replace'). Get's the job done: https://willem.com/blog/2025-03-05_durable-smartphone/
Comment linking /blog/2025-03-05_durable-smartphone/
on “Ask HN: What's your blog / portfolio stack?”Submitted Installing dynamo powered lights on my road bike as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSimilar sentiment here: https://willem.com/blog/2025-04-15_vibe-coding/ Its power is as great as its putfalls and the outcome totally depends on how you choose to use it.
Comment linking /blog/2025-04-15_vibe-coding/
on “Tell HN: A realization I've had about working with AIs and building software”Submitted Apple Watch as Phone Replacement as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt can spot the things you tell them to spot. But, natural language (used to tell the AI what to do) is imprecise and lacks unambiguity. Makes me remember Dijkstra's words: https://willem.com/blog/2025-04-15_vibe-coding/
Comment linking /blog/2025-04-15_vibe-coding/
on “AI isn't ready to replace human coders for debugging, researchers say”Submitted Ask HN: Any tips for using a 15-year old ThinkPad as main computer? as a story · 3 points
HN discussion