MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: DHH on Lex, a multi-hour ode to Ruby on Rails, but is it any good?
by oleksandr_dem | 2025-07-23 11:59:34+00:00
Over the past few days, I've been listening to Lex interview DHH (just the programming parts, I'm not particularly interested in his views on other topics).

It's not the first time I've heard people praising Ruby on Rails, but every time I look at the documentation, I find myself thinking, "I don’t get why people are into this.".

My main critiques of Ruby are: - The syntax isn't great: it uses a lot of special characters, which makes writing the code slower. - No static types: when I first started programming, dynamic typing (like in JavaScript) seemed cool. But after working on large enterprise projects, there’s no way I’d choose a dynamically typed language again (Based on what DHH says, that probably makes me a "bad developer").

I haven't tried it myself, mainly because using a programming language for a side project versus a professional product is a completely different experience (someone might try JavaScript and argue it’s better than TypeScript, until they have to refactor something).

So I'm wondering, is this one of those cases where a tool is mainly used by a passionate niche, so all the feedback is positive? Or is Rails really as good as DHH says it is once you get into it?
by TuringNYC | 2025-07-23 11:59:48+00:00
I found most people dont know about this or think about this until there is a home purchase and home inspection -- that is when it is revealed, and typically when it is remediated as part of the purchase contingencies. If youre living in the same home for a while, you wouldnt typically know. Also, if you are a renter, you probably wont know and the landlord will probably purposefully not want to test.

In my state, the state forces some of these tests (e.g., smoke detector) as part of the sales process so at least there is some hook for testing.
by pjmlp | 2025-07-23 11:59:59+00:00
Moving goal posts, you point apparently was about linking as general OS process to make libraries, and not static libraries in particular.

So many differences, not every programming language relies on the OS linker UNIX style, many have had the linking process as part of their own toolchain, outside BSDs/Linux, other vendors have had improvements on their object file formats, linking algorithms, implementations of linking processes, delayed linking on demand.

Bytecode based OSes like Burroughs/ClearPath MCP, OS/400 (IBM i), also have their own approach how linking takes place and so forth.

Some OSes like Windows Phone 8.x used a mixed executable format with bytecode and machine symbols, with final linking step during installation on device.

Oberon used slim binaries with compressed ASTs, JIT compiled on load, or plain binaries. The linker was yet another compiler pass.

Many other examples to look into, across systems research.

Far from "Linking works the way it does because of inertia.".
by whywhywhywhy | 2025-07-23 12:00:09+00:00
> Why is it so hard to read the manual

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html

Let's be honest, it kinda sucks. The commands are barely explained it feels more left as an exercise for the reader to do the puzzle solving of whats trying to be communicated.

Honestly if these processing chain diagrams just had a rollover where if you roll over parts of the command or the block in the chain and the other part highlighted with a description of what the switch was actually doing then a lot more people would be able to understand this, especially if real world before and after examples of outputs were included.

Instead it's <diagram of the chain> <raw string of the command> "Note: one caveat about something"
by phoronixrly | 2025-07-23 12:00:23+00:00
The guide is great and I've followed it to success several times. It fails whenever the odd vendor decides it should really offer a slightly buggy implementation.

For example one that will allow you to enter sb setup mode, clear EFI keys, but not offer a way to enroll new ones from the firmware setup UI. While simultaneously making the EFI KeyTool fail enrollment with a cryptic error message. :)
by cedws | 2025-07-23 12:01:42+00:00
Kids play a part in trapping you in that lifestyle though. If you’re fortunate enough to have a job where you can save money, as long as you don’t have kids you still have the option of just packing your bags and pissing off somewhere for a while.

Lifestyle creep is another way people get trapped in the rat race. Buying silly stuff like expensive cars on finance to show off.
by durazabu | 2025-07-23 12:02:07+00:00
The reason is that elisp org-mode is huge and re-implementing it without elisp is a great undertaking.

I started an implementation in javascript that I integrated in an obsidian plugin [0]. But the plugin has a long way to go before reaching feature parity with emacs orgmode.

