Blog System/5

Autoconf’s revenge: ad-hoc shell templates

How to leverage an old dirty trick in your Bazel wrapper for great effect

Jul 8 • Julio Merino

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June 2026

Is anyone still using Emacs?

Self-answering the question posed in a recent Hacker News discussion

Jun 20 • Julio Merino

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May 2026

A Markdown-based test suite

The background behind a new test suite for a compiler and a VM where test scenarios are all written in Markdown for both human and AI consumption

May 17 • Julio Merino

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What if there was no BASIC in EndBASIC?

An overview of the cool technical building blocks behind EndBASIC and what they could turn into if they evolved on their own

May 8 • Julio Merino

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March 2026

I think AI is pushing me toward the AGPL

Why agentic coding changes everything for the open-source craft and maintainership

Mar 17 • Julio Merino

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Reflections on vibecoding ticket.el

It has now been a month since I started playing with Claude Code “for real” and by now I’ve mostly switched to Codex CLI: it is much snappier—who would…

Mar 6 • Julio Merino

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February 2026

Grumpy Julio plays with CLI coding agents

Or the more tired “One week with Claude Code”-type article

Feb 9 • Julio Merino

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December 2025

ssh-agent broken in tmux? I've got you!

A re-introduction of the ssh-agent-switcher tool and its recent changes

Dec 26, 2025 • Julio Merino

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From Azure Functions to FreeBSD

Putting FreeBSD’s “power to serve” motto to the test

Dec 7, 2025 • Julio Merino

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November 2025

BazelCon 2025 recap

It has been just over two years since I started Blog System/5, and that means it’s time for the now-usual(?) BazelCon 2025 trip report!

Nov 24, 2025 • Julio Merino

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September 2025

You are holding BUILD files wrong

BUILD files are the best tool to represent software architecture; let's see why

Sep 26, 2025 • Julio Merino

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Bazel and glibc versions

Analyzing how glibc and action non-determinism can lead to surprising failures

Sep 19, 2025 • Julio Merino

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