MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by kartik_mahant | 2026-01-04 17:23:36+00:00
How many production releases are running code you wrote.
↳ Not a demo.
↳ Not a sandbox.
↳ Not “it works on my machine.”
Live systems. With users. With logs. With bugs.

Because right now, everything looks very confident.

Prompts flying around.
Auto-generated components.
“Built in a weekend” posts everywhere.
The word "SHIPPED" being used the same way people use organic on food labels.

But's its not as simple as it sounds.
Read on for full story.
by tetha | 2026-01-04 17:23:44+00:00
This however misses an important point: 3 is not in our control. 3 in general is controlled by math-people, and that 3 in particular is probably in the hands of a legal/regulation department. That's a much more important information to highlight.

For example, at my last job, we shoved all constants managed by the balancing teams into a static class called BalancingTeam, to make it obvious that these values are not in our control. Tests, if (big-if) written, should revolve around the constants to not be brittle.
by feffe | 2026-01-04 17:23:44+00:00
I'm a believer in restricting the scope of definitions as much as possible, and like programming languages that allows creating local bindings for creating another.

For example:

local
val backupIntervalHours = 24
val approxBackupDurationHours = 2
val wiggleRoomHours = 2
in
val ageAlertThresholdHours = backupIntervalHours + approxBackupDurationHours + wiggleRoomHours
end

Then it's easier to document what components a constant is composed of using code without introducing unnecessary bindings in the scope of the relevant variable. Sure constants are just data, but the first questions that pops into my head when seeing something in unfamiliar code is "What is the purpose of this?", and the smaller the scope, the faster it can be discarded.
by walterbell | 2026-01-04 17:24:06+00:00
1 litre micro PCs are about 4X (35W+) TDP and price of Intel N150 with 6W TDP. They do offer more performance and features (e.g. security) than N150, but exist in a separate and stable (15+ year) category of business desktop.

Mini-PCs have a range of experimental form factors, including mini-desktop, NAS, router, tablet, SBCs, industrial with GPIO, thanks to competition between Chinese and Korean (e.g. ODROID) OEMs.

HP has a $220 4GB Windows laptop and $400+ 8GB Chromebook based on Intel N150.
by sowbug | 2026-01-04 17:24:09+00:00
I liked that one, too, but for an additional reason.

Typing that first character on the page reveals the problems you didn't even know existed. You don't have a keyboard. You do, but it's not plugged in, and you have to move an unexpectedly heavy bookcase to reach the USB port. You need to learn Dvorak. You don't have page-creation privileges and need to open a ticket that will take a week to resolve. You can create the page, but nobody else is able to read it because their machines aren't allowed to install the version of the PageReader™ plugin that your page requires (and you'd need a VP exception to downgrade your PageGenerator™ toolchain to their version). And so on.

All these are silent schedule killers that reveal themselves only once you've shipped one full development (and deployment!) cycle. And as ridiculous as these example problems seem, they're not far from reality at a place as big and intricate as Google.
by lymbo | 2026-01-04 17:24:11+00:00
I got a vasectomy a number of years ago in my mid 20s with 0 kids. I exist to experience things like love, hydrofoil surfing, skiing, and the journey to try to do more of these things. There are many people or trained models that could say I have a wasted existence of sorts, but the universe’s ending will always be the same no matter how many times the power dynamics on earth and beyond shift.
by tomrod | 2026-01-04 17:25:20+00:00
> Of course, SO is a bad fit for helping beginners

This is the takeaway for myself and so many who have contributed to SO over the years, both questions and answers.

Self-reflection as to why a service has become both redundant and a joke is hard, and had SO started in 2019 maybe they'd have relevance. I'm not sure I see what value they bring now or moving forward.
by nemo1618 | 2026-01-04 17:25:24+00:00
The skill isn’t being right. It’s entering discussions to align on the problem.
Clarity isn’t a style preference - it’s operational risk reduction.
The punchline isn’t “never innovate.” It’s “innovate only where you’re uniquely paid to innovate.”
This isn’t strictly about self-promotion. It’s about making the value chain legible to everyone.
The problem isn’t that engineers can’t write code or use AI to do so. It’s that we’re so good at writing it that we forget to ask whether we should.
This isn’t passive acceptance but it is strategic focus.
This isn’t just about being generous with knowledge. It’s a selfish learning hack.
Insist on interpreting trends, not worshiping thresholds. The goal is insight, not surveillance.
Senior engineers who say “I don’t know” aren’t showing weakness - they’re creating permission.

