MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by cmrdporcupine | 2025-06-03 01:30:13+00:00
Likewise in high school in the 1900s I took typing, which did markedly improve my typing though I am sure I didn't keep up with the technique I learned. We also learned all the standard letter formats and so on which I promptly forgot.

I measured myself the other day and I can do about 110-115 WPM, which I think is pretty impressive for a 50 year old who last took typing classes at 15.
by Animats | 2025-06-03 01:30:30+00:00
Here are two routine problems I have to solve at the moment. Can any of the current LLM systems do either?

1. Input is an 256x256 pixel elevation map stored as a greyscale .png file, and a minimum and maximum elevation. A pixel value of 0 corresponds to the minimum elevation, and a pixel value of 255 corresponds to the maximum elevation. Read in the .png file and the elevation limits. Then construct a 256x256 floating point array of heights. From that array, construct a triangle mesh with X and Y dimensions 0..255. Perform a mesh reduction operation on the triangle mesh to reduce the number of triangles. Mesh reduction must not generate holes in the mesh. From the reduced mesh, generate a glTF file where the UV parameters run from 0.0 to 1.0 along the X and Y axes.

2. Given four glTF files constructed as above, corresponding to four quadrants of a larger square, construct a single 511x511 mesh which combines all four input meshes to cover a larger area. Because the input meshes are 0..255, not 0..256, there will be gaps where the four quadrants meet. Fill those gaps with reasonable triangles. Perform a mesh reduction as above. From the reduced mesh, generate a glTF file where the UV parameters run from 0.0 to 1.0 along the X and Y axes.

Rust code is preferred; Python code is acceptable.

So, what service should I sign up for?
by Spivak | 2025-06-03 01:30:52+00:00
A good oscilloscope is stupid expensive but is also amazing for this type of work. I count myself lucky I have a friend who's an electrical engineer and I can borrow his work one. It makes everything so much easier.

I'm sure for someone experienced the benefit is marginal but having a bunch of probes and being able to see the waveform feels like cheating for an amateur like me.
by zdragnar | 2025-06-03 01:31:10+00:00
Doesn't it? Many compilers offer all sorts of novel optimizations for operations that end up producing the same result with entirely different runtime characteristics than the source code would imply. Going further, turn on gcc fast math and your code with no undefined behavior suddenly has undefined behavior.

I'm not much of a user of LLMs for generating code myself, but this particular analogy isn't a great fit. The one redeeming quality is that compiler output is deterministic or at least repeatable, whereas LLMs have some randomness thrown in intentionally.

With that said, both can give you unexpected behavior, just in different ways.
by JKCalhoun | 2025-06-03 01:32:28+00:00
Agree. We'll get a new breed of programmer — not shitty ones — just different. And I am quite sure, at some point in their career, they'll drop down to some lower level and try to do things manually.... Or step through the code and figure out a clever way to tighten it up....

Or if I'm wrong about the last bit, maybe it never was important.
by JimDabell | 2025-06-03 01:32:32+00:00
> Surely if these tools were so magical

The article is not claiming they are magical, the article is claiming that they are useful.

> > but it’ll never be AGI

> I don’t give a shit.

> Smart practitioners get wound up by the AI/VC hype cycle. I can’t blame them. But it’s not an argument. Things either work or they don’t, no matter what Jensen Huang has to say about it.
by rascul | 2025-06-03 01:32:51+00:00
My hands float around and don't really have any rules except left hand for left side and right hand for right side, where the sides are loosely defined. Some keys I may hit with one finger just to hit it with a different finger on the other hand the next word. I don't really know how I do it, I guess it's all about using whatever finger is closest and my hands float around so that the closest finger isn't always the same. I don't need the ridges on the keys, if I can find the space bar I can find every key. I also rarely use my right pinky finger except to hit Enter, it's usually too slow for anything else. I learned to type playing PK MUD games and I was up to 130-140 WPM. Nowadays I don't play MUD games very much and I'm usually around 110 WPM when I check. Also, I need a specific layout or else I'll miss a lot. Laptops don't generally have the layout I need and I'm very bad on them.
by simonw | 2025-06-03 01:33:10+00:00
I stand by both things I said. I've found that dumping large volumes of code I to the Gemini 2.5 models works extremely well. They also score very highly on the various needle in a haystack benchmarks.

