MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by wtp1saac | 2025-09-25 16:26:16+00:00
I am ambivalent about this, leaning towards negative.

I have some open questions, though this is more implementation than concept - what categories of software would need what licensing? Is there a delineation for platforms with more or less effective sandboxing, e.g., mobile vs desktop platforms? Do we need licensing for non-mission-critical software like game development (not a trivial question given multiplayer transmits and parses data)? Memory-safe versus memory-unsafe languages?

Now, I can think of some good situations that should maybe require formal licensing, e.g., cryptography, though how to delineate that could be tricky. Certainly I would want someone building a cryptographic vault or library to have very good knowledge of cryptography - I am not sure this is needed if you are effectively dispatching to a known good library, but it is still possible to build highly insecure protocols on top of it. Wondering if I would want a single large license, or some kind of specialty licenses for such cases, though.

My biggest gripe though, is that I feel most of the problems of software come from companies behaving irresponsibly - collecting too much data, rushing features through, pushing top-down control and schedules making it difficult for engineers to push back for needs and to build systems effectively. A lot of corporations pretty much give marching orders to their engineers. Maybe if software engineers were licensed, and there was personal liability against one's license to disobey, it would create a strong incentive to not implement such systems. I have my doubts this would get implemented in the USA though, as we have already unfortunately mostly stood against regulations like the GDPR. Maybe the EU would do this - but I am not sure if it is a better strategy, if that is the intent, versus focusing the state on attacking companies with malicious intent and sending them directly out of business.
by mfkhalil | 2025-09-25 16:26:22+00:00
Thanks! Unlike a lot of our competitors who use search-inspired UX, we went with an agentic approach inspired by tools like Cursor - basically iterative user control.

Instead of just search query → final result (though you can do that too), you can step in and guide it. Tell it exactly where to look, what sources to check, how to dig deeper, how to use its notepad.

We've found this gets you way better results that actually match what you're looking for, as well as being a more satisfying user experience for people who already know how they would do the job themselves. Plus it lets you tap into niche datasets that wouldn't show up with just generic search queries.
by jgeada | 2025-09-25 16:26:23+00:00
It is the usual complexity rule of software: solving 80% of the problem is usually pretty easy at only takes about 50% of the estimated effort, it is the remaining 20% that takes up the remaining 90% of estimated effort (thus the usual schedule overruns).

The interesting thing is that there are problems for which this rule applies recursively. Of the remaining 20%, most of it is easier than the remaining 20% of what is left.

Most software ships without dealing with that remaining 20%, and largely that is OK; it is not OK for safety critical systems though.
by flatline | 2025-09-25 16:26:38+00:00
To pile on to the litany of complaints, I think PRs are a rather poor abstraction. It’s not a good way to review code. If I’m doing an actual review of anything complex, I’ll check out the branch, step through the code, jump around in the IDE: this is how we work with code, not through a fairly unreadable git diff.

PRs have no scope and no way to designate scope. What do I want from each reviewer? At some point, the PR becomes superfluous to adequate code review and communication around said review.

Ultimately they can be used to micromanage and gatekeep merges to main. This is the PR at its worst.

Overall I’m not a big fan, it feels like a necessary evil to meet the demands of Big Agile.
by evolve2k | 2025-09-25 16:26:41+00:00
Yes it’s a good thing AND we don’t need to be celebrating companies when they finally do the bare minimum.

Nobody with any semblance of ethical, just or just plain being a basic good corporate citizen would say.. oh yeah mass surveillance of the comms of a whole population for money is in any way acceptable or ok. This shouldn’t be a tech side note this should be a total meltdown front page scandal. What a disgusting abuse of power by all involved.
by larodi | 2025-09-25 16:27:21+00:00
Not saying these shouldn't be used together, but even then, increased complexity will pay only in very limited scenarios. The generic SQLite can perhaps handle 80% of all wordpress needs.

