MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by MobiusHorizons | 2025-09-03 14:51:17+00:00
I see a lot of junior engineers, or more senior engineers who are outside their areas of expertise try to prioritize making progress without taking the time to understand. They will copy examples very closely, following best practices blindly, or get someone else to make the critical design decisions. This can get you surprisingly far, but it’s also dangerous because the further past your understanding you are operating, the more you might have to learn all at once in order to fix something when it breaks. Debugging challenges all your assumptions, and if you don’t have models of what the pieces are and how they interact, it’s incredibly hard to start building them when something is already broken. Even then, some engineers don’t learn the models when debugging and resort to defensive and superstitious behaviors based on whatever solution they stumbled on last time. This is a pretty normal part of the learning process, but some engineers don’t seem to get past this stage. Some don’t even want to.
by ramesh31 | 2025-09-03 14:51:20+00:00
I think like a lot of people here, my posture towards AI usage over the last 2 years has gone from:

"Won't touch it, I'd never infect my codebase with whatever garbage that thing could output" -> ChatGPT for a small function here or there -> Cursor/Copilot style autocomplete -> Claude Code fully automating 90% of my tasks.

It felt like magic at first once reaching that last (current) point. In a lot of ways for certain things it still is. But it's becoming clearer and clearer that this will never be a silver bullet, and I'm ready to evolve further to "It's another tool in the toolbox to be applied judiciously when and where it makes sense, which it usually does not.". I've also come to greatly distrust anything an LLM says that isn't verified by a domain expert.

I've also felt a great amount of joy from my work go away over this time. Much as the artisans of old who were forced to sit back and supervise the automated machines taking over their craft churn out crappier versions of something faster. There's more to this than just being an old fart who doesn't want to change. We all got into this field for a reason, and a huge part of that reason is that it brings us joy. Without that joy we are going to burn out quickly, and quality is going to nosedive.
by aw1621107 | 2025-09-03 14:52:06+00:00
> C++0x was ~5 years ago.

You're quite a bit off. Tialaramex covered this well enough.

> C++26 concepts has more or less everything you mention, and you can try it out with all the major compilers right now.

Uh, no. No, it doesn't. Here's an example I wrote up earlier that demonstrates how concepts (still) don't have definition-time checking:

#include <concepts> template<typename T> concept fooable = requires(T t) { { t.foo() } -> std::same_as<int>; }; struct only_foo { int foo(); }; struct foo_and_bar { int foo(); int bar(); }; template<fooable T> int do_foo_bar(T t) { t.bar(); // No definition-time error despite fooable not specifying the presence of bar() return t.foo(); } // Succeeds despite fooable only requiring foo() template int do_foo_bar<foo_and_bar>(foo_and_bar t); // Fails even though only_foo satisfies fooable // template int do_foo_bar<only_foo>(only_foo t);

Here's Clang 21.1.0 compiling this in C++26 mode: https://cpp.godbolt.org/z/znPGvcTqs . Note that as-is the snippet compiles fine, but if you uncomment the last line you get an error despite only_foo satisfying fooable.

Contrast this with Rust:

trait Fooable { fn foo(self) -> i32; }

fn do_foo_bar<T: Fooable>(t: T) -> i32 { let _ = t.bar(); // error[E0599]: no method named `bar` found for type parameter `T` in the current scope t.foo() }

Notice how do_foo_bar didn't need to be instantiated for the compiler to catch the error. That's what C++ concepts are unable to do, and as far as I know there is nothing on the horizon to change that.
by Uehreka | 2025-09-03 14:52:23+00:00
Their comments about the singing and background music are odd. It’s been a while since I’ve done academic research, but something about those comments gave me a strong “we couldn’t figure out how to make background music go away in time for our paper submission, so we’re calling it a feature” vibe as opposed to a “we genuinely like this and think its a differentiator” vibe.
by dylan604 | 2025-09-03 14:52:43+00:00
"My only real defense was Sue, one of the jesterlike presenters, who shielded me and did a remarkable, jazzlike expletive improv until everyone gave up trying to film. (Sometimes, she told me, she tried a different tack: libelling pharmaceutical companies to make embarrassing footage unusable.)"