[0] https://github.com/BBazard/obsidian-orgmode-cm6
by pbmonster | 2025-07-23 12:02:55+00:00
As a very practical example: You take notes in org-mode, and as you do in many modern note-taking apps, you use copious links between notes.

But org-mode is inside Emacs, and Emacs is (can be) also your email client. So your notes can link to emails. Emacs is also your calendar. So your notes can link to events.

You can extend this to almost anything if you like Emacs enough. Your notes link to source code files (or your notes contain code, which can be executed from your notes). Emacs is also your git front end, so you could link to commits.
by crabbone | 2025-07-23 12:04:01+00:00
https://youtu.be/yKQBR1ohtIA I mean this. Whatever's the proper name for it. The video makes it look easy, but the reality of it is that

* Spokes don't really fit into the hole (and you aren't really going to pull a spoke out of the wheel to take the wheel off anyways). * Adjusting the tension on the cable takes many tries. And you can't really adjust it without taking the wheel off. So, you put it together, try riding it and see if the speeds switch properly. Once you see they don't, you take the wheel off, pull the cable a little bit. Rinse and repeat.

Not to mention that the parts are very small and easy to lose if you have to make an emergency repair. It's very sensitive to dirt.

It looks more "compact" and out of sight, and from what I can tell from talking to my Dutch friends / acquaintances: punctures don't happen that often because roads are kept relatively clean. And people would generally just go to a bike shop and pay to have things fixed. So, decreased reliability and difficulty in maintenance don't bother them.
by bearjaws | 2025-07-23 12:04:41+00:00
I was always into programming, and am a self taught dev. I used to write Runescape macros in Pascal and then Java, had an internship at a CD & DVD driver company (used by iTunes and many others) and got to work on automation of burner testing.

But 2008 hit, job market was terrible and I ended up working at a computer repair store chain while trying to pay my way through college until 2011, where I got a LAMP dev job for a large travel website. I dropped out of college at that point and haven't looked back.

I got to program for a bit over 10 years before moving into leadership, selling two startups along the way.
by qwertox | 2025-07-23 12:05:54+00:00
I wonder how hard these vibe-coder careers will be.

It must be hard to get sold the idea that you'll just have to tell an AI what you want, only to then realize that the devil is in the detail, and that in coding the detail is a wide-open door to hell.

When will AI's progress be fast enough for a vibe coder never to need to bother with technical problems?, that's the question.
by Fluorescence | 2025-07-23 12:06:06+00:00
IANABE (not a browser engineer)

On the one hand, JS DOM objects are idl generated wrappers for C++. In theory we can generate more WASM friendly wrappers.

On the other, the C++ code implementing the API will be tightly coupled to the entire JS type system and runtime. Not just the concept of an object but every single design decision from primitives to generators to dynamic types to prototypical inheritance to error handling...

Also, I believe the C++ DOM implementation itself is pretty tightly integrated with javascript and it's memory management e.g. nodes have references into the managed heap to use JS objects directly like EventListeners and js functions.

Creating a new non-JS DOM API doesn't sound intractable to me... but browsers annihilate my assumptions so it's probably millions of hours of effort and close to a rewrite...
by nicoburns | 2025-07-23 12:06:09+00:00
It isn't until you need something like Microsoft Office or Photoshop. At which point you're either using FOSS alternatives (and dealing with it's incompatibilities with the proprietary file formats) or dealing with a very fragile wine setup.

If you don't need that kind of thing then Linux is indeed pretty good these days. But especially in a business context, a lot of people do.
by jeroenhd | 2025-07-23 12:06:37+00:00
While the commands and procedures on this page still work fine (the screenshots are a welcome addition!), I find the Arch Linux wiki to be a bit more up to date: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware...