Postgres made gigantic leaps in recent years - both in performance and feature-set. I don't think ever comparing the new contenders with daddy is fair. But then there are the DuckDB advocates who claim it pioneered spatial, which is so much not true.

Postgres is amazing system, which is also available free. We don;t have too many of these, and too many aging that well.
by eszed | 2025-09-25 16:27:24+00:00
I'm right there with you on any kind of argument or hostility in youth (or adult rec-league - I can tell you stories about that) sports. It's awful, and out of place.

I guess I reconcile those positions because I follow the "top-flight" sports I enjoy (in part) as long-running, interconnected narratives. Some of that's on the technical level - like, "this guy played this way last time; how will he approach a similar situation this time" - but it also embraces the personalities involved. The three managers I mentioned were outsized characters in the baseball "story", and I enjoyed their roles - as did they. Each was well aware of the theatricality of their actions, as were the umpires, and there were very few genuine hard feelings.

Earl Weaver, in particular, sometimes ran onto the field bellowing something like "that was a good call! But you gotta run [eject] me here, 'cause I need get them [players / fans] into the game" (though doubtless with more profanity than is appropriate for this forum). Then he and the umpire would yell at each other for a bit, until he departed in (mock) high dudgeon. That was kayfabe, but not purely for the sake of spectacle. He believed - and there's research since that backs up his intuition - that getting his team and fans fired up would be a strategic advantage.

None of that applies / should apply to amateur competitions. I also respect your point of view if you don't watch professional sports from same the angle that I do.
Show HN: Roundtable MCP, Orchestrate Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini and Codex
by mahdiyar | 2025-09-25 16:27:27+00:00
Hey HN, Last week, I spent 40 minutes debugging a production issue that should have taken 5. Not because the bug was complex, but because I kept switching between Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Gemini - copying context, losing thread, starting over.

The workflow was painful: 1. Claude Code couldn't reproduce a React rendering bug 2. Copy-pasted 200 lines to Cursor - different answer, still wrong 3. Tried Codex - needed to re-explain the database schema 4. Finally Gemini spotted it, but I'd lost the original error logs This context-switching tax happens weekly. So I built Roundtable AI MCP Server.

What makes it different: Unlike existing multi-agent tools that require custom APIs or complex setup, Roundtable works with your existing AI CLI tools through the Model Context Protocol. Zero configuration - it auto-discovers what's installed and just works. Architecture: Your IDE → MCP Server → Multiple AI CLIs (parallel execution) It runs CLI Coding Agents in headless mode and shares the results with the LLM of choice. Real examples I use daily:

Example 1 - Parallel Code Review: Claude Code > Run Gemini, Codex, Cursor and Claude Code Subagent in parallel and task them to review my landing page at '@frontend/src/app/roundtable/page.tsx' → Gemini: React performance, component architecture, UX patterns → Codex: Code quality, TypeScript usage, best practices → Cursor: Accessibility, SEO optimization, modern web standards → Claude: Business logic, user flow, conversion optimization Save their review in {subagent_name}_review.md then aggregate their feedback Example 2 - Sequential Task Delegation: First: Assign Gemini Subagent to summarize the logic of '@server.py' Then: Send summary to Codex Subagent to implement Feature X from 'feature_x_spec.md' Finally: I run the code and provide feedback to Codex until all tests in 'test_cases.py' pass (Tests hidden from Codex to avoid overfitting) Example 3 - Specialized Debugging: Assign Cursor with GPT-5 and Cursor with Claude-4-thinking to debug issues in 'server.py' Here's the production log: [memory leak stacktrace] Create comprehensive fix plan with root cause analysis All run in parallel with shared project context. Takes 2-5 minutes vs 20+ minutes of manual copy-paste coordination.

Try it: pip install roundtable-ai roundtable-ai --check # Shows which AI tools you have I'd love feedback on: 1. Which AI combinations work best for your debugging workflows? 2. Any IDE integration pain points? 3. Team adoption blockers I should address?