I'm so tired bros
by wolvoleo | 2026-01-04 17:25:52+00:00
Ahhh thanks!

I should have looked for it myself but every time it happened I was busy doing something else and then I forgot (yay ADHD).

And thanks to you for making KDE. I really don't like this time where computers are becoming more locked-in and opinionated (e.g. I can't configure it the way I want). KDE is a breath of fresh air. I have extensively reconfigured it and I haven't even needed to use a single plugin. So I've donated for years now because I really appreciate the work.
by vswaroop04 | 2026-01-04 17:25:57+00:00
I built link-guardian, a Rust command-line tool that scans websites and GitHub repositories to detect broken and redirected links.

It parses HTML and Markdown (including READMEs), checks links concurrently using async networking, and outputs both human-readable and JSON reports. It’s designed to work well in CI pipelines by returning a non-zero exit code when broken links are found.

Motivation: I often found outdated/broken links in docs and READMEs and existing tools were either slow, language-runtime dependent, or not GitHub-aware. Rust made it possible to ship a single fast static binary.

Repo: https://github.com/Vswaroop04/link-guardian

I’d really appreciate feedback, bug reports, or ideas for missing features. If you try it, let me know what breaks or what you’d like next
by godelski | 2026-01-04 17:26:13+00:00
> A former manager once described me as a “purist”.

Can we talk for a second about how useless this type of language is? When people repeat phrases like "don't let perfection be the enemy of 'good enough'" and such?

The problem is they're used predominantly as thought terminating cliches. Perfection doesn't exist and frankly if someone thinks it does it really suggests they're very junior. The problem with those phrases is that they sidestep the needed conversation of "what is good enough" and instead implicitly state "what I think is good enough is the answer and what you think is unreasonable". It kills the needed conversation and just annoys the person you're saying it too.

Working in teams is all about communication and we often do a really poor job at it. Let's be honest, the soft skills matter. Just say something different like "why are those features needed?" or "what's wrong with the current implementation?" and follow up with "how critical are these issues?" You can always triage and come back. Maybe there's something you don't see and the "perfectionist" does because they're in the weeds. Maybe there's a disagreement on the specs. Maybe the "perfection" is useful but low priority given current conditions so you log up a feature request or make some note and move on, coming back later.

It's just a pet peeve of mine, as someone who's heard this a lot. Sometimes it is me, but more often than not it is the person not working on the thing that is missing the scope of the problem (almost always when a manager is nontechnical or disconnected). A simple conversation usually clears that all up and every party tends to move their position a bit.
Anyone using Context7 MCP to avoid outdated docs in Claude?
by aistackdev | 2026-01-04 17:26:37+00:00
I’ve been running into the same issue repeatedly when using Claude for coding:
the model knows the concept, but the docs it references are slightly outdated or version-mismatched.

Context7 MCP seems to solve this by pulling documentation directly from official sources instead of relying on training data.

I’ve seen a lot of people mention it as one of the few MCPs that’s actually “always on” and worth the context cost — especially compared to search-based MCPs.

I started documenting MCPs (including Context7) with setup steps and usage notes so I don’t have to re-discover this every time.

Curious:
- Are you using Context7 regularly?
- Does it noticeably improve accuracy for you?
- Any downsides you’ve run into?

(If helpful, I’ve written up the setup + notes here: https://ai-stack.dev)
by kaffekaka | 2026-01-04 17:26:38+00:00
I agree. But I also think that workflows like that of noduerme might be due to his own preferences as much as the needs of the customer. I am sure it is a good process, but it is also something that feels good for the developer himself. So there will be a drive to use it not for business reasons but for personal. Then it is not based on business needs.
by tacostakohashi | 2026-01-04 17:27:13+00:00
I'm not sure this needs to be its own language.

