MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by NitpickLawyer | 2025-11-07 14:19:03+00:00
> In the case where the software is life and death it's generally developed in ways similar to 'real' engineering

I think even that is highly romanticised by people. Take Boeing's two big blunders in recent years. The Max and Starliner both had terrible terrible software practices that were "by the book". The problem is "the book" really changed a lot, and the behemoths haven't kept up.

It used to be that "the NASA way" was the most reliable way to build software, and there are still articles and blog posts shared here about the magical programming "rules", but frankly they've been left behind by the industry. On the Starliner project Boeing was seen as the "stable, reliable, tried and true" partner, while Dragon was seen as the "risky" one. Yet Boeing doing everything by the book had 2 loss of crew problems in their first uncrewed demo flight, one relating to software timers, and their crewed demo flight was plagued by problems root-caused to a lack of integration testing. Again, everything by the book, and they failed multiple times on the happy path! The book has to be rewritten, taking into account what the software industry (tech) has "learned" in the past decades. Just think about man-hours and amounts of billions that went into tech software engineering and you can see that obviously NASA can't keep up.
by isodev | 2025-11-07 14:19:09+00:00
> it's a 'software doesn't really kill people so government doesn't intervene in it'

I think we've reached the point where this is no longer true - self driving cars, supposed robots you can take home, LLMs being unleashed to randomly guess at medical data or write software to do verification or sensitive tasks.

I think software engineering is definitely engineering, we've just been successful in lobbying against proper regulation. But all that is changing, the EU is introducing the Cyber Resilience Act and I think we need a lot more of that.
by wrathofmonads | 2025-11-07 14:19:31+00:00
Seems like Windows is trying to address the Electron problem by adopting React Native for their WinAppSDK. RN is not just a cross-platform solution, but a framework that allows Windows to finally tap into the pool of devs used to that declarative UI paradigm. They appear to be standardizing on TypeScript, with C++ for the performance-critical native parts. They leverage the scene graph directly from WinAppSDK. By prioritizing C++ over C# for extensions and TS for the render code, they might actually hit the sweet spot.

https://microsoft.github.io/react-native-windows/docs/new-ar...
by Havoc | 2025-11-07 14:19:34+00:00
Meta is cooked. It's not just scam portion - their entire strategy is in trouble

FB - nobody I know actively uses it anymore.

Insta - is being overrun with AI slop and given meta's stated goal of adding more AI interactions on their platforms I doubt they'll even try to get a grip on it let alone succeed

Whatsapp & FB messenger - some use but has zero moat over other messengers. It's a completely fungible service in a space that has fractured across many providers.

VR/meta/AI/etc - they keep trying. Maybe one day

...that leaves their adtech which only works due to their invasive tracking...that is directly dependent on their other properties succeeding: Their targeting edge comes directly from front row seats tracking users behaviour on their platforms. No users, no insights.
by beklein | 2025-11-07 14:19:37+00:00
I love OpenRouter, since it is a simple way to get started and provides a wide range of available models.

You can buy credits and set usage limits for safe testing per API key to gain access from many AI models through one simple and unified API from all popular model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, DeepSeek, Z.AI, Qwen, ...)

Ten dollars is plenty to get started... experiments like in the post will cost you cents, not dollars.
by cardanome | 2025-11-07 14:20:32+00:00
While memory safety can help reduce many security vulnerabilities it is not the only source of vulnerabilities. Furthermore as for getting hacked I would suspect the main problems to be social engineering, bad configuration and lack of maintenance and not really the software itself being insecure.

> That’s like saying “everyone else runs Pentium 2, why would I upgrade to Pentium 3?”

No one should blindly upgrade because bigger number is better. If I look into new hardware I research benchmarks and figure out if it would enable me to (better) run the software/games I care about it and if the improvement is worth my money.

Same with security. You need to read actual studies and figure out what the cost/benefit of certain measures is.

There are safer alternatives to Linux but apparently the situation isn't bad enough for people to switch to them.