GitHub: [https://github.com/askbudi/roundtable](https://github.com/askbudi/roundtable) Website: [https://askbudi.ai/roundtable](https://askbudi.ai/roundtable)
by smacker | 2025-09-25 16:27:42+00:00
I tried it a few days ago, a privacy-focused Chrome that doesn't break browsing experience resonates with me. The team seems to care about quality and the browser felt good overall.

A few things that made me go back to Brave: - No vertical tabs - Sync with mobile - I haven't found how to show bookmarks bar only on blank page - Little customization for new tab page (might be fixable using extensions)

I'll definitely follow the project as Brave is far from perfect too.
by adipose | 2025-09-25 16:27:46+00:00
Not quite. The estimated publication date has kept sliding--later, less specific--with no context or announcements.

The original HN post said, "The final publication date is set for mid-January 2024." Early-access was framed as "so that you can start learning today, but also, so I can get feedback and refine the content of the book with your feedback." Yet in two years there’s been no content updates, no requests for feedback--nothing.

delays happen, and writing a book is tough. But two years of radio silence while still posting plenty of unrelated writing, blog posts, and projects (like Pingoo itself) isn’t the situation that was advertised. An active project with normal delays and complexity is way different than vaporware. Buyers expected an active, rough-but-completion-in-sight project they’d help refine--not immediate and total abandonment and silence.

So after two years of this, seeing Sylvain's frustration about a lack of clarity/communication from someone he's given money to and has expectations of (GitHub), is pretty galling to be frank.

Having no communication from people you’ve given money to sucks, doesn’t it, Sylvain?

If there is a really simple, honest, clear narrative that proves me wrong on all of this, I'd be thrilled. Let's hear it!

---

edits: typos, organization
by sleepybrett | 2025-09-25 16:28:07+00:00
> - nobody reads intermediate commit messages one by one on a PR, period. I worked on a team where the lead was adamant about this and started to write messages in the vein of “if you’re reading this message, I’ll give u $5”. I never paid anyone a dollar. Don’t waste your time writing stuff for no one.

I often do, In a larger PR or in one where it's hard to tell what is being accomplished, like this article articulates the commits can tell a story of the engineers journey to solution. Even if I review a commit that is largely undone by future commits that piece of history is often key to my understanding.
by sugarpimpdorsey | 2025-09-25 16:28:24+00:00
That's a funny way to say "they fired staff that vandalized company property, broke into the CEO's office, and used an internal company website to publish and promote anti-company propaganda".

That will get you fired from bussing tables or washing dishes, let alone a six-figure job at MS.

Edit: Source on the last one; the first two were widely reported on in media:

https://lunduke.substack.com/p/fired-microsoft-employee-enco...
by WorldMaker | 2025-09-25 16:28:25+00:00
It's a bit of a catch-22 because if you add enough lower compensated employees you shift the local median lower. If "everyone" in the local area is hiring more cheaper H-1Bs that gives you a chance to hire even more H-1Bs for even cheaper. Averages can be a fun game that way.

Even if you try to pin it to the median that does not include H-1Bs, you still are letting the market compete on labor cost and that competition can still affect the local median. Companies decide all the time that they could hire, for example, 2 H-1Bs for the cost of one "senior" local developer, encouraging that local developer to maybe only ask for 1.5x "an H-1B" to remain competitive in that market. Iterate that enough in hiring decisions and companies still have more control of that local median than labor does.

I don't know if there is a "fair" way to set the cost of labor for an H-1B, but "local median" or any other average-based math is probably not it.
by doublerabbit | 2025-09-25 16:28:41+00:00
I was one of those scene-kids. Some Java guy joined the IRC channel saw what we had coded, swore bloody mercy and then rewrote it as a lesson to us.

