Mitchell Hashimoto
Infrastructure & developer tools
HashiCorp co-founder, creator of Vagrant, Terraform, Consul. Working on Ghostty terminal.
Recent activity
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SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) is a technique that allows CPUs to operate on multiple values in parallel, resulting in speedups for large datasets. By understanding the common shape of SIMD code, which involves five steps: broadcasting constants, looping over input in vector-width chunks, performing operations in parallel, reducing or storing results, and handling scalar tails, developers can easily write SIMD code that is nearly as natural as scalar loops. With the right language support, SIMD can be a simple and effective optimization technique for many everyday programming tasks. AI summary
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Mitchell Hashimoto has pledged an additional $400,000 to the Zig Software Foundation, bringing his total support to $700,000, in recognition of the project's steady progress and commitment to quality and community. Hashimoto respects the project's approach to maintainership and community, despite not fully aligning with his own opinions on AI contributions. His continued support reflects his admiration for Zig's ambition, practicality, and commitment to quality. AI summary
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Ghostty, a project led by Mitchell Hashimoto, is leaving GitHub due to the platform's frequent outages and inability to meet the needs of its users, causing significant disruptions to work and productivity. Hashimoto has been a vocal critic of GitHub's performance, citing personal and professional frustrations with the platform. The Ghostty project will transition to a new infrastructure in the coming months. AI summary
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simdutf, a C++ library, can now be used without libc++ or libc++abi, providing greater portability and flexibility for users. This change allows simdutf to be used in embedded, WebAssembly, and freestanding environments, simplifying cross-compilation and reducing binary size. The library's dependencies were reworked to provide its own implementations of C++ standard library types, enabling users to use simdutf without relying on libc++. AI summary
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The "building block" economy in software development involves creating modular, high-quality components that can be easily assembled by others, leading to faster development and deployment of applications. This approach has enabled the creation of large ecosystems and massive adoption, as seen in the growth of Ghostty and other "building block" technologies. By focusing on building blocks rather than high-quality mainline applications, developers can create more stable and purposeful software with a lower quality bar. AI summary
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Adopting AI tools requires a three-phase process: initial inefficiency, adequacy, and workflow optimization. The first phase involves trying to perform meaningful work via chatbots, which are limited in utility for coding tasks, and correcting them involves human intervention, leading to inefficiency. The second phase involves reproducing manual work with agents, which can lead to significant efficiency gains and a deeper understanding of AI capabilities. The third phase involves using end-of-day agents to make positive progress during non-working hours, optimizing workflow and achieving life-altering discovery. AI summary
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Here's a summary of the article for a developer/AI-ML audience: Zig's errdefer feature allows code to be executed when an error occurs, but testing this code is challenging due to the infrequent execution of error paths. A library called Tripwire has been developed to inject failures into Zig programs for testing error handling, allowing developers to test errdefer statements in a controlled environment with zero runtime cost. Tripwire injects failures at specific points in the code, enabling developers to test error cleanup and resource management. AI summary
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Ghostty's largest memory leak was caused by a logic bug in the terminal memory management, specifically in the scrollback optimization, where metadata was reset to standard size but the underlying memory allocation remained unchanged, leading to leaked non-standard pages. The fix involves destroying non-standard pages properly during scrollback pruning, ensuring they are not reused. AI summary
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Ghostty, a project focused on improving terminal and terminal-related technologies, has transitioned to a non-profit structure, with fiscal sponsorship by Hack Club, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit. This move aims to ensure the project's long-term sustainability and public benefit, while also providing a model for sustainable development and important legal protections. The non-profit structure will allow Ghostty to accept tax-deductible donations and ensure that all funds are directed towards the project's goals and community. AI summary
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Mitchell Hashimoto used AI to prototype a custom macOS update notification feature that shows update status within the terminal window without interrupting work. He first asked the AI to plan the UI, resulting in a directionally good but imperfect design, and then iterated on the plan to refine the UI. Hashimoto's process involved using AI for inspiration, reviewing and refining AI-generated code, and stepping back to educate himself when the AI produced a critical bug. AI summary
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The Zig compiler has achieved significant improvements in build times, with incremental compilation still not fully implemented. Measured build times for the Ghostty project show a 2-4 second reduction in overall build time, with incremental rebuilds of the executable and library taking 12-16 seconds and 975ms, respectively. These improvements are a result of the team's efforts to optimize the compiler, including writing their own code generation backends and improving parallelization. AI summary
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