Common Thread
A pretext for whimsy
A new DevTool; An explosion of silliness
I procrastinated on this month’s post, hard. But it all paid off, as procrastination tends to do.
If you were on Twitter even for half a second this weekend, you’ve heard of Pretext. It’s a new, performant way to compute text layouts.
The original demo was pretty cool. But what’s really interesting to us Silly Software enthusiasts? The community’s response.
Did you see it? The explosion of silly software?
Someone made a Mario game.
Someone made Pac Man.
There was Tetris.
Someone sent the DVD logo flying across the screen.
There were goldfish.
There were fire-breathing dragons.
There was text that wraps around… you?
There was even talk of meeting up to hack together in person.
And the best part?
Pretext was made in the silliest way possible.
The people yearn for Silly Software.
The people are creating Silly Software.
Welcome to the renaissance.
Common Thread
I couldn’t write this post without sharing the prettiest vibe-coded app I’ve seen in a while: Common Thread, by Charlota.
It’s a super cute concept: you get assigned a piece of a canvas, and you get to digitally embroider it, alongside others, who are also embroidering in real time.
This went viral. Over 6,000 patches were embroidered!
Charlota’s app won $50,000 at the Figma Makeathon. And I’m really glad! This is exactly the kind of whimsy that we need more of on the internet.
She even mentioned selecting patches to have hand-embroidered on real fabric as a physical keepsake. Cute!!!
Come listen to me yap
I’m giving my first-ever conference talk at React Miami.
I’ll be speaking on “Wimsy-Driven Development.” Silly Software enjoyers will be pleased.
See you in Miami?
xoxo, Christina