Simon MacDonald
@macdonst.bsky.social
Father, Software Engineer, Comic Enthusiast, Coffee Lover, Human Goodreads and Head of Developer Experience at Begin. He/Him
NYC I will be in you for a two day @sanity.io conference. Join us on Monday September 29th for a hands on workshop. Then on Tuesday September 30th we'll have sessions on code, culture and community.
RSVP at: everything.sanity.io
RSVP at: everything.sanity.io
Everything NYC 2025 – Sanity
Everything *[NYC] is where developers and creative thinkers come together to explore what it means to build digital experiences that move people, and the world forward. From content operations to cult...
everything.sanity.io
September 10, 2025 at 7:42 PM
NYC I will be in you for a two day @sanity.io conference. Join us on Monday September 29th for a hands on workshop. Then on Tuesday September 30th we'll have sessions on code, culture and community.
RSVP at: everything.sanity.io
RSVP at: everything.sanity.io
Amazing editing by Evelina Wahlström our Technical Product Marketing Manager @sanity.io for turning my ramblings about the Functions product I work on into something coherent.
www.youtube.com/shorts/HQ2tK...
www.youtube.com/shorts/HQ2tK...
"I never make mistakes writing code..."
YouTube video by Sanity
www.youtube.com
September 3, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Amazing editing by Evelina Wahlström our Technical Product Marketing Manager @sanity.io for turning my ramblings about the Functions product I work on into something coherent.
www.youtube.com/shorts/HQ2tK...
www.youtube.com/shorts/HQ2tK...
Reposted by Simon MacDonald
Auto-fix your blog's annoying problems with event-driven logic.
Change a slug → create a redirect
Add a code snippet → format it
Modify the body → generate a changelog with AI
Build it with Sanity Functions.
youtu.be/W8f6jFLcCng
Change a slug → create a redirect
Add a code snippet → format it
Modify the body → generate a changelog with AI
Build it with Sanity Functions.
youtu.be/W8f6jFLcCng
Auto-fix your blog's annoying problems
YouTube video by Sanity
youtu.be
August 29, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Auto-fix your blog's annoying problems with event-driven logic.
Change a slug → create a redirect
Add a code snippet → format it
Modify the body → generate a changelog with AI
Build it with Sanity Functions.
youtu.be/W8f6jFLcCng
Change a slug → create a redirect
Add a code snippet → format it
Modify the body → generate a changelog with AI
Build it with Sanity Functions.
youtu.be/W8f6jFLcCng
Book Review - Web Accessibility Cookbook
I learned something new in every chapter ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-08-20-book-review-web-accessibility-cookbook
I learned something new in every chapter ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-08-20-book-review-web-accessibility-cookbook
August 20, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Book Review - Web Accessibility Cookbook
I learned something new in every chapter ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-08-20-book-review-web-accessibility-cookbook
I learned something new in every chapter ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-08-20-book-review-web-accessibility-cookbook
Reposted by Simon MacDonald
"Dan Webb wrote about how he and his team migrated their site from Next.js to Eleventy and improved performance by 24%. But who knows, maybe he’s just deep in Big Static’s pocket" - Bytes
etch.co/blog/we-migr...
etch.co/blog/we-migr...
We migrated our site to Eleventy and increased performance by 24% | Etch Software Studio
How choosing the right tool for the job led to faster load times and fewer dependencies.
etch.co
July 29, 2025 at 12:48 AM
"Dan Webb wrote about how he and his team migrated their site from Next.js to Eleventy and improved performance by 24%. But who knows, maybe he’s just deep in Big Static’s pocket" - Bytes
etch.co/blog/we-migr...
etch.co/blog/we-migr...
HTML day, Ottawa edition 🍁
August 2, 2025
12pm-5pm
Brown's Inlet Park
Come hang out and write some HTML!!!
More info ➡️ html-day-ottawa.vercel.app
Not in Ottawa? Other locations + online event here: html.energy/html-day/202...
August 2, 2025
12pm-5pm
Brown's Inlet Park
Come hang out and write some HTML!!!
