https://kevinpanko.xyz/Kevin Panko's personal web site. 2026-05-31T21:54:45-04:00 Kevin Panko https://kevinpanko.xyz/ Jekyll © 2026 Kevin Panko /assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png 2026-05-31T21:46:00-04:00 2026-05-31T21:46:00-04:00 https://kevinpanko.xyz/posts/the-day-fortran-made-sense/ Kevin Panko

I used to work in physical simulation of jet engines on supercomputers. Fortran was one of the languages of choice due to being very efficient while still being usable by the physics and math people. I always wondered why Fortran was a little loose with its syntax around spaces. Most languages let you use any amount of whitespace between tokens, so x = 1 and x=1 are the same thing. But...

2026-01-18T14:53:00-05:00 2026-01-18T14:53:00-05:00 https://kevinpanko.xyz/posts/stop-reaching-for-rm-rf/ Kevin Panko

If your muscle memory for deleting a directory is rm -rf, you’re doing what most Unix users do—and you’re taking on risk you don’t need. -f doesn’t mean “force, but safely.” It means disable the guardrails. (See the official documentation: rm(1)) It suppresses prompts, ignores permissions, and hides information that would otherwise tell you you’re about to do something dumb. A safer default...

2026-01-13T21:37:00-05:00 2026-01-13T21:37:00-05:00 https://kevinpanko.xyz/posts/leetcode-is-not-engineering/ Kevin Panko

LeetCode Is a Filter — Just Not for What You Think There’s a belief in the software industry that a strong LeetCode profile means something important. It doesn’t. Or more precisely: it means something, just not the thing people think it means — and not the thing you want if you’re trying to hire good engineers. This isn’t a beginner’s take. This is the perspective you arrive at after you’ve...

2026-01-08T21:09:00-05:00 2026-01-08T21:09:00-05:00 https://kevinpanko.xyz/posts/the-january-contract-freeze/ Kevin Panko

Every January, I watch large organizations hit themselves in the face with the same rake. Everyone knows the work is coming. The teams are staffed. The roadmaps exist. I’ve already sat in the meetings where people talk confidently about what we’ll build this year. And then January arrives—and suddenly, no one is allowed to work. Contractors are benched. People are told to burn PTO. Middle man...

2025-05-31T21:46:00-04:00 2025-06-01T19:53:24-04:00 https://kevinpanko.xyz/posts/almost-found-a-github-security-hole/ Kevin Panko

Recently, I was working through a class on github and almost found a way to break the security protocols and write to a repo that belongs to someone else. In the course, the instructor shows people how to fork his repository and then shows what it looks like when he deletes a file from it. The thing is, I do not own that repo so I am not allowed to do that myself. I wanted the full experience...