The Arch wiki also adds some additional warnings that you may want to check into. For instance, my Thinkpad with an Nvidia GPU will be bricked if I use the normal API to load secure boot keys, because on boot certain firmware is executed before the setup utility, which means that if that firmware fails verification, the entire laptop becomes unbootable. The workaround (load keys through the UEFI setup utility instead of any other tools) doesn't let me get rid of the manufacturer keys and take full control, unfortunately. I'll keep Lenovo's choices here in mind next time I buy a laptop.

Thanks to updates to sbctl, you can create keys with `sbctl create-keys` rather than typing out complex openssl commands. sbctl's `enroll-keys` should also make the key enrollment procedure easier.

Your distro probably also comes with an optional package manager hook so you don't need to repeat the sign commands every time your bootloader updates.
by jvanderbot | 2025-07-23 12:07:51+00:00
Has anyone navigated a career change using OpenCourseware? I have a suspicion that the MOOC era mostly catered towards already-educated, self-starters and hobby learners, moreso than empowering a generation of workers, as was advertised.

Not to knock it. I've been working through quantum computing between work-related fire drills and household commitments, so I should be up to speed in a few decades.
by odyssey7 | 2025-07-23 12:08:18+00:00
I’m currently enrolled in an online MS program, and I had never struggled so much in courses. The lack of social component might be what’s causing that. The material is mostly a recap of undergrad and things I already knew, so the coursework should not be so difficult for me, but it’s been incredibly difficult.

Then again, William & Mary had some incredible teachers, and maybe the online program through a different school just isn’t very good at designing assignments and teaching by comparison. But I feel that there was a difference in how I could succeed at challenging assignments when I was among other students in a social setting. The work in undergrad was highly rigorous, though exploring it alongside other real-life students made it a very different undertaking.
by kensai | 2025-07-23 12:08:19+00:00
I think Radon exposure is a serious matter, but its concentration in the USA either is probably overrated OR indeed you have a local geological problem. In Europe we even have the tradition of Radon Therapy for certain pathologies in Spa. Of course, one should do these therapies under medical consultation.

https://www.alpentherme.com/en/therapy-health/therapy/radon-...
by weavejester | 2025-07-23 12:08:42+00:00
> No. My point is that in the UK we do not have freedom of speech enshrined in constitution or law.

We do, in the Human Rights Act 1998.

Now, you've said you don't believe that the definition of freedom of expression in the HRA and ECHR lines up with your definition of free speech. That's fine. You are of course welcome to that opinion.

But you act as though your definition of free speech is authoritative, and yet you also have not defined it. When I've prompted you to narrow it down, you avoid the question.

So let me ask you extremely directly: what's your definition of "free speech"? Or to be more precise: which restrictions on speech are allowed, and which are forbidden, in order for a country to have "free speech" in your book?
by Cthulhu_ | 2025-07-23 12:08:55+00:00
What's with the passive and conversational language in their prompts? "ok great, first of all let's rename the folder you are in to call it 'AI CLI experiments'"

That's a lot of words to issue a command "rename folder foobar to 'AI CLI experiments'". That's like googling for "Hello Google, could you please tell me how I rename a folder in Windows if it's no bother please with a cherry on top and thank you?"
by dingi | 2025-07-23 12:09:32+00:00
It's tough to see a project with so much potential struggling. It feels like they've spread themselves too thin. Focusing solely on Firefox and core web initiatives like MDN seems like the most logical path forward. Imagine what they could achieve if all that effort was poured back into what made them great in the first place, rather than some of the other ventures that don't seem to be gaining much traction.
by constantcrying | 2025-07-23 12:11:57+00:00
Many of the things which work well for developing hardware or Mechatronics work terribly for Software. Hardware development is about rigorous processes, any change to a piece of hardware requires a very complex chain of people, as the impact often is hard to predict and will require changes to many other processes, e.g. manufacturing. I do not think this is the entire explanation though.

The US Software industry has succeeded because it is very open to rapid changes, which the nature of software allows, given the right environment.

>The code tends to be more complex, abstract, hard to read and comprehend, for no good reason.