More info ➡️ html-day-ottawa.vercel.app
Not in Ottawa? Other locations + online event here: html.energy/html-day/202...
HTML Day 2025: Ottawa
Saturday, August 03, 2025, 12pm-5pm, Ottawa
html-day-ottawa.vercel.app
July 25, 2025 at 4:55 PM
HTML day, Ottawa edition 🍁
August 2, 2025
12pm-5pm
Brown's Inlet Park
Come hang out and write some HTML!!!
More info ➡️ html-day-ottawa.vercel.app
Not in Ottawa? Other locations + online event here: html.energy/html-day/202...
August 2, 2025
12pm-5pm
Brown's Inlet Park
Come hang out and write some HTML!!!
More info ➡️ html-day-ottawa.vercel.app
Not in Ottawa? Other locations + online event here: html.energy/html-day/202...
Awesome to see Function Recipes from our DevRel team.
Spoiler, functions has been what I've been up to since last Fall.
Spoiler, functions has been what I've been up to since last Fall.
Now you can add prebuilt functions with a single command.
Send posts to Slack on publish, sync to Algolia, or automatically add tags to your content using AI.
The code is already written. Infrastructure is managed.
Functions Recipes are live!
Send posts to Slack on publish, sync to Algolia, or automatically add tags to your content using AI.
The code is already written. Infrastructure is managed.
Functions Recipes are live!
July 17, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Awesome to see Function Recipes from our DevRel team.
Spoiler, functions has been what I've been up to since last Fall.
Spoiler, functions has been what I've been up to since last Fall.
Newsletters that regularly hit my inbox these days
Newsletters that I make a point of reading every week.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-07-15-newsletters-that-regularly-hit-my-inbox-these-days
Newsletters that I make a point of reading every week.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-07-15-newsletters-that-regularly-hit-my-inbox-these-days
July 15, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Newsletters that regularly hit my inbox these days
Newsletters that I make a point of reading every week.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-07-15-newsletters-that-regularly-hit-my-inbox-these-days
Newsletters that I make a point of reading every week.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-07-15-newsletters-that-regularly-hit-my-inbox-these-days
Pretty excited that all the work we've been doing at Sanity.io is finally public. It's been a wild ride since us Begin’ners joined last September.
www.sanity.io/docs/compute...
www.sanity.io/docs/compute...
The Content Operating System | Sanity
A fully customizable all-code backend for content-driven websites and apps—their builders and creators.
Sanity.io
May 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Pretty excited that all the work we've been doing at Sanity.io is finally public. It's been a wild ride since us Begin’ners joined last September.
www.sanity.io/docs/compute...
www.sanity.io/docs/compute...
Woof, I really dropped the ball on this one but today 4/24 is JS Naked Day. We celebrate today because HTTP error code 424 is “Failed Dependency”. I'm going to spend the rest of the day surfing with JS turned off and do a better job of promoting next year.
js-naked-day.org
js-naked-day.org
JS Naked Day
JS Naked Day: The web should work without JavaScript
js-naked-day.org
April 24, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Woof, I really dropped the ball on this one but today 4/24 is JS Naked Day. We celebrate today because HTTP error code 424 is “Failed Dependency”. I'm going to spend the rest of the day surfing with JS turned off and do a better job of promoting next year.
js-naked-day.org
js-naked-day.org
WALL·E
Released: 2008-06-22
This is my favourite PIxar film of all time. 5 out of 5 stars!!
Released: 2008-06-22
This is my favourite PIxar film of all time. 5 out of 5 stars!!
April 23, 2025 at 8:03 PM
WALL·E
Released: 2008-06-22
This is my favourite PIxar film of all time. 5 out of 5 stars!!
Released: 2008-06-22
This is my favourite PIxar film of all time. 5 out of 5 stars!!
Reposted by Simon MacDonald
Dang, this is really nice. dandavison.github.io/delta/introd...
> brew install git-delta
edit ~/.gitconfig:
```
[core]
pager = delta
[interactive]
diffFilter = delta --color-only
[delta]
navigate = true
```
try it in a repo w changes:
> git diff
> brew install git-delta
edit ~/.gitconfig:
```
[core]
pager = delta
[interactive]
diffFilter = delta --color-only
[delta]
navigate = true
```
try it in a repo w changes:
> git diff
November 9, 2024 at 7:03 PM
Dang, this is really nice. dandavison.github.io/delta/introd...
