recursion

During the early days of the pandemic, we would often bike over to Stow Lake and check on the wildlife. The Canada Geese were molting, so we grabbed some feathers. I wondered if I could figure out how to make a quill pen and ink.

I later found artist Carly Drew’s excellent guide to making your own quill pen, but at the time I watched this YouTube video:

It seemed simple enough, so I got out my Xacto knife and gave it a shot.

Ink was a bit trickier. Watercolor paint writes really well, but is a little hard to use.

I found a guide to making ink, and tried my hand at making beet ink. It looks very cool, a light purple color, but faded quickly.

Later, I got some real India ink, which was fun to write with. I also tried making a quill pen with a pelican feather, but it was too wide to be useful.

Try it yourself. It’s fun, and if you’re old enough to know how to write cursive, writing with a quill pen helps you understand what the point of that is.

I’ve been working at GitHub for about five years now. From the time I joined, I’ve been working to make search better at GitHub. Honestly, it’s been a struggle. The problem is hard, ownership is diffuse, and priorities change. And sometimes, you just don’t have the right approach. My failure to improve the search experience has been frustrating.

But. Finally, we have the ideas, team, resources, and technology to deliver a world-class, groundbreaking code search experience. I’ve been working on delivering this for the past two years, and it’s ready to show off to the world. My part in this project is far from the most important, but I’m excited to be a part of it. If you use GitHub, I hope you will give it a try. Sign up for our beta and give us your feedback.