MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by simonw | 2026-01-24 14:26:59+00:00
Honestly, grilling him about what the CEO had tweeted didn't even cross my mind.

I wanted to get to the truth of what had actually been built and how. If that contradicts what the CEO said then great, the truth is now out there - anyone is free to call that out and use my video as ammunition.

I just had a look to see what Michael Truell had said about the project, here it is: https://x.com/mntruell/status/2011562190286045552

> We built a browser with GPT-5.2 in Cursor. It ran uninterrupted for one week.

> It's 3M+ lines of code across thousands of files. The rendering engine is from-scratch in Rust with HTML parsing, CSS cascade, layout, text shaping, paint, and a custom JS VM.

> It kind of works! It still has issues and is of course very far from Webkit/Chromium parity, but we were astonished that simple websites render quickly and largely correctly.

This doesn't strike me as the world's most dishonest tweet, though it exaggerates what was achieved. There IS a JS VM in there but it's feature-flagged off. The from-scratch is misleading because there are libraries handling certain aspects - most notably Taffy - which we discussed in the interview.

I just ran "cloc" and to my surprise it counted 3,036,403 (I had thought the 3M was an exaggeration) though only 1,658,651 of that was Rust.

"It kind of works" is a fair assessment IMO!

I don't think "Let's talk about your CEO exaggerating what you built on Twitter" would have added much to the interview.

I did make sure to go over the controversies I thought were material to the project, which is why I dug into the dependencies and talked about QuickJS and Taffy.
by mariusor | 2026-01-24 14:27:46+00:00
Another person that isn't able to make the distinction between developing software and operating platforms and imagining that everyone else is equally befuddled.

The article is also quite wrong, because there are already multiple forks of the original Mastodon code base, which have communities that adopted them. Not at the same magnitude as mastodon.social, but not negligible either.

> The result is lost value, lost history, and lost trust – rinse, repeat, move on.

I hate, hate, hate when someone that's on the side of building things proscribes what the people that actually do build should spend their effort on. I don't see Mr. Campbell building communities, fostering cooperation and gathering funds so that people can better work together instead of apart on things.

This kind of article is an empty, preachy, hot take which misses the point that open source is about communities of builders, not about communities of users, and is uselessly antagonistic against a whole category of people for basically no reward.

And that implication at the bottom that forking, as opposed to "collaboration", is close to fascism is a level of being so far up their ass that gets my humors up and my blood boiling.
by maybewhenthesun | 2026-01-24 14:28:38+00:00
I don't really understand these sort of articles. If something is closed source and the original owners quit or decide they move to a subscription model or whatever then you're just screwed no matter what.

When the possibility of forking exist there's at least a chance someone (or you yourself) takes over maintenance. Even if it's just basic 'port it to newer systems' stuff.
by pshirshov | 2026-01-24 14:28:47+00:00
> sustaining a living project is not

Was not. It's much easier now, with LLMs. E.g. I can easily maintain a fork of a Gnome component instead of dealing with the convoluted motivation of the pricks ruling the project and not willing to merge features because of no reason (e.g. "we won't add tray icon to our app because tray icons are deprecated in gnome. So what there is no alternative, we don't want it" or "no, we won't accept a PR improving mouse navigation because our keyboard navigation is broken and noone wants to fix it").
by looshch | 2026-01-24 14:29:29+00:00
so much reasonable scepticism here is being downvoted, i don’t get why

to add my 2 cents: why does anyone think the EU countries don’t or won’t pose the same risks as the US? They might just be doing it silently and illegally. Where is the guarantee that the mere fact a service is EU-based provides benefits over using US-based ones?
by analog31 | 2026-01-24 14:29:55+00:00
A middle ground is "just write a plug-in." What I mean is, I like programs that provide a mechanism for scripting, adding a plug-in, whatever. This allows you to add a feature and perhaps even maintain it in your own repo, without trying to manage the entire project yourself.

Of course it only works for some kinds of changes, and not total structural or cultural revision, but still it seems to be a part of many of the most vibrant open source projects.
by furyofantares | 2026-01-24 14:30:19+00:00
I would think so too.

