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Rosin

2026-02-23

I’m proud to announce that today, after working on it for several years, I published the first public version of Rosin, my GUI library.

It’s currently 22,000 lines of code, which is a pretty substantial project. Though perhaps if I were a better programmer, I could have done it with fewer. Lines of code in a software project is a bit like the weight of an airplane, more isn’t always better. But I think I’ve spent those lines rather well.

I’m very happy with how everything is going, but I’m also painfully aware of the fact that two weeks ago I said that I was about a week from publishing. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a huge deal, but I’d like to give better estimates going forward.

I think estimating how long a project will take is a skill, and like any skill it can be improved with deliberate practice and feedback. At the end of the day, the work is going to take as long as it’s going to take, but it’s still something I’m thinking about.

One reason this last bit took longer than expected might be that I was simply devoting fewer hours to the project each day than I had been in January. I’ve been taking proper meal breaks, going to the gym, sleeping at reasonable hours, etc. and so even though I was still working hard, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I wasn’t able to keep up with the all-out sprint from before.

I’ve also spent more time answering emails, replying to comments, and making phone calls than I was before (which is none). I think that should slow down a bit now that we’re post launch, but I definitely didn’t account for that in my original estimate either.