I lost the archive on an old hard-drive however the scene still limps along. C# and Java were the main languages used.

https://forum.ragezone.com/community/habbo-hotel.282/
by niksmac | 2025-09-25 16:30:15+00:00
When you’re making your first 10 hires, every decision is magnified. These aren’t just roles on an org chart they’re the people who will set your culture, build your first product, and shape your survival odds.

And yet, many founders fall into a familiar trap: chasing résumés stamped with FAANG logos. It feels safe. It reassures investors. But it often misses the kind of talent early-stage startups actually need: builders https://foundersarehiring.com
by a_tartaruga | 2025-09-25 16:30:37+00:00
It is an expensive research project. Actually doing this starting from no experience or tools you're probably looking at 6 months - 1 year and 10k. A little support from trained biologists would help a lot though.

Using DIY tools and not being a trained biostatistician or whoever usually looks at these things you are very likely to face errors you don't know how to account for. I would guess the odds are high you'll encounter scary false positives for example.

It sounds really fun though, something I've always wanted to do with more time.
by roguecoder | 2025-09-25 16:30:41+00:00
That is a performance issue, for sure, and those developers are throwing away some of the best feedback they can get.

A decent programmer can write code they can effectively work with. The really great programmers write code that even interns can effectively work with. The only way to get to that level is to get good at eliciting and taking in feedback from the people we want to be effective with our code.

It doesn't necessarily mean doing exactly what we are told: it means understanding the why of a comment, what underlying flaws or confusions a comment is pointing towards. It means encouraging people to ask questions in code reviews, rather than just leave commands: often a "how does this manage to do X?" comment points to a place where bugs were hiding anyway, even if also it is a chance to share a language feature.

Many engineers work in companies where being a really great programmer doesn't get you any points. Often the only reward for writing code that is easily modified later is the gratitude of a future developer asked to make a change to it years down the line.

But I am that developer often enough that that's still made the journey worth it for me.
by matheusmoreira | 2025-09-25 16:31:09+00:00
You don't have deliverability issues?

I entertained the idea of running my own mail servers for a while. After researching the topic it turned out that the internet now runs on an IP reputation system. Major email services like gmail assume that anything sent from unknown IPs is malicious.

So it looks like we've gotta be well connected to federate with the other email servers now. A nobody like me can't just start up his own mail server at home and expect to deliver email to his family members who use gmail or outlook. So I became a Proton Mail customer instead.
by dangus | 2025-09-25 16:31:21+00:00
Venture capital would love it if everyone worked overtime with no weekends to build “the next big thing.”

Your hobbies and interests should actually just be work and producing profit. Don’t spend the weekend taking a hike with your friends, you gotta get building.

The people doing that work are a probabilistic financial instrument to the VC system. The founders who fall for this trap instead of living a balanced life are just lowering the cost basis for the VC investors by giving away free labor.

In reality, you can build a startup while maintaining a work-life balance, but if everyone did that then VC firms would have to delay the purchase of their owners’ fifth yacht by a couple of months.

The only people who have the time and energy for the toxic startup founder lifestyle of thing are students and young people who haven’t yet established families and their optimism and interest is being exploited.
by observationist | 2025-09-25 16:31:22+00:00
Use other services where necessary, and sparingly. Use only what's functionally necessary, and diversify. Encourage your employer or organization to avoid vendor lock. Don't ever meet with salespeople, stay in charge of your websites and infrastructure. Find a highly disagreeable technical engineer to tell you what you can get away with; you probably don't need the scale of the things CloudFlare, AWS, et al impose by default.

AI right now can do all of that for you; pay for the best initially, have it do deep searches that meet what you need, and find appropriate contractors and services. Drop down to the plus tier after you get what you need initially, if the $200+ versions are too steep, but you can absolutely afford one month to plan an overhaul that doesn't empty your wallet.

Mandate open standards and bake in flexibility to your organization; pivot frequently and aggressively away from companies and services that don't meet your principles or standards.

