MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by pornel | 2025-06-04 01:25:25+00:00
Designs have trade-offs.

In this case, it was important for await and error handling with the ? operator to be readable together.

The order of operations in `await foo()?` is ambiguous, but `foo()?.await` and `foo().await?` have an obvious and clearly visible order. As a bonus, the syntax supports chaining multiple async operations without parenthesis. `fetch().await.body().await` is much nicer to write than `await (await fetch()).body()`.

Since `await` is a reserved keyword, `.await` can't be a field access. Editors with syntax highlighting can easily color it like a keyword.

The problem looking like a field has proven to be total a non-issue in practice. OTOH the syntax avoided major pitfall of visually unclear operator precedence, inconvenience of mixing of prefix and postfix operators, and ended up being clear and concise. It's been such a success, that users have since asked to have more keywords and macros usable in a postfix form.
by mamcx | 2025-06-04 01:25:40+00:00
The problem is that error handling is far more complex than you think at first.

The idea that "the happy path is the most common" is a total lie.

a + b

CAN fail. But HOW that is the question!

So, errors are everywhere. And you must commit to a way to handle it and no is not possible, like no, not possible to satisfy all the competing ideas about it.

So there is not viable to ask the community about it, because:

a + b

CAN fail. But HOW change by different reasons. And there is not possible to have a single solution for it, precisely because the different reasons.

So, you pick a side and that is.
by lnjoe | 2025-06-04 01:30:10+00:00
> So I would like to see better e-bike laws that make it illegal to have a machine that's too heavy and/or fast

Fwiw, shouldn’t we consider the weight of the bike (e-bike or not e-bike) + the weight of the rider?

On my 75lb e-bike and weighing 160lb, am I more dangerous than a 220lb dude on a 15lb Schwinn?

Speed’s an issue also, but I’ve had my road bike up to 55 mph (downhill) and never exceed 24 mph on my e-bike.

So, I guess I’m saying to be equitable, set speed and combined weight limits on all things with 2 wheels.
by cebert | 2025-06-04 01:30:24+00:00
I hope individuals on this thread have better suggestions.

As a software engineer, I excessively complicated the use of productivity tools. It got to a point where the tools were more of a burden than a help. Consequently, I’ve transitioned to using paper more frequently, as it remains accessible and less complicated. This practice has become my preferred method for tracking tasks and notes. Daily, I reevaluate my goals and tasks, and I rewrite those that are worth retaining on a new list.
by bacon_waffle | 2025-06-04 01:30:36+00:00
Location: South Island, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Rust, electronics, insulation

Résumé/CV: https://ianrees.nz/tech/about.html

Email: code atsign ianrees dot en ze(e|d)

Microchip: please hire me to work on the Rust HAL for your ATSAM chips, which I currently volunteer the odd hour or two to help maintain. Between Rust bringing robust modular software in to embedded, and companies like Adafruit pumping out ATSAM boards, there's huge potential in this space.

https://github.com/atsamd-rs/atsamd
by Terr_ | 2025-06-04 01:31:21+00:00
Starseige:Tribes - Typing in spare time on a ballistic trajectory... Though a good deal of that was also tapping out 3-4 keystrokes for the "V" communication tree, something that I think a lot of games could benefit from even in this era where there's enough bandwidth for voice chat.

With the amazing amount of client-side scripting the game supported, people made their own variations on the communications system, even carefully playing audio clips over one-another to get new speech.
by danShumway | 2025-06-04 01:31:44+00:00
You've said this a couple of times, but I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Yes, I can do frustrating things, I know how to review and vet code. I also know how to write boilerplate code. I also know how to research new tasks in areas where I have no familiarity that are poorly documented. I know how to do a lot of complicated, difficult things - all of which are part of being a professional developer.

The question is whether I want to use a tool that makes most of my job the difficult part.