This wasn't true of the earlier Gemini large context models.

And for DRY: sure, maybe it's not quite as easy as "do DRY". My longer answer is that these things are always a conversation: if it outputs code that you don't like, reply and tell it how to fix it.
by hamelcubsfan | 2025-06-03 01:33:49+00:00
Recruiter from Waymo here. We’re hiring all over the place to make these cars drive without needing to strike up small talk with a human.

Mostly in person (MTV, SEA, NYC…a few other spots). Remote isn’t likely, but…we do have remote employees.

https://careers.withwaymo.com/

Happy to help route to the right person internally for the role
by CommenterPerson | 2025-06-03 01:35:28+00:00
Robotics is a large multidisciplinary area, comprising of parts of ME, EE, and CS fields. Before you go down a particular path, it may be good to step back, and note down things which you actually enjoy doing, and how they might relate to one or more of these fields. After all the drama wears off and you are up late working on something .. it's important to enjoy what you are doing. Not just trying to catch some hype about the next big thing or the tech giants or AI or whatever (or something your friends or parents told you).

The top comment refers to a course around a small mobile robot. Maybe you could go through this, and try to build a bicycle which would balance itself and drive a 100 yards in an empty, safe parking lot. That will certainly involve ME, EE, and CS! Who knows where that might lead?
by GeorgeTirebiter | 2025-06-03 01:35:34+00:00
Great, you know what you want to make. Go ahead, and do it. Look at projects previous folks have done, see how then can be adapted for your need. If you are interested in getting this One Amazing Thing working, great! You have the motivation and cranking through what you'll need to lean to succeed will be possible.

IF, on the other hand, you want to make 1e6 of these things ("tech giants seems to capture most of the conversation")-- that a completely different story. You're going to need a skilled team, ideally one that has been to a rodeo before. I can't help you there.

But if you're building one, for fun --- Just DO It. Ask friendly robotics club members when you get stuck. IF your problem is particularly and singularly unique, then whatever domain that entails, you will need to master; that's your Secret Sauce.

Ivan Sutherland, who was Thesis Advisor to CMU's first Robotics Institute PhD said something to the effect that after 4 years of a Robotics PhD program, you end up with the ability to solder and attach connectors with a high degree of confidence.

A True Roboticists requires deep knowledge in mathematics, software engineering, mechanical engineering, manufacturing small lots, reliability engineering, materials engineering, data collection & graphical evaluation methodologies..... What one might call a Systems Engineer's handbag. It also helps to be inspired by the wonders of nature that biology affords us.

The details? eh, they change. Whether you used some hot cpu, some hot language, some hot OS --- Marc Raibert's hopping & jumping robots used C and BSD4.3 Unix, with the kernel locks cleaned up (reduced) so a 1 kHz kernel interrupt stream could be supported on a 1 MIPS machine (Vax 780). Timesharing was never stopped, but the kernel did get quite a large percentage of CPU cycles.

I'll repeat: Just do it. Start. Move forward. The project will teach you the questions you must ask.
by ejhiggins1 | 2025-06-03 01:35:44+00:00
Cambly.com | San Francisco, Ca, USA | Hybrid/Onsite | Full Time https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Cambly?utm_source=wnopvxR0o8

About Cambly: We are a mission-driven company transforming English learning through the power of conversation. See how we help people here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCWju3zEPoo

We are hiring: Sr Android Engineer, Sr Product Designer

Life @ Cambly includes:

* Hybrid First Company (M, T, Th) * In-office Lunches * 100% of Medical, Dental, and Vision paid along with matching 401k * End-of-year shutdown * Helping others around the world unlock economic opportunities by learning English
by shoo | 2025-06-03 01:36:18+00:00
Mike Dodds' article "What Works (and Doesn't) Selling Formal Methods" offers some insight - two points were: (i) many potential applications of formal methods in business do not result in an attractive cost-benefit outcome, relative to mainstream software development approaches, especially in being able to produce enough benefit for a small input of time / resources. (ii) anecdote: one business that needs to produce software that complies with certain validation/quality targets - say achieved with a baseline method using a lot of manual QA and without formal methods - does not get a business benefit to investing in increased validation, they just need enough enough validation to clear the compliance bar or rank slightly ahead of the competition. if formal methods could assist them in achieving the same level of validation to meet their compliance obligations with less cost than their baseline development and QA processes then they might have much more appetite to invest in formal methods.

https://www.galois.com/articles/what-works-and-doesnt-sellin...

corresponding HN thread from earlier this week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44131324
by ty6853 | 2025-06-03 01:36:24+00:00
>I have no idea how bird hunting is handled but I bet it simply fails a logic test and shouldn't be allowed for the exact same reasons.

Bird hunting is handled with #8+ bird shot, which at 45+ degree angle it is essentially at terminal velocity by the time it comes down, considering they are basically BBs it is mildly unsafe coming down (as in you'd have to be incredibly unlucky) anywhere within maybe a couple hundred yards at worst and essentially completely safe beyond that.
by allears | 2025-06-03 01:36:46+00:00
Yeah, not my brand of meditation. It's organic, gluten-free, and non-GMO. We've got endorsements from Gwyneth Paltrow and Deepak Chopra, and we're FCC certified and UL approved. Come on baby light my fire!

Well OK that was a joke, but then so is this article. People have been meditating for literally thousands of years (well sometimes they take a break), and finally, finally, the truth can be told, based on modern medical science? Give me a break
by NotAnOtter | 2025-06-03 01:37:34+00:00
I'm not saying that is a typical workflow. I'm saying A ~= B, and B ~= C.

A - normal, conventional senior dev work flow

B - A non-traditional but plausible senior dev workflow

C - Senior dev with LLM

I'm not claiming A = B = C, just that the step from one to another is relatively small when compared to something like a linter or other tool that accelerates development in some way.

> Which completely fails to address the point I am making.

If an LLM can do 20% more things than a junior dev can but also cannot do a different 20% of things a junior dev can, then the LLM is similar the a junior. And when comparing two juniors within a given field, it's entirely likely the above logic could apply. E.g. one junior may not be able to write SQL queries while the other does not understand the DOM. An LLM on the other hand is "kinda ok" at everything, but cannot engage in 'real' conversations about system architecture or reason through user experiences reliably. So it can do 20% more, and also 20% less. Just as a junior dev.

No one is claiming A = C, so don't keep punching the wind. They are claiming A ~= C.
by lixiasky | 2025-06-03 01:37:36+00:00
Thank you for this — I had read Linus' first post before and never imagined my tiny tool would be compared to something with that kind of legacy.

I'm just an undergrad student in China (not even CS major, unfortunately), and this little project was my way of saying thanks — to the schools that stood up bravely.

Really appreciate your kind words. Let’s see what comes next. :)
by joshdata | 2025-06-03 01:37:38+00:00
Totally agree with you that pride is important, but there's definitely more. Being a good engineer is frequently a problem of design --- whether it's user experience or code abstractions. Design is partly art, and that makes us artisans at least some of the time. The code that I've written that has endured the longest --- decades --- has been code that was designed well.
A game about developing emulators [video]
by rodri042 | 2025-06-03 01:39:41+00:00
Hi! I'm developing a game about NES emulation and just finished a trailer for it. It's a free web game where you code emulator parts and the game runs unit and video tests on your code. The plan is to release it as an open-source repo when it's complete, but I'd love to hear some feedback about the trailer.

I also have a FAQ in https://afska.github.io/emudevz/#/homepage-faq
by sanderjd | 2025-06-03 01:40:51+00:00
I'm aware of that analogy, and thought that might be what you were alluding to, but I don't think it's a good analogy.

I agree with you that most professional software developers don't like being entrepreneurs, but I think that has more to do with disliking the parts of entrepreneurship that don't fit into "person who makes software", like fundraising and marketing.