And I am not saying you should create new projects in C or C++. Most people should not. But there is a lot of battle tested C and C++ code out there and to act as if we suddenly have this big problem with memory safety is a weird narrative to push. And if you discover a vulnerability, well fix it instead of wrapping it Fil-C and making the whole thing slower.
by japhyr | 2025-11-07 14:20:47+00:00
> But ChatGPT doesn't advertise itself like that.

One of the big problems is how OpenAI is presenting itself to the general public. They don't advertise ChatGPT as a licensed therapist, but their messaging about potential issues looks a lot like the small print on cigarette cartons years ago. They don't want to put out any messaging that would meaningfully diminish the awe people have around these tools.

Most non-technical people I interact with have no understanding of how ChatGPT and tools like it work. They have no idea how skeptical to be of anything that comes out of it. They accept what it says much more readily than is healthy, and OpenAI doesn't really want to disturb that approach.
by w4 | 2025-11-07 14:21:29+00:00
Because of benchmarking LLMs have also been pushed towards fluency in Python, and related frameworks like Django and Flask. For example, SWE-Bench Verified is nearly 50% Django framework PR tasks: https://epoch.ai/blog/what-skills-does-swe-bench-verified-ev...

It will be interesting to see how durable these biases are as labs work towards developing more capable small models that are less reliant on memorized information. My naive instinct is that these biases will be less salient over time as context windows improve and models become increasingly capable of processing documentation as a part of their code writing loop, but also that, in the absence of instruction to the contrary, the models will favor working with these tools as a default for quite some time.
by BoppreH | 2025-11-07 14:21:34+00:00
I think this eternal discussion persists because we conflate two different aspects of software engineering: the technical and the social.

Technically, we're a mature discipline. The author laments our lack of tools as advanced as architectural CAD systems, but I'm unconvinced. We have static types, tests, linters, version control, benchmarks, standard data formats and protocols, deployment orchestration, debuggers. It's pretty nice.

Socially, our discipline feels immature. As mentioned, we don't know how well TDD works, how best to write documentation, or how to pick a flavor of agile. But these are meta-problems that plague every discipline! I challenge you to find a high quality study comparing imperial vs metric units in architecture, or the ideal number of architects for a given project size.
by WillAdams | 2025-11-07 14:21:37+00:00
To add to that, I would like to note:

https://pythonscad.org/

(which to be fair, is getting integrated into OpenSCAD Dev/Nightly)

which was a sea change for me in terms of both my usage, and my learning as a programmer, making my own project far more capable --- working on one last re-write (making use of skin() for straight-line moves), and it should be ready for general usage.
by dwb | 2025-11-07 14:22:04+00:00
I said “the burden”, not “the burden of proof”. Not all inquisitions are worthwhile. The questions in your post have very obvious answers, especially in the context of the article.

> Isn't it just like diary-writing or memo-writing, as far as therapy goes, the point being to crystallise thoughts and cathartise emotions?

No, because a piece of paper is inert. A chat bot is a fundamentally different interaction and experience. A chat bot is not doing self-reflection. It is another thing, separate to you. What’s more, it is a product of a company that has a profit-seeking agenda.

> Is it really so bad to have a textual nodding dog to bat against as part of that process?

Yes, it can be, because sometimes it encourages you to kill yourself, as in the article linked at the top of the page, the one that we are commenting on.
by samlinnfer | 2025-11-07 14:22:05+00:00
A new car built by my company leaves somewhere travelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
by uvaursi | 2025-11-07 14:22:12+00:00
I’ll stick my neck out and say SICP has never been relevant to me. I’ve tinkered from embedded, to OS, to databases, to desktop applications, drivers, compilers, web applications, and all sorts of shit inbetween when I’m not reversing some archaic binary compiled in a pre-standard C++. I’ve done both idiomatic programming in a language as well as applying idioms from other languages that I liked. I’ve turned C# into Lisp because it couldn’t do what I needed it to do. I read through ARM opcode docs while I’m daydreaming of writing Ruby.