The only way this makes sense is if you are somehow reaching a point where "doing the harder thing" is not the harder thing for you anymore - where reviewing code is easier for you than writing it. And maybe your argument is that you can get to that point with practice, or that LLM code is generally easier to review than other types of code, or that the problems it's tackling are so difficult that in those cases writing the code is harder than reading it.

But it's not that they're both true. "You should be able to do the harder thing" is not really an answer to "why are you selling me a tool that replaces an easy thing with a hard thing?"

There are many difficult things that I can do as a professional software developer. I can mentor junior developers. I can do detailed product design work with stakeholders and translate technical limitations into language that they understand. I can negotiate software deadlines with product owners. I can write interfaces for undocumented software and deal with undocumented bugs in 3rd-party code. I can step through minified code in production settings to debug problems. These are all difficult things that, as a professional developer, I am capable and willing to do, and often need to do. And yes, of course, I can review pull requests. I am not, however, generally in the business of adopting tools that force me to do that stuff more often than is necessary to get good results. I don't adopt tools that make my life harder, and I honestly think that's a big part of being a professional.

To be very blunt about it: "Buck up, you should be able to handle this" is not a sales pitch. I can also write with my non-dominant hand, but I'm not going to start taking notes that way. There's no intrinsic prize for making your life harder, the only way what you're saying makes sense is if it's not harder for you to read code than to write it.
by nkozyra | 2025-06-04 01:31:57+00:00
Carbs are extremely helpful for strength, but there's a middle ground between ketosis and the standard American diet.

Most who lift and do low carb time their carbs before and after workouts for specifically this reason. Some also do carbs before bed.

But the rest of the day is close to no carbs. This still works. You can get < 100g of carbs a day and not have strength and energy negative impacts.
by albertomm | 2025-06-04 01:32:24+00:00
Location: Portugal (EU)

Remote: Yes (preferred)

Willing to relocate: Open to short/medium-term relocation if the fit is exceptional

SEEKING WORK | Remote (GMT/EST) | Will overlap with US timezones (EU based)

Technologies:

* AI/LLM: OpenAI APIs, LangChain, Pinecone, RAG, vector DBs * Backend: Python, FastAPI, Django, Flask, Node * Frontend: TypeScript, React, React Native, Angular * Infrastructure: Docker, AWS, Redis, Celery * Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, SQLite * Dev Focus: RESTful APIs, microservices, memory handling, agent orchestration

Personal website: https://albertommoura.com/

GitHub: https://github.com/MMnemonic

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertommoura/

Test project: https://github.com/MMnemonic/project-management-app

Loom demo: https://www.loom.com/share/4818471e8ec44096975c5f6b064d11e6?...

Email: alberto@albertommoura.com

Availability: Full-time freelance (40 hrs/week) – immediate start

Hello HN, I’m Alberto — a full-stack engineer with 10+ years of experience, now focused on building LLM-based agents, AI workflows, and smart fullstack infrastructure. I’m especially interested in projects exploring autonomy, reflection, long-term memory, and tool-augmented reasoning.

If you're building AI-native apps, experimenting with multi-agent setups, or just need someone to translate research ideas into running systems: let’s talk. I’m available immediately and happy to jump on a call or explore your repo—no strings attached.
by Kranar | 2025-06-04 01:34:25+00:00
This is true, in general LLMs are not great at counting because they don't see individual characters they see tokens.

Imagine you spoke perfect English, but you learned how to write English using Mandarin characters, basically using the closest sounding Mandarin characters to write in English. Then someone asks you how many letter o's are in the sentence "Hello how are you?". Well you don't read using English charaters, you read using Mandarin characters so you read it as "哈咯，好阿优？" because using Mandarin letters that's the closest sounding way to spell "Hello how are you?"

So now if someone asks you how many letter o's are in "哈咯，好阿优？", you don't really know... you are familiar conceptually that the letter o exists, you know that if you spelled the sentence in English it would contain the letter o, and you can maybe make an educated guess about how many letter o's there are, but you can't actually count out how many letter o's there are because you've never seen actual English letters before.