Wherever possible use self hosting, decentralized protocols, open standards, FOSS software, and pay for expertise over the massive overkill "but wait, there's more!" the conglomerators offer. Their economies of scale serve to consolidate unearned and unaccountable power, often in cooperation with very shady players.

Yeah, tragedy of the commons, this is why we can't have nice things, because it's hard, and complex, and actual evil people exist who will absolutely ddos sites and exploit every and any opportunity to grift people out of their money. Cloudflare is a well marketed bundle of solutions for real problems, but it's definitely not the only solution.

It's up to you to what extent you compromise on principles - with AI it's becoming much easier to find acceptable alternatives without having extensive domain expertise. Normal search engines are almost completely captured by SEO and big market players, and we have a window of opportunity to use new AI search to find things that defy the status quo. The window will probably close sometime in the near future, but until then, take full advantage and position yourself to not be subject to companies or industries that shouldn't be taking it upon themselves to gatekeep the internet.

Also, yell at your representatives about getting a digital bill of rights, protecting the open internet, breaking apart monopolies, and cultivating what's best for the internet, and the world.

We have to stop pissing away the good for the convenience of the cheap.

/soapbox
by tptacek | 2025-09-25 16:31:41+00:00
In what sense do you mean that healthcare isn't a competitive market? Are you talking about locales with only one nearby hospital? I'm in a big city and I have 3 of them, and the choice of 5 different major provider chains. I don't like the system (I think provider abuses are the major cause of health spending problems in this country), but one thing I can't say is that I don't have options.
by woodruffw | 2025-09-25 16:31:59+00:00
I think a significantly more parsimonious explanation is that Israel is an extremely flawed democracy, and that its political leadership (namely Netanyahu) are not directly accountable to the public will.

Polling in Israel appears to reflect this[1].

This is a recurring theme in MENA politics: even the most democratically "colored" countries in the region consistently put political preservation over long team regional interests. Israel's recent version of this is arguably the most despicable in terms of outcomes, but it's not particularly unique.

[1]: https://www.timesofisrael.com/breaking-with-pm-74-of-israeli...
by redleggedfrog | 2025-09-25 16:32:00+00:00
It will never ever ever happen, because the nearly the entire software industry actively works against anything that inhibits pace of development.

Software is mostly created by businesses. Business want to make money above all else. Creating software needs to take the absolute minimum amount of time and money and quality, both in code and the program functioning itself, is an afterthought.

Because software isn't a tangible product, like a car or a bridge or a building, there is a prejudice against having certification for the engineers. It's not "important" like tangible objects that easily (most of the time) have their flaws exposed. Less important means less emphasis on craft, and you shouldn't need a certificate to prove you can add code to a project.

This cat has been out of the bag for so long it's just preposterous to think it will change. The current model of, "just get anything that can move the project forward," be it offshore, AI, hordes, long hours, whatever, will always be the strategy.

If you want quality write it for yourself. Early on in my career I built a carefully curated set of moonlight clients that my employer(s) did not know about. Here I wrote high quality software on my own timelines, emphasizing quality over everything else, because I am a one man team and don't have time for support. Now those clients pay me more each month than my employer. Most months I just get a check in the mail and don't have to do anything. As one said, "It just keeps working and we even forget it's there." (most of the software is integration related).

So it can be done, you just have to have the priority be different than a business that is in it for the money alone.
by mfkhalil | 2025-09-25 16:32:05+00:00
We currently use Firecrawl for our crawling infrastructure. Looking at their documentation, they claim to respect robots.txt, but based on user reports in their GitHub issues, the implementation seems inconsistent - particularly for one-off scrapes vs full crawls.

This is definitely something we need to address on our end. Site owners should have clear ways to opt out, and crawlers should be identifiable. We're looking into either working with Firecrawl to improve this or potentially switching to a solution that gives us more control over respecting these standards.

Appreciate you bringing this up.