If their support is bad and you can get cut off from it with no recourse, is that a good reason to supply our fellow HN readers with misinformation based on rumor? We should just say false things to each other and it's OK as long as they're bad things about the right people? That is certainly how a lot of the internet works but I have higher hopes for us here.

We can just say "their support is bad and you can get cut off from it with no recourse" without also supporting misinformation.
by Noaidi | 2026-01-24 14:30:47+00:00
> Apple does not have access to them

Unless they are given a warrant, then they magically have access to your encrypted data.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-fbi-icloud-investigati...

If they can get access to your icloud, they can get access to your laptop if you store your decryption key in your keychain.
by andrewstuart | 2026-01-24 14:30:49+00:00
>> Do you actually understand how the program your AI created works?

Of course yes I designed and architected it.

>> I've tried using it. I can't get it to do anything useful

Look I really don’t want this to come across as mean or snarky, but you can’t be trying very hard if you haven’t explored the unbelievable power of Claude ChatGPT and Gemini. Or worse if you have, but couldn’t work out how to get them to do anything useful. Id encourage you to go try them and give them all a real go and invest some time learning how to get the best from them.
by codingdave | 2026-01-24 14:31:05+00:00
I must be overly idle during this storm and reading HN too much, because this is two days in a row when I get on HN and see you breaking the guidelines to say "Buy my book!", which as I stated yesterday is not really appreciated here.

The actual rule-breaking today is your posting of AI-generated content. 'Tis not allowed.

So let me just pre-empt tomorrow's chastisement by giving general advice: Don't use HN as a marketing channel to sell your stuff. Instead, engage with the community, discuss interesting things, and when a topic comes up where your work is truly relevant, feel free to post a link. Once in a while. You'll be welcomed if you do so, not so much if you spam your book at us.
by io_eric | 2026-01-24 14:31:52+00:00
Reactive DOM updates – When you change state, the compiler tracks dependencies and generates efficient update code. In WebCC C++, you manually manage every DOM operation and call flush().

JSX-like view syntax – Embedding HTML with expressions, conditionals (<if>), and loops (<for>) requires parser support. Doing this with C++ macros would be unmaintainable.

Scoped CSS – The compiler rewrites selectors and injects scope attributes automatically. In WebCC, you write all styling imperatively in C++.

Component lifecycle – init{}, mount{}, tick{}, view{} blocks integrate with the reactive system. WebCC requires manual event loop setup and state management.

Efficient array rendering – Array loops track elements by key, so adding/removing/reordering items only updates the affected DOM nodes. The compiler generates the diffing and patching logic automatically.

Fine-grained reactivity – The compiler analyzes which DOM nodes depend on which state variables, generating minimal update code that only touches affected elements.

From a DX perspective: Coi lets you write <button onclick={increment}>{count}</button> with automatic reactivity. WebCC is a low-level toolkit – Coi is a high-level language that compiles to it, handling the reactive updates and DOM boilerplate automatically.

These features require a new language because they need compiler-level integration – reactive tracking, CSS scoping, JSX-like templates, and efficient array updates can't be retrofitted into C++ without creating an unmaintainable mess of macros and preprocessors. A component-based declarative language is fundamentally better suited for building UIs than imperative C++.
Ask HN: May an Agent accepts a license to produce a build?
by athrowaway3z | 2026-01-24 14:31:58+00:00
For example, Android builds steer towards using `sdkmanager --licenses`.

Suppose I get a preconfigured VPS with Claude Code, and ask it to make an android port of an app I have built, it will almost always automatically downloads the sdkmanager and accepts the license.

That is the flow that exists many times in its training data (which represents its own interesting wrinkle).

Regardless of what is in the license; I was a bit surprised to see it happen, and I'm sure I won't be the last nor will the android sdk license be the only one.