> brew install git-delta
edit ~/.gitconfig:
```
[core]
pager = delta
[interactive]
diffFilter = delta --color-only
[delta]
navigate = true
```
try it in a repo w changes:
> git diff
> brew install git-delta
edit ~/.gitconfig:
```
[core]
pager = delta
[interactive]
diffFilter = delta --color-only
[delta]
navigate = true
```
try it in a repo w changes:
> git diff
Nope, no problem with bots over here.
January 10, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Nope, no problem with bots over here.
Books I read in 2024
My 2024 wrap up post on books I read in the past year.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-01-08-books-i-read-in-2024
My 2024 wrap up post on books I read in the past year.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-01-08-books-i-read-in-2024
January 8, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Books I read in 2024
My 2024 wrap up post on books I read in the past year.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-01-08-books-i-read-in-2024
My 2024 wrap up post on books I read in the past year.
https://simonmacdonald.com/blog/posts/2025-01-08-books-i-read-in-2024
Reposted by Simon MacDonald
We are delight to welcome #ForwardJS to our group of supporters for #SotB2025.
If you're in Ottowa then checkout their meetups
www.meetup.com/ottawa-forwa...
If you're in Ottowa then checkout their meetups
www.meetup.com/ottawa-forwa...
ForwardJS Ottawa Meetup | Meetup
ForwardJS Ottawa (formerly React Ottawa), founded in 2018, is a non-profit tech meetup group focused on web development technologies. Our talks cover a wide range of web development and career topics....
www.meetup.com
December 18, 2024 at 4:40 PM
We are delight to welcome #ForwardJS to our group of supporters for #SotB2025.
If you're in Ottowa then checkout their meetups
www.meetup.com/ottawa-forwa...
If you're in Ottowa then checkout their meetups
www.meetup.com/ottawa-forwa...
Oh we are back on this bullshit again.
December 4, 2024 at 5:42 PM
Oh we are back on this bullshit again.
At Sanity we are looking to hire a senior backend software engineer to work on our Content Lake team. You wouldn't be working on the same team as me but would be working with some truly great people.
Complex, scalable, distributed backend systems and a bit of Golang!
www.sanity.io/careers/seni...
Complex, scalable, distributed backend systems and a bit of Golang!
www.sanity.io/careers/seni...
Senior Software Engineer (Backend) - Content Lake DX
We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to build Sanity’s Internet-scale content storage and distribution platform at the heart of our Content Operating System.
www.sanity.io
October 24, 2024 at 3:47 PM
At Sanity we are looking to hire a senior backend software engineer to work on our Content Lake team. You wouldn't be working on the same team as me but would be working with some truly great people.
Complex, scalable, distributed backend systems and a bit of Golang!
www.sanity.io/careers/seni...
Complex, scalable, distributed backend systems and a bit of Golang!
www.sanity.io/careers/seni...
Big news. We are absolutely stoked to be joining Sanity. I chart my career using the guiding principle of “solve interesting problems with cool people”. At Sanity we'll be able to keep working on challenging problems with a much larger team.
begin.com/blog/posts/2...
www.sanity.io/blog/welcomi...
begin.com/blog/posts/2...
www.sanity.io/blog/welcomi...
With Gratitude We Say Goodbye: Sunsetting Begin — Begin Blog
Begin joins Sanity
begin.com
October 23, 2024 at 3:26 PM
Big news. We are absolutely stoked to be joining Sanity. I chart my career using the guiding principle of “solve interesting problems with cool people”. At Sanity we'll be able to keep working on challenging problems with a much larger team.
begin.com/blog/posts/2...
www.sanity.io/blog/welcomi...
begin.com/blog/posts/2...
www.sanity.io/blog/welcomi...
Forward JS Ottawa
A Forward JS Ottawa meetup you say?
A Forward JS Ottawa meetup you say?
