Ben Balter writes about technology leadership, open source, and modern collaboration at scale. His essays blend engineering mindset with management, community building, remote work, and transparent communication—shaped by years of experience at GitHub and in public-sector tech.
175 articles from this blog
A tutorial on converting proprietary Shapefile geodata to open GeoJSON format for mapping and collaboration on GitHub.
An open letter advising government CIOs to adopt lean, iterative, decentralized, and open development practices for better tech outcomes.
The article critiques the traditional approach to open source, arguing that simply making code public isn't enough without a cultural shift towards open collaboration.
Critique of tech firms that specialize in only one tool or language, arguing for problem-solving over rigid specialization.
Explores how open-source communities drive tech innovation, predicting trends like distributed version control and edge computing.
Explores the true meaning of 'hacker' beyond media stereotypes, focusing on the hacker ethic of sharing, openness, and creative problem-solving.
Introducing JekyllBot, a tool that automatically generates JSON APIs for Jekyll sites hosted on GitHub Pages, bypassing plugin restrictions.
Analyzes how U.S. federal IT security policies, while necessary, can stifle innovation and hinder adoption of modern, agile technologies.
Explores how open source collaboration principles can replace traditional management by enabling transparent, merit-based work across distributed teams.
Argues WordPress must adopt RESTful principles to separate content from presentation, enabling programmatic access for modern web needs.
Critique of using print-centric tools like Microsoft Word for modern web content creation and collaboration, advocating for web-native workflows.
Explores why open source is a philosophy of community and collaboration, not just publishing code.
A guide for government employees on participating in and contributing to open source software projects.
A developer explains migrating from WordPress to Jekyll for a static site, discussing performance, simplicity, and the 'post-CMS' trend.
Analyzes the debate on releasing US government-funded software as open source vs. public domain, focusing on legal nuances and practical barriers.
Argues against personal dashboards in modern web design, citing information overload and user preference for focused, task-specific interfaces.
Argues for writing all software as if it will be open source, promoting modular design and long-term maintainability even for private projects.
A guide for government agencies on publishing public data effectively for developers, focusing on clean data, APIs, and real-time access.
A critique of Microsoft SharePoint as a collaboration tool, arguing for better alternatives and modern approaches to document management.
Explores using WordPress as a central collaboration hub for teams, extending it beyond traditional web publishing.