What is the legal status of an agreement accepted in such a manner - and perhaps more importantly - what ought to be the legal status considering that any position you take will be exploited by bad faith ~~actors~~ agents?
by mobiledev2014 | 2026-01-24 14:32:03+00:00
I think it’s one of the best pieces of software in existence and I don’t say that lightly. In a perfect world we’d have a magic of box of every modular component to build and rebuild to tinker with the physical controls but in lieu of magic vcv rack plus a midi controller is the next best thing

Strudel is very cool. Possibilities are endless with music tools
by allenu | 2026-01-24 14:32:06+00:00
I agree that this is a component of it, but there are some other things at play here which I think is what makes the debate so furious.

For one, I think there's a sense of unfairness that people are expressing as well. A skill that took considerable time to learn and build up can be reproduced with a machine and that just feels unfair. Another, is obviously companies mandating employees use AI in their work. And then there's the environmental cost in training. Then there are the cases where it's being just for slop or submitting PRs that have not even been reviewed by their creator.

In my opinion, all of these factors make people refuse to see that some of us actually do find use for these tools and that we're not vibe-coding everything in some mad rush to ship trash.
by tarkin2 | 2026-01-24 14:32:08+00:00
Well, to many it seemed that an obvious cause-and-effect fact that should have come from empathy and introspection--that workers are just like you and I don't like being slighted--and didn't need to be written about.

Yet when of the top comments used dog training to explain manager-worker relations--something that empathy and introspection could tell you was a bit off (would you feel slighted if I make our interactions analogous to an owner and dog?)--it may show, yes, such does need to be spelt out these days.

I recall the University of Manchester was teaching university students empathy.
by 3rodents | 2026-01-24 14:32:33+00:00
If a skilled developer can achieve something in 1 week with 1,000 lines of code but it would take you 1 year and 1 million lines of code, is the issue that you don't have enough time, or that you don't have the necessary skills?

There is no shame whatsoever in using AI. You've edited your comment since I replied. I am not anti-AI. If you can build great things with or without AI, whether it takes 1 day or 1 week, or 1 year, it doesn't matter: good software is good software. Many very talented developers are using AI. There is also no shame in not having certain skills.

I am responding to "can’t get my head around why a developer wouldn’t want to use AI assisted programming". I explained that there are many developers who have a process that doesn't benefit from being able to generate lots of code very quickly. You said AI enables you to create "things that previously I’d have known how to design but not build in any reasonable timeframe". I'm happy for you, I'm glad AI has given you that, but there are many types of developer, many for whom that isn't a benefit of AI.

Reddit is filled with vibecoders sharing how vibecoding is a panacea because it enabled them to build an idea they've always wanted to build but never had the time. When pressed, they reveal an idea that could be achieved very simply but their vision for how it should be built is very complicated and unsophisticated. They needed AI to achieve it because their design needed millions of lines of code. I assume you're one of those people. And that's okay.

I am bad at math. Asking AI to do math for me will always be faster than doing it myself. However, unlike you, I can get my head around the reality that mathematicians are more efficient at doing math themselves.
by zozbot234 | 2026-01-24 14:32:44+00:00
It's not a delusion, it's reality. The Right-To-Fork is a critical part of the proper definition of FLOSS, and key to its success. OP is just saying that maintaining a FOSS project is hard, but who cares? Maintenance is open to forking too: if you think an existing maintainer is doing a bad job of it, you can just take that code wholesale and maintain a version of it on your own.
by andersmurphy | 2026-01-24 14:33:01+00:00
The thing is sqlite can scale further vertically than most network databases. In some context's like writes and interactive transactions it outright scales further. [1]

That's before you even get into sharding sqlite.

[1] - https://andersmurphy.com/2025/12/02/100000-tps-over-a-billio...
by chii | 2026-01-24 14:33:29+00:00
> i've heard it as a dismissal countless times.

a project owner have the right to be dismissive about anything regarding their own project. This is why "just fork it" is both dismissive, but also power.

If you are simply asking a project owner to do somethings you wanted (often for free, i might add), then why shouldn't they be dismissive?