But I think many - maybe most, but not all - professional software engineers actually do enjoy "making software", generally, and not just "coding", narrowly.
by mediaman | 2025-06-03 01:40:57+00:00
If an LLM improves coding productivity, and it is better at one language than another, then at the margin it will affect which language you may choose.

At the margin means that both languages, or frameworks or whatever, are reasonably appropriate for the task at hand. If you are writing firmware for a robot, then the LLM will be less helpful, and a language such as Python or JS which the LLM is good at is useless.

But Thomas's point is that arguing that LLMs are not useful for all languages is not the same as saying that are not useful for any language.

If you believe that LLM competencies are not actually becoming drivers in what web frameworks people are using, for example, you need to open your eyes and recognize what is happening instead of what you think should be happening.

(I write this as someone who prefers SvelteJS over React - but LLM's React output is much better. This has become kind of an issue over the last few years.)
by xet7 | 2025-06-03 01:41:02+00:00
It's possible to self-host WeKan kanban https://wekan.github.io and use it like PWA https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki/PWA at Windows, Android, iOS etc, more info at https://wekan.team/app/ , where is my app without Admin access at my server, but with with that PWA wiki page similar is possible.

But WeKan does not rival Notion feature set. For that, maybe AFFiNE https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44165373
by MobiusHorizons | 2025-06-03 01:41:34+00:00
Quite a lot of the good programmers I have worked with may never have needed to write assembly, but are also not at all confused or daunted by it. They are curious about their abstractions, and have a strong grasp of what is going on beneath the curtain even if they don't have to lift it all that often.

Most of the people I work with, however, just understand the framework they are writing and display very little understanding or even curiosity as to what is going on beneath the first layer of abstraction. Typically this leaves them high and dry when debugging errors.

Anecdotally I see a lot more people with a shallow expertise believing the AI hype.
by harpiaharpyja | 2025-06-03 01:41:54+00:00
Probably more than you might think.

As a teen I used to play around with Core Wars, and my high school taught 8086 assembly. I think I got a decent grasp of it, enough to implement quicksort in 8086 while sitting through a very boring class, and test it in the simulator later.

I mean, probably few people ever need to use it for something serious, but that doesn't mean they don't understand it.
by cyral | 2025-06-03 01:42:00+00:00
It's a good post and I strongly agree with the part about level setting. You see the same tired arguments basically every day here and subreddits like /r/ExperiencedDevs. I read a few today and my favorites are:

- It cannot write tests because it doesn't understand intent

- Actually it can write them, but they are "worthless"

- It's just predicting the next token, so it has no way of writing code well

- It tries to guess what code means and will be wrong

- It can't write anything novel because it can only write things it's seen

- It's faster to do all of the above by hand

I'm not sure if it's the issue where they tried copilot with gpt 3.5 or something, but anyone who uses cursor daily knows all of the above is false, I make it do these things every day and it works great. There was another comment I saw here or on reddit about how everyone needs to spend a day with cursor and get good at understanding how prompting + context works. That is a big ask but I think the savings are worth it when you get the hang of it.
by tkgally | 2025-06-03 01:42:07+00:00
Both off and on topic: I got access to Claude’s voice mode today, and for my second test I asked it for its thoughts about both the linked blog post and the HN discussion here. The full transcript is at [1]. Some parts that stood out (slightly edited):

Me: So what is your assessment of the discussion at Hacker News?

Claude: The Hacker News discussion strikes me as much more grounded than the blog post itself. What I find compelling is that many commenters are sharing specific technical experiences rather than making broad ideological arguments. When someone describes spending hours fighting with Claude agents that keep refactoring code into spaghetti, that's concrete data about the current state of these tools. ...

Me: Well, what about you, Claude? You are made by a company whose president has recently made some public statements saying that, you know, 50% of white collar jobs will be replaced soon. And the company, Anthropic, also is very aggressively developing and selling tools to help with AI coding. What are your thoughts about that?

