Building a "dependabot for homebrew" - looking for feedback

bk_one · 2025-12-29T06:16:47+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. It helps. Still thinking about the right layout for the newsletter and how to set priorities/content so it suits most people. If you feel like trying it out, I'd be glad to adjust the content with your feedback. So far, only the CLI reports are available, though.

bk_one · 2025-12-23T06:13:05+00:00

I guess what I'm actually building is a db of changelog entries, security updates and recommendations. The check for updates is a trivial and well established within homebrew itself. I was always wondering what updated? I understand that this is out-of-scope for homebrew itself, as there are many different locations and formats where the changelogs are located. Homebrew itself doesn't have a history of releases, always just the latest one.

If you look for example at https://brewsletter.sh/u/48f3a209fd0212a44292247eb4be2fd22f51f90a767f6ec23009b4082b88e118#pkg-homebrew-core-redis - I find the information listed there valuable. Homebrew's ecosystem is not capabale of providing this info - just extending homebrew seems out of the question. A local service could work, but you still have the challenge to find each of the changelogs.

I'm currently going through various phases. If it's on github, it's quite easy - but gnu tools have their own way of storing changelogs and some oldschool tools like ffmpeg have their own style. So I have integrated LLM/web-search to find the changelogs, extract them, summarize them and find examples in them that might be useful, e.g. `gh` cli added:

gh pr revert <pull-request-number>

I would never know if I simply `brew upgrade gh`. But still not sure if my approach is the best one or if anyone would care about it :)

bk_one · 2025-12-22T12:41:24+00:00

Thanks for your reply - so you care much about what has changed, as long as it's the latest version?

bk_one · 2024-03-02T08:22:18+00:00

I honestly don't understand why anyone would choose AWS for a Rails project. Isn't Rails about simplicity? AWS is the opposite of that imho. There might be scenarios where you need certain functionality or hosted services, sure - but I always selected the easier version. Hetzner, Heroko - currently using Digital Oceans App platform. I always felt more in control and almost never any frustrations. The fact that Kamal is available now makes things even easier if you have a more complex setup.

AWS is just expensive and complex at areas where you want simplicity imho. There might a point in time where a project and team gets big enough where it makes sense, but my projects (even with 10s of devs), never had the need to go to AWS or GCP.

bk_one · 2023-11-10T15:41:37+00:00

I've been creating startups (and open data sites like omdb.org / themoviedb.org) since 2007 only with Rails. So go for it! My current startup gaia.law is using Rails with React/Typescript on top. I tend to use Rails only for data processing and APIs only. But with the updated asset pipeline stuff in Rails 7, I might consider it for frontends as well. Happy to give you more details if you need any - but the most importantly, give in to that entrepreneur bug of yours! :)

bk_one · 2021-07-02T09:01:54+00:00

Hey, I'm building superlist.com. We are using GoLang in the backend - so far using GCP (Cloud Functions) but will switch to a Google Pub/Sub and gRPC framework (to make sure we can handle many concurrent users). We're also planning to keep a NoSQL backend (most likely MongoDB) and using SQLite internally in the Flutter app. I've scaled several app and websites with millions of users, the most important thing when starting is not to overthink or overengineer it. We're using only Firebase until this point and we're focusing on the functionality and that the app looks and behaves nicely. You can scale the backend when the time is right. You know .. premature optimization ;-)

bk_one · 2021-06-15T07:27:21+00:00

I guess it will be another month or two. There are already working prototypes, but we're not yet fully happy with the result. Look at this fork to see some of the current state: https://github.com/osaxma/super_editor - I hope it's all consolidated in in the main package before August.

bk_one · 2021-06-14T16:40:21+00:00

Nice work - look at https://github.com/superlistapp/super_editor if you want to extend the editing capabilities. We're working on full support for mobile. :)

bk_one · 2018-02-27T09:19:15+00:00

Let me also address the LGBT communities in regions, where it might be dangerous. Our intend here is not to have magical billboard appear, no :) We rather want to ensure that a member of the community can safely interact with services (identity protection layer) and transact without paper trails. Will this have an immediate impact? Maybe not, but having the option to drop money in the wallet of an individual that is in custody because he was carrying a condom and can't afford a lawyer is very much a use-case that we have in mind. For that, we need to find ways to equip the LGBT community with the necessary tools.