In C/C++, this can be done by just not using malloc() or new.

You can get an awfully long way in C with only stack variables (or even no variables, functional style). You can get a little bit further with variable length arrays, and alloca() added to the mix.

With C++, you have the choice of stack, or raw new/delete, or unique_ptr, or shared_ptr / reference counting. I think this "multi-paradigm" approach works pretty well, but of course its complicated, and lots of people mess it up.

I think, with well-designed C/C++, 90+% of things can be on the stack, and dynamic allocation can be very much the exception.

I've been switching back and forth across C/C++/Java for the past few months. The more I think about it, the more ridiculous/pathological the Java approach of every object dynamically allocated, impossible to create an object not on the heap seems.

I think the main problem is kind of a human one, that people see/learn about dynamic allocation/shared_ptr etc. and it becomes a hammer and everything looks like a nail, and they forget the prospect of just using stack variables, or more generally doing the simplest thing that will work.

Maybe some kind of language where doing dumb things is an error would be good. e.g., in C++ if you do new and delete in the same scope, it's an error because it could have been a stack variable, just like unreachable code is an error on Java.
by lumost | 2026-01-04 17:27:23+00:00
I really want a machine which gives me the statistical average opinion of all reviewers in a target audience. Sycophancy is a specific symptom where the LLM diverges from this “statistical average opinion” to flattery. That the LLM does this by default without clarifying this divergence is the problem.

Usually retrying the review in a new session/different LLM helps. Anecdotally - LLMs seem to really like their own output, and over many turns try to flatter the user regardless of topic. Both behaviors seem correctable with training improvements.
by llmslave2 | 2026-01-04 17:27:43+00:00
I wish Google would be biased a little more towards quality and performance. Their user-facing products tend to be full of jank, although Gmail is quite good to be fair.

In general I think the "ship fast and break things" mentality assumes a false dilemma, as if the alternative to shipping broken software is to not ship at all. If thats the mentality no wonder software sucks today. I'd rather teams shipped working, correct, and performant software even if it meant delaying additional features or shipping a constrained version of their vision. The minimalism of the software would probably end up being a net benefit instead of stuffing it full of half baked features anyways.
by kayamon | 2026-01-04 17:27:50+00:00
Scott Adams:

"I’d also like to know how the Holocaust death total of 6 million was determined. Is it the sort of number that is so well documented with actual names and perhaps a Nazi paper trail that no historian could doubt its accuracy, give or take ten thousand? Or is it like every other LRN (large round number) that someone pulled out of his ass and it became true by repetition?"
by amenod | 2026-01-04 17:27:58+00:00
Sure. Or we could say that when someone is used to the way things work, one is reluctant to change and will find all kinds of "faults" to keep them from taking the plunge.

As I said, I have my own list of things with linux I would like to see different, it's just that they are different. And they are not big enough to keep me in MS-land. But to each their (our) own, I guess.
by pigpop | 2026-01-04 17:28:24+00:00
It was bad enough that many people resorted to asking their questions in Discord instead which is a massive boomerang back to trying to get help in IRC and just praying that someone is online and willing to help you on the spot. Having to possibly ask your question multiple times before you get some spotty help in a real time chat where it's next to impossible to find again seems unimaginably worse than using an online forum but the fact of it remains and tells us there was something driving people away from sites like SO.
by rvz | 2026-01-04 17:28:27+00:00
Some people just want to be remembered for the "engineering" / "social engineering" they did, while others what to be remembered for being employee of the month for 10+ years at the company.

Both are a complete waste of time.

It's more impressive if you bootstrapped your own company to millions instead of chasing false praise, engaging in employee politics and being employee #470293 at big company.