September 13, 2024 at 1:05 PM
Forward JS Ottawa
A Forward JS Ottawa meetup you say?
A Forward JS Ottawa meetup you say?
'Queen of Shadows' by Sarah J. Maas
I'm surprised I continued with this series, as I found the earlier books were okay but not great. I only kept reading due to the encouragement of a friend. I'm glad I did continue, as book 4 of Sara J. Ma…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-04-27-queen-of-shadows
I'm surprised I continued with this series, as I found the earlier books were okay but not great. I only kept reading due to the encouragement of a friend. I'm glad I did continue, as book 4 of Sara J. Ma…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-04-27-queen-of-shadows
September 4, 2024 at 10:00 PM
'Queen of Shadows' by Sarah J. Maas
I'm surprised I continued with this series, as I found the earlier books were okay but not great. I only kept reading due to the encouragement of a friend. I'm glad I did continue, as book 4 of Sara J. Ma…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-04-27-queen-of-shadows
I'm surprised I continued with this series, as I found the earlier books were okay but not great. I only kept reading due to the encouragement of a friend. I'm glad I did continue, as book 4 of Sara J. Ma…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-04-27-queen-of-shadows
'Red Team Blues' by Cory Doctorow
I've been a fan of Cory Doctorow for a long time, so Kickstarting Red Team Blues was an easy decision. I don't even think I looked at the description. That's why I was surprised that the novel's protagonist i…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-03-red-team-blues
I've been a fan of Cory Doctorow for a long time, so Kickstarting Red Team Blues was an easy decision. I don't even think I looked at the description. That's why I was surprised that the novel's protagonist i…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-03-red-team-blues
September 4, 2024 at 10:00 PM
'Red Team Blues' by Cory Doctorow
I've been a fan of Cory Doctorow for a long time, so Kickstarting Red Team Blues was an easy decision. I don't even think I looked at the description. That's why I was surprised that the novel's protagonist i…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-03-red-team-blues
I've been a fan of Cory Doctorow for a long time, so Kickstarting Red Team Blues was an easy decision. I don't even think I looked at the description. That's why I was surprised that the novel's protagonist i…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-03-red-team-blues
'Babel: An Arcane History' by R. F. Kuang
This is an impressive book, 4.5 out of 5 stars from me. One would think a book about academics at Oxford wouldn't be so gripping, but the author R.F. Kuang paints an incredible picture. The b…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-14-babel-an-arcane-history
This is an impressive book, 4.5 out of 5 stars from me. One would think a book about academics at Oxford wouldn't be so gripping, but the author R.F. Kuang paints an incredible picture. The b…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-14-babel-an-arcane-history
September 4, 2024 at 10:00 PM
'Babel: An Arcane History' by R. F. Kuang
This is an impressive book, 4.5 out of 5 stars from me. One would think a book about academics at Oxford wouldn't be so gripping, but the author R.F. Kuang paints an incredible picture. The b…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-14-babel-an-arcane-history
This is an impressive book, 4.5 out of 5 stars from me. One would think a book about academics at Oxford wouldn't be so gripping, but the author R.F. Kuang paints an incredible picture. The b…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-05-14-babel-an-arcane-history
'Outlive' by Peter Attia
I thought this was a pretty good book about getting and staying healthy. Perhaps this is confirmation bias since I've been trying to follow these guidelines for approximately half my life. Back when I was 23 my mom died sudd…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-09-06-outlive
I thought this was a pretty good book about getting and staying healthy. Perhaps this is confirmation bias since I've been trying to follow these guidelines for approximately half my life. Back when I was 23 my mom died sudd…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-09-06-outlive
September 4, 2024 at 10:00 PM
'Outlive' by Peter Attia
I thought this was a pretty good book about getting and staying healthy. Perhaps this is confirmation bias since I've been trying to follow these guidelines for approximately half my life. Back when I was 23 my mom died sudd…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-09-06-outlive
I thought this was a pretty good book about getting and staying healthy. Perhaps this is confirmation bias since I've been trying to follow these guidelines for approximately half my life. Back when I was 23 my mom died sudd…
https://bookrecs.org//posts/2023-09-06-outlive