I'm actually surprised the producers allow for this kind of defending of the bakers. Sue lasted 6 years, so it must not have upset the producers that much. However, as TFA stated, the fact that there's not a lot of over exaggerated drama more typical of a Kardashean/HouseWives reality show is why Bake Off succeeds. I can totally see a reality producer sending multiple camera ops, boom operator, sound recordist over to capture a sticky situation only exacerbating things. They can't help themselves. It's part of their DNA. Having that footage deemed unusable because of the dialog deliberately used by the host could not be taken kindly. I have the same mentality though whenever someone shoves a camera in my face when in public by giving them the bird while waving my hand directly in front of my face. If they blur the bird, they blur my face.
by eldad_fux | 2025-09-03 14:53:04+00:00
Hey, this is Eldad the founder and CEO of Appwrite, I’ve been waiting a long time to build something really cool with Appwrite Cloud and to experiment with vibe coding at scale. With that in mind, I spent the last 3 weekends watching Netflix while vibe coding to build something I felt the open source world has been needing for a while.

So… I’m very happy to introduce my latest side project: Refetch - the open source Hacker News alternative. A place for you to explore the latest tech discussions and news.

On the technical side, Refetch was 100% vibe coded and is fully powered by Appwrite Cloud (DB, Auth, Functions, Hosting) - and it’s 100% open source. I took vibe coding to the extreme and literally wrote zero lines of code myself (though I did tons of reviews). I’m really happy with the results - in total, it took me about 15 net hours to get everything ready and fully functional. It was a refreshing mental shift towards execution instead of traditional coding.

The platform isn’t just open source, it’s also aiming to be radically transparent. You can see how many people are online, how many visitors Refetch has had previously, and even watch our ranking algorithms in action. No secrets, no bias, not powered by a startup accelerator. The goal is to take this approach to the extreme - a place tech people can trust.

Ironically, we’re launching today on HN itself - should be interesting to see how that turns out. I hope you like Refetch, we’re just starting out, give Refetch a try and share your thoughts https://refetch.io/
by adastral | 2025-09-03 14:53:05+00:00
PostgresTV livestreams "vibe coding" 1h sessions implementing small PostgreSQL features with Cursor (mostly claude-4-sonnet model) every week, by experienced PostgreSQL contributors. [0] is their latest stream.

I personally have not watched much, but it sounds just like what you are looking for!

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MleDtXZUlM
by ralfd | 2025-09-03 14:53:10+00:00
At least you could exclude jawless, cartilaginous, and lobe-finned fish. That would leave you with 99% of what people call fish. But as said it would exclude sharks, they would need to be their own group.

More bothering me is that there are no trees. There are just many plants which have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight.
by rlpb | 2025-09-03 14:53:33+00:00
They may also try to use the warranty registration as an opportunity to sell insurance products, such as "protection" for other white goods. I had this with a new boiler (American English: "furnace"). They took the registration but wanted to sell me a further warranty on related heating system components not directly part of the boiler. Interestingly, it was a different company that specialises in such products. I think they probably have a business arrangement with the manufacturer to handle the warranty registration admin and possibly the warranty servicing too, presumably at a discounted price compared to the raw cost of merely servicing the warranty itself, in return for the opportunity for upselling their own products.
by epolanski | 2025-09-03 14:53:37+00:00
I can't but think this has to be tied to _how_ AI is used.

I actively use AI to research, question and argue a lot, this pushes me to reason a lot more than I normally would.

Today's example: - recognize docs are missing for a feature - have AI explore the code to figure out what's happening - back and forth for ours trying to find how to document, rename, refactor, improve, write mermaid charts, stress over naming to be as simple as possible

The only step I'm doing less is the exploration/search one, because an LLM can process a lot more text than I can at the same time. But for every other step I am pushing myself to think more and more profoundly than I would without an LLM because gathering the same amount of information would've bene too exhausting to proceed with this.

Sure, it may have spared me to dig into mermaid too, for what is worth.

