Everything wrong with developer tools in a single paragraph
I’m working on making a Dagger module for Wrangler, a CLI from Cloudflare that allows you to manage worker projects.
In their docs it feels like they summarize everything wrong with modern dev tools in a single paragraph:
To install Wrangler ↗, ensure you have Node.js ↗ and npm ↗ installed, preferably using a Node version manager like Volta ↗ or nvm ↗. Using a version manager helps avoid permission issues and allows you to change Node.js versions. Wrangler requires a Node version of 16.17.0 or later.
- Telling me to go install a bunch of external software before I can install your thing
- Giving me 4 different links to install 4 different pieces of software on my machine almost guaranteeing that its going to be different for my colleagues and in CI
- Giving me too many decisions. Do I need all of this software? What if I don’t want to use a version manager? Which one should I pick? This turns a simple README into 4 side quests.
- Why do I need to install software to manage versions at all? Why can’t the CLI just accept a parameter?
I don’t mean to pick on Cloudflare, we’ve all been doing this to ourselves for decades. Stuff like this makes me feel excited that Dagger is solving this once and for all.
In other news, this blog is now hosted on Cloudflare Pages and is being deployed using my Wrangler for Dagger module. 🤓
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
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Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
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- The default person from https://popagandhi.com/
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Articles from blogs I follow around the net
“This way, the interface does not get in the way.”
Ilya Birman on his blog talks about interfaces that unnecessarily slow people down, in a series of two posts. In the first one, titled “Let me click,” Birman shows a few places that force the user to go through a roundabout series of clicks, instead of tak...
via Unsung August 24, 2026Anger, Anxiety and Agency
Sean Goedecke wrote a post arguing that you should never be angry at work — a post with which I strongly agree. Anger can be a useful signal, but being angry at work rarely improves the situation. More often, it makes life worse for the people around you,...
via Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings August 24, 2026Advice to Young Developers
Someone recently asked me what advice I’d give to a young developer today. My answer had surprisingly little to do with code. Here’s what I’d focus on: Learn How to Build Products Even if LLMs write most of the code, there is still a need for problem solve...
via Matthias Endler August 24, 2026Generated by openring