If you have an idea for said project that the owner is dismissive about, then you fork it - prove that the idea is good.
Show HN: Ask your repos what shipped in plain English
by inferno22 | 2026-01-24 14:34:16+00:00
Gitmore (https://gitmore.io) – makes Git activity accessible to people who don't use Git. Every commit has a message. Every PR has a title and description. The status update already exists. It's just locked in GitHub.
Who this is for:

- Founders updating investors - PMs writing release notes - CEOs who want visibility without standups - Anyone who asks "what shipped?" and waits for an engineer to respond

What it does:

Connect your repos. Ask questions: - "What shipped this month?" - "Who worked on the billing feature?" - "Which PRs are stuck?"

Or schedule automated reports to Slack or email. Weekly, monthly, whatever.

How it works:

We register webhooks. Git platforms push event metadata – commit messages, PR titles, descriptions, authors, timestamps, file counts.

Every event gets normalized into a structured schema. The AI queries structure, not raw text.

What we don't do:

We don't do code review. We don't analyze diffs. We don't compete with Coderabbit or Greptile. Those are for engineers inside the PR workflow.

This is for people outside that workflow who need visibility.

Security:

Webhooks only. We never clone repos or access source code.

- Token encryption: Fernet (HMAC-SHA256 + AES-128-CBC) - Webhook verification: HMAC-SHA256 - 2FA support

Works with GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.

Free for 1 repo: https://gitmore.io

How do non-technical people at your company stay informed on dev progress?
by rpdillon | 2026-01-24 14:35:35+00:00
There's no way to win in these threads. It's a very common pattern on HN that somebody will say, "X doesn't exist!" And then people will proceed to point out that in fact does exist. And then you'll find out that the original poster has a bunch of non-functional requirements that were baked into their original request that they didn't state, and I usually don't agree with (typically because they are either not practical or only of theoretical concern).
They'll typically defend them using highly charged language, like claiming that having to carry a 200 gram device will pull their pants down because it's so heavy, or that managing a Bluetooth stack and USB doesn't require an OS, but rather just a couple of event loops that a non-professional could code directly in firmware.

I've simply stopped participating because in my efforts to try to help people, I find that I just get into silly arguments.
by michaelt | 2026-01-24 14:35:58+00:00
For a long time, if you used full disk encryption, the encryption key never left your machine. If you forgot your password, the data was gone - tough luck, should have made a backup. That's still how it works on Linux.

Pretty surprising they'd back up the disk encryption secrets to the cloud at all, IMHO, let alone that they'd back it up in plaintext.
by cpgxiii | 2026-01-24 14:36:00+00:00
> There are four pair of wires in the cable. If you use all of them for TX, you can't receive.

No, you absolutely can use them all for transmit and receive at the same time. The device at each end knows what signal it is transmitting, and can remove that from the received signal to identify what has been transmitted by the other end.

This is the magic that made 1000Base-T win out among the candidates for Gige over copper, since it required the lowest signaling frequencies and thus would run better over existing cables.
by kcplate | 2026-01-24 14:37:06+00:00
At no point did I say the legal system is always right. I suggested that in certain situations it might be right and in those situations resorting to violence because you feel aggrieved at a legal loss would not be an appropriate response. Frankly, some people are guilty and some people are legally responsible.

I suggested that if you are having difficulty finding an attorney willing to take your case on contingency, there might be a reason for that. I stand by that. You are asking a person to take a risk on your behalf who has evaluated the environment and didn’t like the odds.
by blibble | 2026-01-24 14:38:05+00:00
> The one I won't forgive was our water. I believe we're the only developed country to have privatised our water, with disastrous consequences.

100% agreed

there's no market or competition at any level (even RAIL had somewhat competitive bidding for franchises)

they're just Henry VIII style granted monopolies, with the results are the same as they were 800 years ago

(well, other than the civil war bit)

> And that one can be squarely laid at the feet of Margaret 'Fucking" Thatcher (real name).

water was another EU triggered one: the EU (EEC) kept writing new water directives, and the government couldn't figure out another way to fund their implementation
by simoncion | 2026-01-24 14:38:08+00:00
> Yes, and those are interesting topics to discuss. "AI is useless and I refuse to use it and hate you if you do" isn't...