The same thing goes for an LLM, they don't see characters, they only see tokens. They are aware that characters do exist, and they can reason about their existence, but they can't see them so they can't really count them out either.
by sevensor | 2025-06-04 01:35:10+00:00
> So the three reasons readers might not already know what you tell them are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced

Importance is a loaded idea here. Important to whom? Importance is very contextual. So, for that matter is inexperience. People have vastly different reasons for being inexperienced in any given domain, and youth is only one of them. I for one am inexperienced at riding jet skis, and youth, unfortunately, is not the reason. And yet, to the right person, an essay about jet ski riding might be exactly what they need to read right now.
by pie_flavor | 2025-06-04 01:35:11+00:00
This code:

foo, err := someExpr if err != nil { return nil, err }

Is entirely boilerplate, and a language feature could generate it (and in Rust, does). This is not the same statement as 'all error handling is boilerplate', which is obviously false, which is why I didn't say that. Condensing that particular snippet down to `?` would be less terrible than the status quo, where the status quo is every function being filled with twenty copies of it drastically reducing readability. The situation is exactly the same as with old Rust, where:

let foo = match expr { Ok(val) => val, Err(e) => return e, };

Was entirely boilerplate. Rust noticed that this was a problem and solved it. Go's status quo is not better than pre-`?` Rust's status quo; it does nothing pre-`?` Rust didn't. Go just doesn't solve it.

It is not actually the original design intent of Go to make every function 50% boilerplate garbage by LoC. Go is extremely full of 'helpful' happy-path short functions that leave you reimplementing lots of stuff more verbosely the moment you step off the happy path, inclusive of happy paths that do partially the wrong thing. `?` is exactly in line with `iota`, `foo_windows.go`, `flag.Var`, `http.HandleFunc`, etc. I don't know why people respond to literally every Go mistake with 'it's actually not a mistake, you just don't understand the genius', especially since half the mistakes are reverted later and acknowledged as mistakes.
by mattigames | 2025-06-04 01:36:18+00:00
And one of those drunk people may turn out to be the next RDJ, which went to become sober and take his most famous roles and now donates millions to FootPrint coalition, Make-a-wish foundation, among others, or maybe Slash from Gun's n roses which almost died from a drug abuse and is now sober and helps many folks with his S.E.R.P.E.N.T. festival; pretty sure a number of EMTs were part of their lives when they were at their lowest, so yeah, making judgments based on where someone is at at any given time is not the best for society or for any given EMT; heck, I would have loved to help Hemingway once despite being an alcoholic until his bitter end, so no, when you look at life the way you describe is almost looks like you are looking for the burn out; I'm more willing to believe in physical burnout in that profession, is well known being an EMT can make quite a number on your limbs and back.
by sgammon | 2025-06-04 01:37:15+00:00
This results in identical .class bytecode that `javac` produces, yes, because it's literally just `javac`, but built as a native binary instead of a Java entrypoint.

We build at JDK24 and support `--source/--target/--release` so you can build against earlier JVM targets.

If you find any output differences between Elide and JDK24 (Oracle GraalVM), then we'd consider that a bug. Similarly, we accept identical compile flags and emit identical warnings/messages, as under the hood we are just using the same compiler APIs but natively.
by cebert | 2025-06-04 01:37:18+00:00
I also have ADHD, and notifications and disruptions can easily distract me from my focus. When I work from home, I use an old-fashioned kitchen timer. I set it for a specific period and concentrate solely on the task I want to accomplish. Initially, you may only be able to focus for 5 minutes or so, but over time, you may be able to gradually extend the duration. For me, it’s crucial to turn off notifications on my work computer during my focus time. When I take a break, I check if I missed anything, look outside for a while, or go for a quick walk before returning to work.
by wizzwizz4 | 2025-06-04 01:37:25+00:00
I'm not sure whether you're missing the point by a mile, or whether I am.