So yes, lose some, win others, albeit in reality no work would've been done at all without the LLM enabling it. I would've moved to another mundane task such as "update i18 formatting of date for swiss german customers".
by Iv | 2025-09-03 14:53:40+00:00
Old people in Japan went through the deprivation of post-war Japan. Not all boomers were raised the same. It is harder for someone who has known famine to accept it is ok to throw food away for fun.

US grandparents think you can buy a house with a part time job, Japanese ones think that you could save a life with a watermelon. Different delusions.
by reticulated | 2025-09-03 14:54:04+00:00
I doubt Amazon would facilitate any kind of legitimate Kindle support outside of a web browser.

I've got the Pro and, whilst a little to heavy for my liking, charging the marker is a no-brainer - it just attaches to the side for storage and charges wirelessly. Faster would always be appreciated of course.

Curious about your last statement as I find the writing feel best in class. Having tried a couple of others, admittedly a few years ago, the Pro felt the most natural to write on.
by enobrev | 2025-09-03 14:54:18+00:00
The specs would not likely have happened at all, since this is a solo project; although this experience has led me to want to write these things out more thoroughly, even for myself. It's impressive how little work I need to put in going this route to have fairly thorough actionable specs for pretty much every major decision I've made through the process.

The commits - some would be detailed, plenty would have been "typo" or "same as last commit, but works this time"

The tests - Probably would have been decent for the API, but not as thorough. Likely non-existent for the UI.

As for time - I agree with the other response - I wouldn't have taken the time.
by robenkleene | 2025-09-03 14:54:42+00:00
Summary of the original author's (Alex Russell) background from his about page (https://infrequently.org/about-me/) (it seemed odd to me to just focus on his most recent role):

> Microsoft Partner Product Architect on the Edge team and Blink API OWNER. It is my professional mission to build a web that works for everyone.

> From 2008-2021, I was a software engineer at Google working on Chrome, Blink, and the web platform. I served as the first Web Standards Tech Lead for Chrome (2015-2021) and was a three-time elected member of the W3C Technical Architecture Group (2013-2019) and a representative to TC39 for a decade.
by jcbrand | 2025-09-03 14:54:47+00:00
I used Lit components in a large FE project, enjoyed doing so and am happy with my choice. I don't use the shadow DOM at all.

The project is Converse.js, an XMPP chat client. It's an old project that was originally created back in 2013 with Backbone.js.

I first replaced all templates with `lit-html` when I first heard about that, and then when lit-element (and now "lit") came out, I started rewriting the project to use that.

This app has since been integrated into many different websites that rely on other frameworks like React and the fact that Converse.js is a web component (<converse-root />) makes this easier.

If you're interested, here's the Github repo: https://github.com/conversejs/converse.js And you can demo it here: https://chat.conversejs.org/

You'll need an XMPP account (see https://providers.xmpp.net/ for possible providers).
by grep_name | 2025-09-03 14:54:54+00:00
Wow, newly supported models is super exciting to see! I have a 5d mk iii which I got specifically to play around with ML. I haven't done much videography in my life, but do plan to get some b-roll at the very least with my mk iii or maybe record some friends live events sometime.

> I'm the current lead dev, so please ask questions.

Well, you asked for it!

One question I've always wondered about the project is: what is the difference between a model that you can support, and a model you currently can't? Is there a hard line where ML future compatibility becomes a brick wall? Are there models where something about the hardware / firmware makes you go 'ooh, that's a good candidate! I bet we can get that one working next'?

Also, as someone from the outside looking in who would be down to spend $100 to see if this something I can do or am interested in, which (cheap) model would be the easiest to grab and load up as dev environment (or in a configuration that mimics what someone might do to work on a feature), and where can I find documentation on how to do that? Is there a compendium of knowledge about how these cameras work from a reverse-engineering angle, or does everyone cut their teeth on forum posts and official canon technical docs?

edit: Found the RE guide on the website, gonna take a look at this later tonight
by Nemi | 2025-09-03 14:55:04+00:00
These are all great tips, and mirror my admittedly few attempts at public speaking. But one thing that really must be internalized is that, for an hour presentation, you should spend many many hours preparing. If you do this, you will be engaging, cool and calm, and can easily add in humor. Without the preparation you will be stressed and your audience will be bored, or worse, embarrassed for you.
by shadowgovt | 2025-09-03 14:55:20+00:00
Or, perhaps, it should be nationalized. If it's such a critical piece of infrastructure that dissolving it would be unthinkable, but it also can't be competed with in the marketplace... It could be removed from the marketplace.