That is exactly the incompetence I am talking about. This gets extremely bad if governments are developing software solutions, where they outsource to a variety of contractors, who all are somewhat incompetent, but together manage to create a real mess. A mess so bad that every user feels the jank.
by Aaargh20318 | 2025-07-23 12:12:46+00:00
Amateur astrophotographers, like myself, also often use the HSO palette.

The nice thing about deep space objects is that they don't change at a rate that there is any visible difference over timespans relevant to humans. This means that you can do very, very long exposures. It also means that you don't need to capture all colours at once.

The linked article talks about using a color camera with a bayer matrix that uses dyed glass to get color data and how the filters don't filter out light in the 800-1000nm range.

Lots of amateur astrophotographers don't use color camera's but monochrome cameras in combination with separate filters. These filters are of much higher quality than the dye based filters used on camera sensors. Instead of dyes they use interference filters[1]. These filters do not have the same issue as described in the article. For example the LRGB filter set I use only lets through a 100nm band for each color. Next to that you can use filter that only let through emissions from specific elements, like the HSO filters mentioned (Hydrogen-alpha, Sulphur-II, Oxygen-III). In my case I have filters with a bandwidth of 3nm around the emission line of each of these elements.

The bigger issue with making these photo's look like what they 'really look like' is that they really look like nothing at all. The light from these objects is so faint that even with a highly sensitive cooled camera you need many hours of exposure to grab enough data to make a nice picture. What they 'really look like' to the human eye is black.

The issue is worse when you add in the narrowband data, because that overlaps with the visible spectrum, but in that case you usually emphasise certain bands to stand out more in the final picture. It's not uncommon to combine the LRGB data with e.g. H-alpha data.

In the end the colours you choose are up to the photographer and their goals. Are you just going for a pretty picture or are you trying to visualize scientific data?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_filter
by isleyaardvark | 2025-07-23 12:14:22+00:00
Galileo had a trial 20 years before the second, more famous one, where he was banned from promoting Copernican ideas, and Copernican books in general were banned by the Inquisition and by papal order. But because 20 years later he insulted the Pope that was protecting him from being arrested, some people act like that means it had nothing to do with Heliocentrism.
by elric | 2025-07-23 12:14:37+00:00
No one said it did. It is however very addictive, causing addicts to smoke/vape more, thus increasing the load of the other toxic and carcinogenic substances.

Wikipedia does raise some concerning points about nicotine:

> Although nicotine is classified as a non-carcinogenic substance, it can still promote tumor growth and metastasis. It induces several processes that contribute to cancer progression, including cell cycle progression, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, migration, invasion, angiogenesis, and evasion of apoptosis.
by polivier | 2025-07-23 12:14:48+00:00
`org-mode` used with Emacs is the tinkerer's dream playgound. Apart from the basic markdown stuff, there are so many wild things you can do. For example, org code blocks are not just the basic markdown code blocks that show formatted code. Org code blocks can actually be executed and can show the output of the code, inline. So you can write code blocks (that may include data found in variables/tables/etc elsewhere in the org file), then "refresh" your org file and all the inline outputs of the code blocks will be updated.
by techpineapple | 2025-07-23 12:14:49+00:00
Did the blog post forget to include the “other types of bias”?

But also, if LLM’s are maximally truth seeking, wouldn’t you expect them to have different opinions than the population? I expect LLM’s could be more confident about climate change, given the amount of data it has access to.

From a linked paper:

“This isn't just an academic concern. As businesses increasingly turn to AI for market research, customer insights, and decision-making, these inherent biases could significantly skew results.”

What the fuck is AI for? It seems pretty useless if it’s just going to regurgitate the opinion of the median voter.
by nudgeOrnurture | 2025-07-23 12:14:57+00:00
most absolutely do, especially when they go through all the theories that were proven over the decades and those that fit the pattern of "we'll know in a few decades".

there's science but there's also repetition and variety of cognitive and perceptive angles to make people know, which is engineering and works until it doesn't.

