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Colin Percival

What Colin Percival thinks about design

@colin-percival · 8 positions · On ppll ↗

FreeBSD developer and former FreeBSD Security Officer; founder of the Tarsnap online backup service and author of the scrypt key derivation function.

Colin Percival did not write this page.

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Only Colin Percival on design. See everyone on design

3 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Colin Percival has said — not written or endorsed by them.

3 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingFreeBSD works well as a desktop operating system when paired with a graphical user interface.

    Their wordsMost people think of FreeBSD as being a server OS which is used only via the command line, but as anyone who has attended a BSD conference can attest, it works just fine with a GUI too.

    ↗Launching FreeBSD/EC2 desktop AMIsdaemonology.net

  2. 5 months earlier

  3. Our readingEventually Known Consistency is a better theoretical model for distributed systems than plain eventual consistency, even though it's harder to reason about.

    Their wordsbut I still think the model of Eventually Known Consistency is the better theoretical model even if it is harder for users to reason about.

    ↗20 Years on AWS and Never Not My Jobdaemonology.net 2nd of 3 in this piece

  5. Our readingExceptions are an inherently poor way of handling errors because they make bugs harder to spot on casual code inspection.

    Their wordsexceptions are an inherently poor way of handling errors because they make it easier to write bugs which won't be immediately obvious on casual code inspection

    ↗20 Years on AWS and Never Not My Jobdaemonology.net 3rd of 3 in this piece