The transformer architecture, later modified to create GPT models, was originally designed for translation. The modifications to make it do predictive text in a chatbot style make it much, much worse at translating: one of the biggest issues is that generative systems fail silently. Using the tech appropriately gives you things like Project Bergamot: https://browser.mt/.
by dottjt | 2025-06-04 01:37:47+00:00
> Most who lift and do low carb time their carbs before and after workouts for specifically this reason. Some also do carbs before bed.

This is exactly what I do. I have a have a pre-workout carb meal to try and compensate.

Though one interesting thing I've noticed is that I've intentionally had to eat carbs as my body fat percentage has decreased. Otherwise I feel very low energy (though to be fair, I think part of it is that I'm still very active on my rest days, usually doing 20 - 30k steps). I think with higher body fat my body could simply burn that fat for energy, whereas that surplus simply isn't there.
by mamcx | 2025-06-04 01:38:24+00:00
> is the problem just not being able to decide / please everyone,

Reading this article? in fact yes(?):

> After so many years of trying, with three full-fledged proposals by the Go team and literally hundreds (!) of community proposals, most of them variations on a theme, all of which failed to attract sufficient (let alone overwhelming) support, the question we now face is: how to proceed? Should we proceed at all?

> We think not.

This is a problem of the go designers, in the sense that are not capable to accept the solutions that are viable because none are total to their ideals.

And never will find one.

____

I have use more than 20 langs and even try to build one and is correct that this is a real unsolved problem, where your best option is to pick one way and accept that it will optimize for some cases at huge cost when you divert.

But is know that the current way of Go (that is a insignificant improvement over the C way) sucks and ANY of the other ways are truly better (to the point that I think go is the only lunatic in town that take this path!), but none will be perfect for all the scenarios.
by Terr_ | 2025-06-04 01:40:15+00:00
I recall some commentator on a a radio/podcast show asserting that Temu's immediate offerings are really more of a beachhead or gateway-drug, and the real money is in something else the parent-company (Pinduoduo) is already doing in China, a certain kind hybrid social-media plus shopping mix that isn't as common in the US.

I find myself thinking of the business model satirized in The Truman Show, except updated for ~25 years of mobile/streaming advancements: "You liked this video! Click here to insta-buy the same jacket the performer is wearing! Your friend bought X, don't be left out!"
by solid_fuel | 2025-06-04 01:41:00+00:00
You claim some low-level programmer created a feature that opens a new network connection between two separate applications?

Just some guy working at facebook was able to ship network code in not just one but two code-bases without any senior or higher engineers in the loop?

That's the claim? If that was true (it's not) it would be even worse than high level executives being involved.
by krackers | 2025-06-04 01:41:05+00:00
I see this claim repeated over and over, and while it seems plausible, this should be an easily testable hypothesis right? You don't even need a _large_ model for this because the hypothesis you are testing is whether transformer models [possibly with chain of thought] can count to some "reasonable" limit (maybe it can be modeled in TCS sense as something to do with circuit complexity) and you can easily train on synthetic strings. Is there any paper that shows proof/disproof that transformer networks using single-character tokenization successfully count?
by Aurornis | 2025-06-04 01:41:34+00:00
This report has been taken a little out of context. In mice, a lot of things can be shown to stimulate neurogenesis.

Environmental novelty is even know to be correlated with neurogenesis markers in mice, which is a confounding factor when trying to determine if novel mind-altering substances are producing neurogenesis through some novel mechanism, or the mere experience of shaking up their world with drugs is just another novel experience.

That said, this is a good example of a case where we have a lot of research suggesting that mouse neurogenesis studies don’t translate well to humans. See the other well-written comment above as well as the associated article for more on the topic.