When I looked at SICP I saw one thing: an introduction to “thinking about programming” for people who will have to re-learn everything and will maybe use a few things here and there. The fundamentals matter but the application is the “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” phase of actual learning. There are much better ways to go about studying and learning and I found SICP lacking, among other course work that I think is taught backwards and makes it hard to reason and apply.

Read “Great Programmers” by Bram Cohen. The wisdom is there, but it’s lost on people.

Just my 2c.
by virgilp | 2025-11-07 14:22:20+00:00
a million ways, but e.g: once in a while, add a "challenge" header; the next request should contain a "challenge-reply" header for said challenge. If you're just reusing the access token, you won't get it right.

Or: just have a convention/an algorithm to decide how quickly Claude should refresh the access token. If the server knows token should be refreshed after 1000 requests and notices refresh after 2000 requests, well, probably half of the requests were not made by Claude Code.
by EbersbergDev | 2025-11-07 14:22:44+00:00
When I upgraded to the new Philips Hue Pro Bridge, I noticed that none of my scenes carried over when reconnecting to Apple Home.

To simplify this, I created the Home Hue Scene Importer app.

Hue has since introduced a migration option for individual scenes, but I still find it somewhat inconvenient.

The app is now available here: [https://apps.apple.com/de/app/home-hue-scene-importer/id6753...](Home Hue Scene Importer) on the App Store
by okaleniuk | 2025-11-07 14:22:58+00:00
Well, yes, but after the 75 years, don't you think that "too young" argument is getting old? Nuclear energy, medical imaging, and the space part of aerospace are all younger than "software development". These are all mature industries highly codified, and they also all also encompass software development among other things. Could it be that software development isn't an engineering discipline at all but a supporting activity?

Writing isn't an engineering discipline. And all industries rely heavily on writing. Could it be that writing software is just writing for computers and as such could only by codified within another engineering discipline and not by its own?
by gosub100 | 2025-11-07 14:23:44+00:00
I had a similar thought regarding OS'. Especially in they heydey of malware in the early 2000s when 3rd party apps were the only way to remove it. You don't buy a truck and accept that its wheel falls off every time you hit a bump. Therefore Microsoft should have been civilally liable for all the costs of software removal and loss of enjoyment of computers that ran Windows (along with OEMs that sold them).
by japhyr | 2025-11-07 14:23:52+00:00
> Because if that's not at least a "maybe", I feel like chatGPT did provide comfort in a dire situation here.

That's a pretty concerning take. You can provide comfort to someone who is despondent, and you can do it in a way that doesn't steer them closer to ending their life. That takes training though, and it's not something these models are anywhere close to being able to handle.
by jermaustin1 | 2025-11-07 14:24:17+00:00
A friend of mine who ran a print farm actually told me about OpenSCAD when I shared a screenshot of my first design (a ball joint with armature). So I didn't take inspiration, but I plan on learning it just to figure out how they handle things like fillets. Because currently my fillets are blowing up. I contemplated just faking the fillets using an extrusion with a cylinder cut out of it, but if I can define edges in code and fillet them that would be better.
by 1970-01-01 | 2025-11-07 14:24:33+00:00
This doesn't prove it's aliens. It does add to my mass-hysteria hypothesis. I want to see the biological remains firsthand in Zimbabwe, Japan, etc. I want to see the crater the UFO left on the ground. I want to see the craft. Where's the physical evidence? Not photos, actual dirt displaced, metal alloy, extraterrestrial biological remains, etc.
by jaffa2 | 2025-11-07 14:24:35+00:00
I suppose its a manifestation of the old adage the people do business with people. You are presenting as 'you', a human, an individual that will give the personal touch. Not some corporation that has 'departments' and acts as a faceless churn machine.

Personally I'd rather have no emails of either type. Too many emails these days about everything. No I don't want to review X, or provide content for you (not you) for Y. I guess some people like it though.
by neogodless | 2025-11-07 14:25:33+00:00
Perhaps you didn't read the article, or you did and failed to grasp the key points about the "game spiral" or unpredictable things becoming predictable?

