Posts on Aaron Gabbert

Why MCP finally clicked for me

Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 -0500

It’s not about the API, it’s about the design

Notes from David Gomes’ presentation at Microsoft Build 2025

Obsidian plugin development with Svelte components

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Through various work experiences, I’ve had the benefit of being able to contribute to existing JavaScript/TypeScript projects such as browser extensions. During my Computer Science education, I didn’t get a lot of exposure to web or front end development. In fact, front end work used to scare me too (see: Regular expressions used to scare me). I really saw myself as a back end first developer. However, taking an existing webpage and using plugins and browser APIs to manipulate the DOM helped things click for me.

Regular expressions used to scare me

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0500

It’s hard to remember why, but as a Computer Science student, I was scared of regular expressions. Something about the combination of symbols just made them look ugly and unapproachable to me, I guess. I got the sense that a lot of my peers shared this feeling.

Automating budget spreadsheet entries with iOS Shortcuts

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0500

I keep a budget spreadsheet in Google Sheets to track account balances and money in/out. It doesn’t have anything fancy like an API connection to automatically pull data from my accounts, but hey, it’s free.