But I predict you will get the same thing with those at the big AI companies.
by vladvasiliu | 2026-01-04 17:28:37+00:00
Because although I don't care much about the chrome, I sometimes have to use it. For example, the address bar in firefox is ridiculously small. Also, some apps, like firefox (again) have a weird adaptation of the scroll to the zoom. So if you zoom at 300%, it will scroll by a lot at a time, whereas 200% is still usable.

Also, 200% on an FHD 14" laptop means 960x540 px equivalent. That's too big to the point of rendering the laptop unusable. Also, X11 doesn't support switching DPI on the fly AFAIK, and I don't want to restart my session whenever I plug or unplug the external monitor, which happens multiple times a day when I'm at the office.
by rene-veerman | 2026-01-04 17:28:42+00:00
today i've been busy with improvements to my vividMenu. with the aid of
@grok
over at https://grok.com/c/a8ef9122-7dd1-469f-b7ac-def6297078c2?rid=... i was able to finally tackle most of the problems that had been plagueing it for years already, and which would reoccur with each small change introduced.

AI mutually-assisted coding is the way forward for all coders. Those that lag behind will probably see a lot of their jobs terminated. The time to learn how to do this is now, at http://x.ai or http://grok.com
by rasmus-kirk | 2026-01-04 17:29:14+00:00
A lot of scripts and binaries don't work properly if not installed through Nix. This can really affect your workflow if you depend on random niche software not packaged by Nix.

When I started my first job I couldn't build their TypeScript project because it depended on GRPC on NPM. That NPM package is literally just a binary...

This isn't really the fault of NixOS, but it's wildly impractical as long as the world is stuck where it is. I've recently considered going back into NixOS and spinning up Podman Ubuntu containers for stateful dev environments (with my home-manager programs included, of course). It's sort of the reverse approach, instead of Nix being a second-class citizen on Ubuntu, I want Ubuntu to be a second-class Citizen on Nix.
by wolvoleo | 2026-01-04 17:29:45+00:00
I have one for general stuff, one for when I'm working, mainly to minimise distractions, and one to do 3D work.

Each activity has 9 virtual desktops because that's what I use in the main profile.

And yeah Firefox is a bit different, however you can select an option to get the regular KDE menu bar back! I've done this.

And I configured my workspaces in a 3x3 grid, that way it doesn't take so much space (and also it's much easier to navigate them than 9 in a row!). This grid function is really one of the big things that annoys me in macOS (it used to have grids but they killed it when mission control came out), windows and Gnome. I need a grid, especially because I switch with hardware keys.
by derbOac | 2026-01-04 17:30:16+00:00
For whatever it's worth, I felt that regardless of whether it was written by a human, or AI, or AI-then-human, it was poorly written. I was going to dismiss it until I saw the links to the papers at the bottom, which I found pretty interesting and well worth the read.

The essay kind of works for me as an impressionistic context for the three papers, but without those three papers I think it's almost more confusing than it helps.
by burnt-resistor | 2026-01-04 17:30:22+00:00
With a severe caloric deficit for 4-6 days, intense hunger mostly goes away.

If someone were significantly overweight, they might be able to survive 2-4 months without significant caloric intake.

The problem is numerous risks: neurological, cardiovascular, gall stones, osteoporosis, kidney and liver concerns. These are better than dying, sure, but it would be better to avoid tempting fate and permanent injury in the first place.
by Sam713 | 2026-01-04 17:30:23+00:00
Except, NB (at least their classic casual models) is actually a pretty decent value on quality/price spectrum compared to other brands. Despite being an “old man” vibe, the classic pair I have is better materials, way more comfortable, and often less expensive than competing classic sneakers. They also still have a few made-in-USA models. Their popularity also increased as retro aesthetics has made a come back among Gen Z and younger millennials, who tend to value form AND function, and personal taste, over louder mass market status brands. Maybe NB marketing strategy was more of a response to an existing shift in consumer demand, but the value proposition was already there.
by edu4rdshl | 2026-01-04 17:30:24+00:00
It's fun how most of the complaints are like "it works fine on Gnome but I will still blame Wayland because my tiling WM doesn't support it". So maybe try using a proper Wayland implementation

The Chrome crashes when resizing a window doesn't makes any sense, apart from being a WM fault. The Xwayland scaling, again, has native scaling support on Gnome. Same for the monitor resolution problem (which he acknowledged). Same for font rendering. Idk.
by papacj657 | 2026-01-04 17:31:25+00:00
So glad I’m not the only one that noticed that.