But let's simplify this. What are your favorite games, and in what way do they sidestep having any repeated challenges? Do they have one single challenge, after which the game is over? Is that fun?

Sure, RPGs tend to have "repeated" battles or harvesting. Racing has repeated laps. FPS have repeatedly finding someone else to shoot. Coding simulators like Factorio have you repeatedly add automation, and repeatedly replace them with better automation. Platformers have you repeatedly move through platforms.

This is all illustrated and explained in the article, though.
by 9rx | 2025-11-07 14:25:41+00:00
> A house comprises many parts. A custom motorcycle has many parts.

Hence why they are engineered. I suspect you mentioned houses because the people who build houses are often referred to as builders, but that is because the people working houses often only do work on a single component. The system as a whole is referred to as engineering, though.

> with calculations and formalised decision-making processes and the like.

You too seem to be confusing "engineering" with "professional engineering". While societies of professional engineers would like people to think that engineering is defined by mathematical and scientific rigour, that's not how anyone actually uses the term in practice. The "software engineering" label wouldn't exist if they did.
by gdulli | 2025-11-07 14:25:43+00:00
> None of the students — even in an elective course about media — confessed any interest in becoming a journalist. A few could name news organizations they trusted but others said the news came to them through social media or what friends shared or what they overheard as their parents were watching television.

> A little less than half (45%) of teens said journalists do more to harm democracy than to protect it.

These kids? Extreme and reflexive distrust of institutions is as harmful as the opposite. People have been trained to distrust institutions because that makes them manipulable by even worse actors.
by assemblyman | 2025-11-07 14:25:54+00:00
A lot of people have already mentioned cases where this is neither true nor desirable e.g. high-energy and condensed matter physics, astrophysics, any branch of pure mathematics etc.

But, more importantly, who dictates what needs to happen. If you so desire, you should absolutely sing a tune in the shower, write a poem for yourself, calculate an effect and throw the piece of paper away, write code and delete it. The satisfaction is in exercising your creative urges, learning a new skill, exploring your curiosity even if no one else sees it or uses it.

I have had the privilege of working with some of the best physicists on the planet. Every single one of them has exposed only part of their work to the world. The rest might not be remarkable in terms of novelty but was crucial to them. They had to do it irrespective of "impact" or "importance". The dead-ends weren't dead to them.

Philosophically, as far as I know, we all get one shot at living. If I can help it, I am going to only spend a fraction of my time choosing to be "part of the pipeline of demand and supply". The rest will be wanderings.
by Larrikin | 2025-11-07 14:25:55+00:00
You can actively poison your ad profile by using AdNauseum, which clicks on all the ads and then throws away the response. The actual ads are still hidden using UBO under the hood.

You can also use AdGuard+Tailscale to get DNS blocking of all ads on all devices. Tailscale will let you block in app ads, even on your phone even when on the cell network.

I combine both to block as much as possible.
by sota_pop | 2025-11-07 14:26:10+00:00
Engineer is to scientist as builder is to engineer.

Scientists take reality observations and make theories/models/principles. Engineers take scientific principles and make technological designs. Builders take available technologies and make a product/object/_thing_.

In each level, understanding how your inputs work defines the minimum criteria of success, but those who take the time to understand the “why” are largely considered “the good ones”.

And the rest is turtles all the way down.
by Kkoala | 2025-11-07 14:26:19+00:00
A similar thing happened to me, not with a video game, but with chess!

Started seeing a chessboard overlayed everywhere, and thinking what the next move for me and other "game objects" would be.

This was after just getting into chess and playing it many times a day, almost every day.

It was a very weird feeling. Luckily, it passed after a while. I stopped playing chess after a while too, and kinda been avoiding it since.
by Razengan | 2025-11-07 14:26:20+00:00
I mean, this is tricky to even ask: is there still expansion INSIDE galaxies, BUT it's countered by gravity?