Did you read Mr. Bushell's policy [0], which is linked to by TFA? Here's a very relevant pair of sentences from the document:

Whilst I abstain from AI usage, I will continue to work with clients and colleagues who choose to use AI themselves. Where necessary I will integrate AI output given by others on the agreement that I am not held accountable for the combined work.

And from the "Ensloppification" article [1], also linked by TFA:

I’d say [Declan] Chidlow verges towards AI apologism in places but overall writes a rational piece. [2] My key takeaway is to avoid hostility towards individuals†. I don’t believe I’ve ever crossed that line, except the time I attacked you [3] for ruining the web.

† I reserve the right to “punch up” and call individuals like Sam Altman a grifter in clown’s garb.

Based on this information, it doesn't seem that Mr. Bushell will hate anyone for using "AI" tools... unless they're CEO pushers.

Or are you talking in generalities? If you are, then I find the unending stream of hype articles from folks using this quarter's hottest tool to be extremely disinteresting. It's important for folks who object to the LLM hype train to publish and publicize articles as a counterpoint to the prevailing discussion.

As an aside, the LLM hype reminds me of the hype for Kubernetes (which I was personally enmeshed in for a great many years), as well as the Metaverse and various varieties of Blockchain hype (which I was merely a bystander for).

[0] <https://dbushell.com/ai/>

[1] <https://dbushell.com/2025/05/30/ensloppification/>

[2] link in the pull quote being discussed to: <https://vale.rocks/posts/ai-criticism>

[3] inline link to: <https://dbushell.com/2025/05/15/slopaganda/>
by codethief | 2026-01-24 14:38:12+00:00
> It's CICD syntax is a breeze for the most part too

Hard disagree. Gitlab CI, while more powerful than some alternatives, is so so bad, its YAML-based syntax included. As I said in another thread[0]:

> I worked with Gitlab CI on the daily from 2021 till 2024 and I started curating a diary of bugs and surprising behavior I encountered in Gitlab.
No matter what I did, every time I touched our CI pipeline code I could be sure to run into yet another Gitlab bug.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46296816
by Noaidi | 2026-01-24 14:38:32+00:00
Apple will do this too. Your laptop encryption key is stored in your keychain (without telliing you!). All is needed is a warrant for your iCloud account and they also have access to your laptop.

sixcolors.com/post/2025/09/filevault-on-macos-tahoe-no-longer-uses-icloud-to-store-its-recovery-key/
by embedding-shape | 2026-01-24 14:39:55+00:00
> Honestly, grilling him about what the CEO had tweeted didn't even cross my mind.

That's not the full meaning of what I meant either, I'm assuming you also read the initial blog post they posted? It's also has a bunch of similar inaccurate statements.

> I wanted to get to the truth of what had actually been built and how.

It's a shame that you seemed to have reviewed that from the point of after a human stepped in to fix the codebase, which happened way after they first published the blog post. Maybe now it compiles and builds, but how does that answer to the fact that it wasn't at the time of publishing?

There is a "hole" of two days without commits, presumably when the engineer was busy writing the blog post, and that's the point they "sold" as "this is what was produced by the experiment". To then let them spend more human engineering time to patch the codebase, and review if from after the human fixed it, seems like completely missing the point.

> I don't think "Let's talk about your CEO exaggerating what you built on Twitter" would have added much to the interview.

What would have added a whole lot more to the ecosystem's understanding on how feasible this sort of things actually are in reality, would have been to talk about what that same person you interviewed first wrote in the blog post, and what turned out to be real at the time they published it.
by acdha | 2026-01-24 14:40:14+00:00
I’ve liked using GitLab but it’s definitely felt like their IPO lead to more chasing flash and less attention to quality. They yanked the support rep which customers used to get–everything goes through sales now–and started putting most features behind the hefty Ultimate price tier, and there are so many cute features which need more polish but since they’re not “AI” it seems like they’re ignored even though they have open issues with years of customers saying they have the same problem.

This has lead to a game: each time the sale pitch claiming big wins for their AI tools arrives, ask “when will we start seeing GitLab development back to pre-IPO speed?”