Unfortunately “mushrooms cause neurogenesis” has been taken as a given by a lot of mushroom enthusiasts, podcasters, and new age fitness guru types.
by selcuka | 2025-06-04 01:41:43+00:00
Most LLMs have access to such tools. Well, maybe not a Unix shell, but something similar. This is from GPT 4.5's system prompt [1]:

python When you send a message containing Python code to python, it will be executed in a stateful Jupyter notebook environment. python will respond with the output of the execution or time out after 60.0 seconds. The drive at '/mnt/data' can be used to save and persist user files. Internet access for this session is disabled. Do not make external web requests or API calls as they will fail.

[1] https://github.com/0xeb/TheBigPromptLibrary/blob/main/System...
by sgammon | 2025-06-04 01:41:50+00:00
> I work professionally in Python these days

Elide can run Python using GraalPy, and we want to do some similar toolchain stuff in that universe. We are working on an integration with uv. Thanks also for linking this Build Server Protocol thing -- this looks very cool, very relevant, and I don't think I've seen this yet.

> Seems the Scala guys have doubled down on the "compiler as a service" approach, presumably because their compile time story continues to be painful

I wonder if we could run the Scala compiler. Reflection is a challenge in native mode and iirc Scala is reflection heavy, but I have no idea, I've never used it myself. I'll look into this

> snapshot and restore the JVM state and turns out some people are experimenting with that too

There are many efforts in this area: CrAC, Leyden, the new JDK 24 AOT stuff, and pre-warmup stuff before that. These all do make a difference but Native Image takes AOT optimization to a whole other level and seems to perform better for quick-startup quick-shutdown cases[1].

Elide also runs JVM code via Truffle/Espresso, and we're going to need a regular JVM integration. On this side CrAC and so on will be useful to cut down on startup time

[1]: https://github.com/simonis/LeydenVsGraalNative
by Aurornis | 2025-06-04 01:43:55+00:00
Unfortunately, it’s not really a good source for scientific information. Content like that can provide decent lifestyle suggestions overall, but the scientific basis on which they make their arguments are dubious at best.

Some people need a scientific sounding explanation before they’ll make any diet or lifestyle changes, so the material can still have a use. It’s just not a good source of scientifically accurate information about neurogenesis.
by pca2 | 2025-06-04 01:44:24+00:00
I have used a one-handed keyboard for 20 years. My current set up is using

- A 25 key Macropad (really an external numpad) Something like this, for around $50 USD https://www.dhgate.com/product/25keys-macro-keyboard-kit-pro...

- The keyboard supports QMK, the customizable open source keyboard firmware

- I programmed my own layout using the Frogpad style layout others have mentioned. Its central feature is that it is what's known as a "chording keyboard" in which you hit multiple keys at the same time, like a piano chord, to trigger different letters.

- The reduced keys on the keyboard mean I can comfortably produce any character at normal speed with one hand without moving my wrist in a way that would cause RSI.

If you want more info or a copy of my QMK config let me know.
by solid_fuel | 2025-06-04 01:45:19+00:00
What function does Instagram provide with this WebRTC listener besides tracking?

People install Instagram to look at photos and reels, not to help facebook track them better.

If I put a crypto-mining script in a game I don't get to claim "well they installed the app" when people complain. The victims thought they were installing a game, not a crypto-miner.

Here, the victims thought they were installing a photo sharing application, not a tracking relay.
by apothegm | 2025-06-04 01:45:28+00:00
LLMs don’t reason or count. They predict and output next tokens. “Reasoning” models mostly just have another layer of validating actual output against predictions. Newer models, if provided with programming tools (as they are in the ChatGPT interface), will predict the tokens that make up short scripts and then call those scripts to achieve numeric results for things like counting lines or letters.
by Tsarp | 2025-06-04 01:46:08+00:00
Maybe worth considering speech to text. Dictation has come a long way and if they are using a Mac any of the locally running whisper wrappers will work.

1. https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper (dictation + transcription)

2. https://carelesswhisper.app (does dictation only, and does it really well; cheapest)

3. https://superwhisper.com (both local and hosted models + lots of bells and whistles, but much higher pricing)