This isn't unheard of for communications technology. Postal service in England was exclusively a Crown privilege, then the monarchy realized there were benefits to the Empire if everyone could use the system, and that was such a good idea that when the US Constitution was written it asserted the government had to provide a postal service. There is past precedent for a government-oversight private enterprise in the US.
by kragen | 2025-09-03 14:55:44+00:00
This would have helped when I `rm -rf`ed my home directory, but I was on Ultrix, whose `rm` didn't have the `-I` flag. In fact, I don't think even GNU `rm` had `-I` yet. I was in /tmp/something where I'd unpacked some software package I'd downloaded and decided was of no use, and I wanted to read netnews, so I typed

rm -rf * & cd; trn

Several hours later, around 3 AM, I was done reading netnews, so I exited trn. Then I remembered that there was one newsgroup I had forgotten to read, so I typed ↑↵ to run trn again, which had the effect of again running

rm -rf * & cd; trn

but this time in my home directory. And of course my frantic ^C^C^C had no effect on the `rm`, which was safely in the background.

Fortunately the computer center kept nightly backups.
by nonethewiser | 2025-09-03 14:55:57+00:00
I appreciate the context. Generation isnt the best name for an input to the grid. Perhaps you are right and it's common in the industry but I wouldn't expect non-industry people to anticipate batteries and connections to the Danish, French, etc. grids to be generators.

And frankly I can't find evidence for the claim that the energy sector uses the term generation for inputs to the grid in general, as opposed to just the things literally generating electricity. Which does not surprise me.
by AxEy | 2025-09-03 14:56:37+00:00
> " in many places around the world we kill people society or state considers assholes, including US."

Not really the same as systematically bringing into existence a species with behaviors you find objectionable, keeping them in your proximity so you can experience said behaviors, and then slaughtering them with the excuse that they are all assholes is it?

> "Then we can discuss where is the cutoff line for enough assholishness to go for a slaughter"

When you say that roosters cross this line do you mean with respect to their behavior towards you? I'm guessing this can't be that bad since you're much more powerful than they?

Or do you mean towards other chickens? If so, and if it's really that bad, then surely the best thing is to just not bring them into existence in the first place (not systematically breeding them with the intent of slaughtering them)?
by Herring | 2025-09-03 14:56:54+00:00
The interviews are wrong. Check with your favorite frontier LLM. There has been a lot of research on what's predictive for job performance and what's not, but it's largely ignored.

An easy example: Google's "Project Aristotle" - https://psychsafety.com/googles-project-aristotle/

tl;dr: psychological safety was the determining factor of highly effective teams. Then Google goes and does large-scale layoffs. Think about your workplace, do you feel safe? Do you think these interviews help people feel safe?
by ajross | 2025-09-03 14:57:44+00:00
It's so frustrating the way AI argumentation goes. People will cherry pick outrageously specific items and extend to crazy generalization. I mean... your phrasing was 100% ambiguous! There's no such thing as a "Stockholm bus", or "Stockholm rolling stock".

There are buses in Stockholm, and buses in Thessoloniki, and buses manufactured in Sweden, and buses previously used in Stockholm that are now in operation in Thessoloniki. And one LLM took one path through the question, answering it correctly and completely. And the other took a different one[1]. As it happened your (poorly phrased) intended question was answered by one and not the other.

If I ask the same question with a more careful phrasing that (I think!) matches what you wanted to know: "Where did buses used in Thessoloniki come from originally?"

...I get correct and clear answers from both. But the Google result also has the Wikipedia page for the transit operator and its own web page immediately to the right.

