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wprl

152 karma · joined October 28, 2012

I am passionate about delivering scalable, efficient, well tested software with an eye toward painless DX and automated CI/CD. A life long learner and self starter, I approach new challenges with humility and am always eager to learn new skills, share my knowledge, and collaborate with others. 19 years professional software development ⋄ 33 years personal passion for building software
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wprl··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)

  Location: UTC−06:00 = US Central Time Zone = Columbia, MO, United States
  Remote: Preferred
  Willing to relocate: no
  Technologies: Python, Node.js, AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes, and many, many more
  Résumé/CV:  Available on request
  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/willprl
  Email: william@kun.io
  Work authorization: US Citizen
Seasoned programmer with 12+ years experience building, integrating, testing, and operating software for the enterprise, start ups, and open source projects.

I'm here to deliver a stable, maintainable, and high-performance implementation of your vision, whether we're talking greenfield, new features, or taming failure modes. Currently focused on remote, heads-down contract work.

wprl··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2026)

  Location: UTC−06:00 = US Central Time Zone = Columbia, MO, United States
  Remote: Preferred
  Technologies: Python, Node.js, AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes, and many, many more
  Résumé/CV:  Available on request
  LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/willprl
  Email: william@kun.io
  Work authorization: US Citizen

  Seasoned programmer with 12+ years experience building, integrating, testing, and operating software for the enterprise, start ups, and open source projects.

  I'm here to deliver a stable, maintainable, and high-performance implementation of your vision, whether we're talking greenfield, new features, or taming failure modes.  Currently focused on remote, heads-down contract work.
wprl··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2024)

  Location: United States
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: Node.js, TypeScript, AWS, Linux, and many more
  Résumé/CV: https://kun.io/wprl-resume.pdf
  Email: guider.clam-0s@icloud.com
I am an experienced backend engineer with expertise in internal tooling and CI/CD. Preference for open source or nonprofits. Willing to travel but not to relocate.
wprl··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (April 2024)
SEEKING WORK | Accomplished Software Engineer

  Location: Midwest, USA
  Remote: Yes, please
  Willing to relocate: No, but willing to commute within reason
  Technologies: Node.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, AWS, Docker, Podman
  Résumé/CV: https://kun.io/wprl-resume.pdf
  Email: william [at] kun [dot] io
I am passionate about delivering scalable, efficient, well tested software with an eye toward painless DX and automated CI/CD. A life long learner and self starter, I approach new challenges with humility and am always eager to learn new skills, share my knowledge, and collaborate with others. 19 years professional software development ⋄ 33 years personal passion for building software
wprl··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2024)

  Location: Midwest, USA
  Remote: Yes, please
  Willing to relocate: No, but willing to commute within reason
  Technologies: Node.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, AWS, Docker, Podman
  Résumé/CV: https://kun.io/wprl-resume.pdf
  Email: william [at] kun [dot] io
I am passionate about delivering scalable, efficient, well tested software with an eye toward painless DX and automated CI/CD. A life long learner and self starter, I approach new challenges with humility and am always eager to learn new skills, share my knowledge, and collaborate with others. 19 years professional software development ⋄ 33 years personal passion for building software
wprl··on Fedora considers “privacy-preserving” telemetry
You may have answered your own question. Perhaps centralization is the point as we move closer to the “extinguish” phase of open source as we have known it.
wprl··on A guidance language for controlling LLMs
The hubris of mutating spiritual texts as a marketing gimmick is contemptible.
wprl··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2023)
Hi, I’m William Riley-Land.

Senior Software Engineer (Individual Contributor)