Claude: That's a really fair question to ask me directly. I think there's an obvious tension in my position here since I'm built by a company that has clear financial incentives around AI adoption, including coding tools. When I look at my own capabilities honestly, I can see both sides of this. I'm genuinely useful for certain coding tasks like explaining unfamiliar code, generating boilerplate, or helping debug specific problems. I've helped people learn new programming languages faster than they might have otherwise. But I'm also clearly not at the level where I could replace an experienced software engineer working on complex system design or novel problem solving. ...

[1] https://claude.ai/share/c934e67c-f132-43e8-8c31-ab238b5be25a
by smcin | 2025-06-03 01:42:17+00:00
> Geeks can be fun to teach, because they actually enjoy learning... Non-geeks; not so much.

I think it's nowhere near as simple or binary as that... there's a whole individual(/group) psychology of useful gamification, it's not all dark patterns. I found this out before and during Covid when me and five people I know were trying to gamify our motivation for exercise/weight loss/daily steps/cardio/toning; then 2020 and Covid set fire to the entire field. Exercise/weight loss are obviously different to learning CS, but here's what I learned:

- some people like to set a private individual goal and measure their individual progess towards it, even(/especially) if outsiders can't see what it is ("X has 45% progress toward their weight-loss goal and 56% toward their cardio goal.")

- ...or just directly quote times for e.g. 1 mile run, 4 mile walk etc.

- some people love the social-media/blogging aspect of sharing within a defined group photos or daily diary of their activity. MyFitnessPal's social features

- some people like taking the drudgery or loneliness out of solo exercise, such as listening to audiobooks/podcasts, or apps like 'Zombies, Run!' or 'The Outbreak' which turn your walks into a survival adventure.

- some people like the leaderboard or group dynamic of smack-talk or one-upping their friends (e.g. Stridekick app, but it's $ beyond the free intro period, and it has terrible power consumption)

- some people like setting food/drink reward goals: walk/run/row/ski X miles to earn a beer/burger/donut/etc.

- apps like Strava are for hardcore athletes in a single sport, not suited to the general public, you can't say "This week I want to burn Y,000 calories" then achieve that that multimodally across walking, workout, fitness class, dance, running/cycling, swimming, carrying shopping home etc.

- some people really like a shared goal e.g. "this week our group will walk 25,000 steps"

- some people like the daily nag/reminder/motivator to (configurable) do their walk after lunch, evening workout etc. (smartphone/bracelet/watch knows when you've done them), or not break a streak

- some people like to motivate by donating (or wagering) for a good cause if they do/don't meet your goals/beat their partner

- I forget the name of the app that each week partnered you up with a different stranger and you had to try to beat them (Challenges/Strive/?)

- Fooducate is good for gaming nutrition and shopping, and has freemium add-ons for specific diet/exercise plans

- some people (esp. the smartwatch brigade) like measuring how exercise and diet affect/improve sleep quality

- and so on.
by mikegreenberg | 2025-06-03 01:43:52+00:00
I couldn't agree more. FIRST is an excellent organization to get involved with. Even if you don't have specialities which directly align with the needs of a team, most will not turn you away (especially if you demonstrate passion).

Just a few thoughts about starting a team and/or volunteering:

Starting a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team is not for the feint-of-heart and requires significant time and money investment. This is the sort of endeavor you try when you're either retired or have a group of other dedicated volunteers willing to help you build the team over multiple seasons. If you spend a year or two mentoring/volunteering for a well-established team, you'll get a good sense of what you're getting into. FRC is a bit hardcore.

If no FRC teams exist nearby, FIRST Lego League (FLL) is a good entrypoint, but may not be technical enough for an adult interested in using FIRST to gain exposure to robotics. (It is plenty satisfying to mentor these teams, but Mindstorms can be somewhat limiting.) These are geared toward using Lego Mindstorms for learning robot concepts.

A good middle ground (for exposure to more practical robotics) would be volunteering with a FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) team. It's the middle ground between FLL and FRC and is _doable_ for a single, dedicated, passionate adult to start (though I'd strongly recommend finding another volunteer to pursue this with).

If getting involved with a team is not an option, seek out nearby FIRST events that you can volunteer at. Many competition events need volunteers and you'll get a chance to interact with local teams and find plenty of opportunities to play with robots.