About Whiteboard Works

Who's behind this

I've been building for the web for more than a decade: newspapers, schools, and anyone else who walked in with a tangled system and a deadline. Whiteboard Works is what I do on the side, nights and weekends, when a problem won't leave me alone.

Why I build these

I love the moment a messy system clicks into a simple one. Most of the mess in software isn't the hard part. It's the clutter piled on top: the extra tab, the account wall, the speed cap someone decided you didn't need to pass. Every product here started as something that bugged me, a sketch on a whiteboard, and a refusal to ship anything bloated.

Vim What exists because the best way to learn something is to teach it, and I wanted to finally learn Vim. Lexis Arcana grew out of an open-source Latin extension I couldn't stop improving. The rest followed the same pattern: I needed it, so I made it, and then I made it good enough to hand to you.

What I believe

• Good software is quiet. It does the job and gets out of the way.
• Honest beats clever. Clear verdicts, plain language, and a why every time.
• No dark patterns. No account where none is needed, and no tracking that doesn't earn its keep.
• Give it back. Most of what's here is free, because small useful tools handed to strangers is how I'd like the web to work.

How I work

I'm a systems person. I like wiring things together and finding the one lever that moves everything, and I'd rather understand a problem completely than patch it quickly. Ask me a question and I'll probably ask three back. Then I'll build it, use it myself for a while, and only ship it when it's actually useful.

Off the clock

Stoic philosophy, too many books, and games built with my wife, a digital artist who makes everything I make look better than it deserves. I write about some of that at skylarbolton.com.

Find me