Again, cherry picking notwithstanding I think in general the integrated experience of "I need an AI to help me with this problem" works much better at google.com, it just does.

[1] It's worth pointing out that the result actually told you that your question didn't make sense, and why. I suspect you think this was a bug since the other LLM guessed instead, but it smells like a feature to me.
Ask HN: Is Perplexity intentionally nerfing non-Comet browser query performance?
by spopejoy | 2025-09-03 14:57:50+00:00
I use perplexity pretty often and I recently noticed a significant slowdown in query results, especially when generating code.

I didn't really think about it, but then instead of asking me to "Go Pro" like it always does, now it's shilling the Comet browser, with the message "Comet can do this faster! Try our new AI-powered browser that can summarize, shop, schedule, and more."

En-crap-ification anyone? I would imagine Perplexity is in the same boat as OpenAI and others where the subscriptions cannot hope to cover the costs of operation, and the CEO has boasted about how Comet will be a money printer for ads.
by asats | 2025-09-03 14:58:05+00:00
>The desire to come and immigrate to the US has greatly diminished

Do you have any data to back up that claim?

E.g. the number of diversity lottery applicants (one of the easiest proxies to judge how many people express their interest in moving to the US) went up from 12 million in 2011 to almost 20 million last year.
by pessimizer | 2025-09-03 14:58:25+00:00
You and dogs have the same job, which is to please the boss. The boss then takes care of you like a child, either with a paycheck (with which you can pay servants to supply your earthly needs), or directly if you're a dog and lack both thumbs and pockets to hold a wallet or a phone. A domestic dog would die left alone in a forest, about two or three weeks after you would.

If you're an entrepreneur, your job is to please the customer and to squeeze your vendors and employees. You still take little to no part in directly taking care of yourself, except as a hobby. Unless you want to be congratulated for wiping your own ass or lifting a fork to your mouth.
by ciberado | 2025-09-03 14:58:43+00:00
Let me also share the English version of my own list of tips, tricks, checks, etc. I’ve been compiling it over the past 15 years while teaching, doing consulting, presenting results to clients, and so on. Every now and then, I find it useful to read it again to be clear on how to prepare presentations.

https://github.com/ciberado/100-trucos-para-hacer-mejores-pr...

I will be grateful if you help me to enrich it by opening Issues or creating PRs.
by WorldMaker | 2025-09-03 14:59:30+00:00
If you force the LLM to solve every test failure this also can lead to the same breakdown models as very junior developers coding to the tests rather than the problems, I've seen all of:

1) I broke the tests, guess I should delete them.

2) I broke the tests, guess the code I wrote was wrong, guess I should delete all of that code I wrote.

3) I broke the tests, guess I should keep adding more code and scaffolding. Another abstraction layer might work? What if I just add skeleton code randomly, does this add random code whack-a-mole work?

That last one can be particularly "fun" because already verbose LLM code skyrockets into baroque million line PRs when left truly unsupervised, and that PR still won't build or pass tests.

There's no true understanding by an LLM. Forcing it to lint/build can be important/useful, but still not a cure-all, and leads to such fun even more degenerate cases than hand-holding it.
by shadowgovt | 2025-09-03 14:59:56+00:00
I don't think so. Remove Google from the story and search is still a problem involving massive amounts of storage, massive amounts of fast compute, and a clever way to index results.

The only part of that story Google impacts is that their clever way to index results is by mining traffic on their site and the larger web to decide based on user behavior whether their search query was satisfied. Since users can't spend active time on two sites at once, Google consumes a finite resource there. But do we believe Google's behavior tracking really is the final, best form that indexing can possibly take?
by CuriouslyC | 2025-09-03 15:00:39+00:00
Would that experience get eroded though? LLMs let me perform experiments (including architecture/system level) quickly, and build stress test/benchmark/etc harnesses quickly to evaluate those experiments, so in the time you can build human intuition with one experiment I've done 10. I build less intuition from each experiment, but I'm building broader intuition, and if I choose a bad experiment it's a small cost, but choosing a bad experiment and performing it manually is brutal.