After several years living on "Google's tech island," I developed a massive appetite for mini-applications. Like all architectural choices, decentralizing your tools comes with pros and cons. Let's get the bad news out of the way first.
The Context Switching
To put it simply, for most internal workflows, Google has a standalone tool for everything:
- writing code
- generating diffs
- managing tasks
- planning features
- testing languages (dry runs)
- CI/CD
- managing on-call rotations
- ...and many more.
Each tool sits behind its own web interface, secured by the BeyondCorp proxy.
Naturally, this turns a workflow into a decentralized web of browser tabs. It forces you to mentally juggle tab contexts to get a feature shipped. Some days, my laptop would literally crawl to a halt, forcing me to declare bankruptcy and close every single tab.
The "Do One Thing Well" Philosophy
Despite the tab fatigue, I loved how focused these tools were. There was no clunky "all-in-one" solution trying to do too much.
Whether it was a simple utility or a complex platform, each tool had a clear purpose. They shared a cohesive design language and felt purpose-built for developers. It was the Unix philosophy applied to web apps: do one thing, and do it well.
My Mini-Tool Island
I wanted to bring that same "focused utility" energy to my own site. I've started building a collection of single-purpose apps to help with my daily workflows, supposedly front-end only for now.
You can view the collection at Tools, or try the first one below.
Multi Data Formatter
This tool helps you quickly reformat various data types, such as JSON, into a structured format. It's designed for quick, in-browser transformations without needing external services.
Note: These tools persist your input locally via localStorage. "We" only collect aggregated usage metrics. Regardless, please avoid entering any personally identifiable information (PII).