Node.js, TypeScript/JavaScript, AWS

Location: Columbia, MO, United States

Remote: only

Relocate: no

Résumé: available on request

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/willprl

Email:william@kun.io

wprl··on Tech’s hottest new job: Prompt engineer
Maybe “generic and meaningless” is a better descriptor.
wprl··on GPT Spiritual Avisor
This is gross.
wprl··on Professor writes history essays with ChatGPT and has students correct them
I can’t tell if people just don’t understand how ChatGPT works or if there is another reason they are eager to dehumanize themselves and the rest of us along with them.
wprl··on Unpacking the Benefits of Zero Trust Architecture as Defined by NIST
Thanks. I learned something. Even if passwords are a weak form of security, they add an extra Ayer that would make it much more difficult for an attacker. They don’t have to be the only layer of security, and would still be good as an extra layer on top of hardware keys and/or OS keychains. Very interesting.
wprl··on Food coloring, anti-caking nanoparticles may affect human gut
Who would have thought? Eating sand is bad for you…
wprl··on Go claims telemetry objectors arguing in bad faith and violating Code of Conduct
I had been about to devote some time to learning Go, but definitely won’t be after these latest developments.
wprl··on Is this poison ivy?
This video about how to wash off poison ivy changed my life. The key is that urushiol acts a lot like invisible motor oil in terms of how it sticks to your skin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oyoDRHpQK0
wprl··on Is this poison ivy?
"Hairy rope, don't be a dope"
wprl··on Berkeley Mono Ligatures Release
You can add the Fira ligatures to any font with Ligaturizer. Personally I use it with CMU Typewriter.

[1]: https://github.com/ToxicFrog/Ligaturizer

wprl··on ChatGPT and the Enshittening of Knowledge
> AI can experience the same rabbit-hole effect as your idiot cousin who has watched too many of the algorithmically suggested videos on Youtube and now believes that aliens conspired with a time travelling Elvis to kill Hitler using a bullet made of Yeti teeth. And they only went online looking for TellyTubbies videos.

LOL Thank you, I needed a good laugh!

wprl··on What if AI didn't make you a bad writer, but a better thinker?
When I looked into this a little bit, I found Copilot for Business states they do not record any of the info you send them. Though obviously you are still sending out code to a third party. I could not find any info about their policies for “normal” Copilot which I assume means they are recording all the code sent to it and using our code to further train the model.
wprl··on Ask HN: What is the weirdest or most surreal recent technology you have seen?
I suppose this is nit picking, however that is not in the style of a Psalm.
wprl··on Gptcommit: Never write a commit message again (with the help of GPT-3)
Hey, at least they referenced the (hopefully appropriate) JIRA ticket!
wprl··on Generative AI and The Future of Work
As Chomsky points out, the AIs understand syntax not semantics. Code is all (or almost all) syntax whereas human language has both syntax and meaning. Meaning is not something ChatGPT understands.
wprl··on Stop Building on Corporate-Controlled Languages
I found Dahl’s approach to packages with Deno very interesting. It decouples package management from the runtime’s tool chain. So a package manager isn’t needed. (Instead a proxy can be used as a cache similar to how an artifact registry would work.)
wprl··on Zeno’s paradox
It’s easy. Just try to go twice as far, then you’ll be there after the first iteration.

Or keep halving until you reach the Planck length. This length cannot be divided into smaller lengths, so you can just walk the remaining finite distance.

wprl··on ElonJet Is Now Suspended
And preventing the triggered and willful spread of disinformation about our elections and public health is not a safety issue??
wprl··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (December 2022)
SEEKING WORK

Location: Columbia, MO, USA (UTC-6)

Remote: Yes (Remote Only)

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Node.js, TypeScript, AWS, React

Résumé/CV: https://docdro.id/NZms8mA

Email: william@kun.io

wprl··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (December 2022)

  Location: Columbia, MO, USA (UTC-6)
  Remote: Yes (Remote Only)
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: Node.js, TypeScript, AWS, React
  Résumé/CV: https://docdro.id/NZms8mA
  Email: william@kun.io
wprl··on [dead]
Really, coding in JavaScript is hardly worse than most other languages.
wprl··on Fix the versioning
It's really not that hard.

If you have a lot of breaking changes, you probably shouldn't be at 1.x.x. If you need to deprecate something, add the extra features alongside and remove the deprecated features in the next major release. If you need to add something to code that is >= 1.x.x and you think it will need breaking changes, you should mark the feature as experimental in the documentation until it has stabilized. Semver works great for humans and robots if you put a smidgeon of planning and consideration into the process!

wprl··on The World Health Organization calls for the decriminalisation of drug use
The manner in which international drug prohibition began and the manners in which it is sustained are not equivalent. To say public opinion is the most important aspect is reductive.
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