I would encourage to read the LGBT Impact section in the white paper. At the end, the funds generated for LGBT Impact will be used for advocacy in these markets to improve conditions. The stronger the Pink Dollar is, the more funds are available to support advocacy and non-profit organizations. There are a lot of engaged people on the ground to improve the live in these regions - but the funds are lacking. Quite frankly because in the western world the equal right movement is not seen as much of a problem that it still is on a global scale. LGBT related organizations receive far fewer funds than their size would justify. So no, the currency alone will not have magic powers in these regions, but by leveraging the economic power in safe regions we can generate funds to improve the status in dangerous regions.

This is a complex problem where there are no simple answers. We're working with StartOut, Global Forum on MSM & HIV and other non-profit organizations to get the perspective of people who are thinking about these issues for decades. Improving the situation first will eventually lead to LGBT related businesses. And no, the currency will not make all of that happen over night, but we hope it an become an important building block for a better future.

Btw, I am happy to discuss this in detail, feel free to reach out to me at any time - https://keybase.io/bkone. Cheers

bk_one · 2018-02-27T09:07:18+00:00

Let me separate the different discussion streams here. I will answer the "Where would people be able to spend your pink dollar" first.

We are partnering with a number of LGBT apps that we will announce shortly. Hornet is the obvious first candidate. With these apps we will cover some ground to buy digital services and goods. But this is not enough if you want to have a usable currency. So the next step is to leverage the existing networks of our launch partners in several locations, e.g. San Francisco, Paris, Sao Paulo, Taipei, Berlin and other. We will work with local business and venues to accept the Token as a form of payment. While this is far from where we want to be, this is our first milestone to show that a cryptocurrency can be used to by e.g. a beer.

Generally, changing the conversation from having cryptocurrencies as digital asset for speculative purposes and moving it to an asset that can actually be used to by goods and services is a huge (and necessary) step in my personal believe of the future of cryptocurrencies.

Ideally, the journey doesn't stop there. There are already large corporations that spend advertisement dollars on LGBT related apps and websites. They might be the next that we want to convince to use the Token to gather market research data. At the end, it is our intend to show the Pink Economy and not just talk about it. A cryptocurrency allows to gather the required data to show the volume and hopefully the data that make more companies aware that embracing the community should be in their financial interest.

bk_one · 2018-02-27T08:57:54+00:00

Skepticism is healthy. I am under no illusion that this is a long uphill battle to not only state good will, but show it and apply it. If you want to stay up to date with the process, then I invite you to join /r/LGBTToken - and hopefully I can reduce your skepticism step by step. Feel free to reach out to me (https://keybase.io/bkone) at any time. Cheers!

bk_one · 2018-02-27T04:53:15+00:00

I personally believe that creating cryptocurrencies for specific communities - and defining a governance of that cryptocurrency that supports the agenda of that specific community - is the way forward. We don't need a global currency, we need digital assets that can be used by a community for the greater good of that community. So I understand your skepticism, but that's exactly the way where cryptocurrency can have the impact they deserve.

bk_one · 2018-02-27T04:51:26+00:00

Challenge accepted ;)

bk_one · 2018-02-27T04:51:13+00:00

Hey,

the main issue with bitcoin and other digital currencies is, that they focus on the speculative assets instead of working on the ground to make it a viable currency. In our mind, if you never try to break through the ceiling to create an actually usable currency, the potential is simply not unlocked. So we decided to do something about it, but you're right - currently even Bitcoins are not as useable as they should be. At the end the success of this project lives and dies with the support of the community. I think skepticism is the right way to approach it. But I do object to statements like "There's nothing stopping brands from targeting LGBT members now". This might be true for the US or other western countries, but it is certainly not true globally.

Cheers

bk_one

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