Or is there no expansion within galaxies at all?

i.e. is dark energy or whatever that causes expansion only present in the absence of matter, or is it present everywhere regardless of matter, but because matter also has its own gravity the expansion is not visible/relevant?
by WillAdams | 2025-11-07 14:26:24+00:00
Sturgeon's Law.

For counter-examples see:

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/taocp.html

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSAYlu0NcY

which is about the wonderful book:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39996759-a-philosophy-of...
by esseph | 2025-11-07 14:26:50+00:00
I mean, these things do exist. There are always tons of big and small tech projects floating around in the special operations community. Cutting-edge sets of hybrid night/thermal vision. Classified helicopters. Hand-built rifled with custom cartridges. Classified medical tech. Advanced fixed wing aircraft with unique capabilities. Advanced dive gear. So on.

"Big Army" doesn't see that stuff for decades, if ever, and mostly never due to cost. And I'm not even getting into classified submarine and nuclear tech, fixed wing drones and aircraft flying at night out of known test facilities, etc.

There's tons of actually advance tech out there in military circles.
by getnormality | 2025-11-07 14:27:23+00:00
Yes. This is also not hard to see intuitively from scratch.

Say you have a smooth but highly flexible model y = f(x) and some data points you are fitting with a machine learning algorithm. For whatever reason, the algorithm decides it wants to reduce training error by interpolating some specific point, (x0,y0), without negatively affecting training error on nearby points. The direct, guaranteed successful way to do this is to adjust the model to y0 = f(x0) exactly on x0 by adding a Dirac delta there, leaving the rest of f exactly as-is. But this cannot be done on a differentiable model, as it would create a discontinuity. The next best thing that such a model can actually do is replace the Dirac delta with a smooth but very narrow bump (e.g. Gaussian). But this narrow bump will inevitably have extremely high curvature at x0, since the bump is flat at x0 and it has to merge with the neighborhood around x0 in a very short distance.

Think of driving: if you have to change lanes in a very short distance, you're going to have to steer hard. Steering is curvature.
by saurik | 2025-11-07 14:28:03+00:00
There are many things one can do to mitigate the (weaker) point 1, including simply not supporting any kind of migration at all. I only bothered to go there to demonstrate that the ability to live migrate is a liability here, not a benefit.

> targeting users should require a wide attack that’s likely to be detected

Regardless, Apple's attacker here doesn't sound like Apple: the "wide attack that's likely to be detected" is going to be detected by them. We even seemingly have to trust them that this magic hardware has the properties they claim it does.

This is way worse than most of these schemes, as if I run one of these on Intel hardware, you inherently are working with multiple parties (me and Intel).

That we trust Apple to not be lying about the entire scheme so they can see the data they are claiming not to be able to see is thereby doing the heavy lifting.
by kqr | 2025-11-07 14:28:19+00:00
Not to mention the immense effort from the modding community.

The Tamriel Rebuilt mod opens up much of mainland Morrowind for exploration (the official game covers only the island of Vvardenfell) and it is huge. It's as if they had released a Morrowind 2 but made it twice as big and still in the exact same style as the original.
by spicyusername | 2025-11-07 14:28:22+00:00
I mean, the heyday of print news was almost a century ago and televised news decades ago.

Basically all digital news outlets, outside of just a few notable outliers, have no money to produce anything but low effort articles that are just a vehicle to show ads. And some of those are active propaganda outlets for basically nothing but evil interest groups.

What is there to have a positive view about...?

Society stopped paying for journalism and we got what we paid for.
by neogodless | 2025-11-07 14:28:24+00:00
I think you might be better served seeking out counterexamples. There are presumably more game makers and games now than there were yesterday. (Even if AAA studios consolidate.) So surely some are bad, some are too focused on visuals and not nearly enough on "the gameplay loop."

But games come out that break the mold of AAA style over substance, and sometimes they are great. Games like Stardew Valley or Valheim or Factorio had very small teams, and rudimentary graphics, and yet offered up countless hours of addictive gameplay.

What are some other examples of breakout hits?