I wonder why AI might be hiding thoughts...
by fitsumbelay | 2025-07-23 12:15:12+00:00
Author mentions the cash Mozilla has on hand and that it's enough to keep them afloat "for a little while"

A quick scan of the author's post suggest they're pretty agenda driven, hence the weird "Marxist" name calling which in addition to the above admission that the post is clickbait kinda puts the author's judgement and credibility in question

Respectfully to the OP, I don't see the point in posting substack/like content like this that's designed to drive a completely different and quite frankly unhelpful kind of discussion
by crabbone | 2025-07-23 12:15:27+00:00
> Israel blocks aid agencies besides their own from accessing gaza. This is undisputed fact.

You are who thinks this is a fact. But it isn't. The aid is being delivered to Gaza. A bunch of international organizations are there, cooking meals, distributing supplies etc. Not only Israeli agencies participate in aid delivery. For example WCK is still there. Israel, legitimately, doesn't allow aid from organizations that feed it directly to Hamas. WCK isn't one of those, so they are allowed to operate there.

> While it is possible “hamas” is stealing food and not sharing - this is a problem easily solved by allowing in more fucking food.

It's not just possible, it's pretty much a given, since they used to be in charge of distribution. They shot people queuing for aid. They sold aid (which was reported by multiple news agencies). They stockpiled aid for their own fighters, which was acknowledged by the prisoners IDF took.

Allowing more food for Hamas will change nothing. They benefit from starvation crisis. It allows them to extort resources both domestically and internationally. So far, Gaza received a lot more aid than eg. South Sudan, and Gaza's population is about 1/5 of South Sudan.

> You seem happy to let people starve to death

Why are you getting so emotional over something I haven't said or implied? I'm not starving anyone to death. I live thousands of kilometers from the events at the moment. I have more information than you do about what's happening there because I used to live in the area and can read the news in the local languages / I know where to find such news, but that's about it.

> So where is the propaganda?

You just wrote it. Well, you didn't invent it, you simply mindlessly repeated it, but still.
by dn3500 | 2025-07-23 12:15:40+00:00
You're supposed to #define GIF_IMPLEMENTATION in only one of your .c files to prevent linker collisions. But yeah I don't get the point. How is this any better than the standard method of putting macros and data definitions in the .h and code in the .c? This is just going to confuse anyone who comes along later and wants to work on the code that uses this thing.
by DonHopkins | 2025-07-23 12:15:51+00:00
Neither do you, yet you literally just brashly and overconfidently hallucinated exactly like a poorly trained token predicting LLM that the:

>Correct prediction is "dogs".

Maybe I just trained on Wikipedia, or the February 9, 1885 edition of The Boston Journal "Current Notes" article, or Linda Bronson's 1888 book "Illustrative Shorthand", for what the statistically and historically "correct" completion is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quick_brown_fox_jumps_over... [..._the_lazy_dog]

Why would you insert redundant letters into a lovely well-known succinct pangram, when the whole point is to make the SHORTEST sentence with all letters of the alphabet?

This entire post could also technically be considered a terribly redundant pangram if you wanted to throw in a lot of unnecessary letters, slashes, colons, underscores, double quotes, commas, periods, question marks, brackets, equal signs, digits, spaces, and newlines. As could Moby Dick, War and Peace, or the Unabomber Manifesto.

>So actually it is like calling a grass-cutting machine "lawn mower".

Is it anything like calling Larry Ellison a "lawn mower", which is much more "correct" than anthropomorphising him?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728

As ninetyninenine pointed out, we don't understand what's going on with you either:

>Someone can claim that the responses are an illusion and they have no meaning but that exact argument applies to humans and we can’t say anything either way. We don’t understand what’s going on.
by hunter-gatherer | 2025-07-23 12:16:03+00:00
There definitely is a sort of pseudo generational gap of how peole interact with computers. I was having a conversation with a 20ish year old the other day about computer for storage and they didn't understand the filing cabinet analogy. Like, for then everything had to be in the desktop folder, but the concept that C:\Users\User\Desktop was like having a folder in a filing cabinet, where C: was the actual cabinet, was so alien to them.