There’s some really solid insights here, but the editing with AI to try to make up for an imperfect essay just makes the points they’re trying to convey less effective.

The lines between what is the author’s ideas and what is AI trying to finish a half or even mostly baked idea just removes so much of the credibility.

And it’s completely counter to the “clarity vs cleverness” idea and the just get something out there instead of trying to get it perfect.
by The_President | 2026-01-04 17:31:31+00:00
This was an excellent tool for beginner 2D animators with fundamentals of keyframes and tweening built-in. More powerful animators could use Actionscript and audio tracks to create entire presentations. It was fast on slow connections and supported many browser features. Macromedia Flash no doubt built Newgrounds into a behemoth of animated content.

To think it all really started from the hamster in a microwave and the frog in a blender (both with attitudes) spreading like wildfire through email forwards.
by irvingprime | 2026-01-04 17:31:38+00:00
I'm using Claude AI to build an experimental programming language I call Graphoid. (Built for dealing with graphs). It's early days and I don't know how worthwhile it is but I'm having fun.

repo: https://github.com/xvandervort/graphoid
lab notes: https://www.patreon.com/cw/aiconfessions
by komali2 | 2026-01-04 17:31:44+00:00
> China has factually split

Define "China." 中國? 中華人民共和國? 中華民國? 大清? 大明? 大元? The English term is far overloaded, kinda like the word "dumpling." Having this conversation in English is really hard for that reason.

The key word is 中國, typically translated literally as "middle country," though if you put it in google translate it'll just say "China." Really though, the word means "empire." Empire of what? China? No, just, The Empire. E.g. 一個中國原則 "one China principle," all things that we could call 中國 ruled by the same government.

That's the issue I have. The CPC claims a mandate of heaven for a "Chinese" meta-dynasty, claiming to have domain over everything any government in the region has ever touched (even the Mongols!). I reject this, a mandate to rule should be earned basically every day, and self determination matters far more than maintaining a dynasty of a culture.

Like many empires, the PRC is even creating an ethnostatic justification, calling everyone Han 漢族人 or Hua 華人 and claiming a mandate to rule everyone that could feasibly be called that, using race science to expand their domain. Like "white," under scrutiny, these terms are meaningless. We could translate either, in the context of their usage by the CPC, as "people the CPC thinks it should be allowed to govern." That includes people in Xinjiang, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, America, hell even Okinawa lately.

That kind of ethnostatic imperialist expansionism should be roundly rejected by anybody that values self determination. And, that's why "reunify" isn't the correct word, because there is no country on earth called "China" and there never has been, there's just a government ruling a territory that wants some more territory. The PRC isn't some magical inheritor of every racial, cultural, linguistic, and historical aspect of that region. "China" has not split with the fleeing of the KMT to Taiwan in the 50s, nor was "China" overthrown when the Taiwanese deposed the KMT military dictatorship in the 90s, or when the Qing dynasty was overthrown by the KMT.
by sdoering | 2026-01-04 17:31:48+00:00
> Another thing to try is to go to a diner alone. Same deal.

Oh yeah. This is one of the things I enjoy most when traveling for work (more often than not means traveling alone). I can go to dinner alone, watch people interact, feel the city, the people, the staff.

Discovering dinner alone to me was an interesting experience. And a lovely one at that.
by impossiblefork | 2026-01-04 17:31:52+00:00
I find your analogy to be extremely strange. We are extremely well-armed. Greenland has also not been neglected in any way.

With regard to why you should care about Greenland, you've signed an agreement to do it, you are after all in NATO.

There has indeed been co-operation in protecting Greenland and this is very reasonable considering that the US has a presence there in the form of their military bases. I don't see this co-operation as begging.