MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by themacguffinman | 2026-02-07 22:42:04+00:00
A lot of people are using Claude Code which many consider to be a noticeably better for coding than the other models.

I think also they tend to be generating non-C++ code where there are more guardrails and less footguns for LLMs to run into. Eg they're generating Javascript or Python or Rust where type systems and garbage collection eliminates entire classes of mistakes that LLMs can run into. I know you said you don't use it for Python because you know the language but even experienced Python devs still see value in LLM-generating Python code.
by teunispeters | 2026-02-07 22:42:21+00:00
I like C. You can take away all memory management (yes, including some of the unsafe glibc calls that have hidden memory management) and everything can be so smooth and clean. Since rules like MISRA require up-front allocation - if any is in use - this can be tightly controlled.

Very useful if you don't want (or need) surprises anywhere. Or if you want all the surprises (exceptions, errors, etc) all better tied to the hardware that provides such.

It's also fairly easy to write unit tests for everything.
by wasmperson | 2026-02-07 22:42:32+00:00
For every person who says on the internet that you can just use a C++ subset, there's another who insists that C is the bad C++ subset. So compiling C code with a C++ compiler promotes your code from "good C code" to "bad C++ code" (most C code isn't "exception safe," for example).

It's arguably irrational to evaluate a language based on this, but you can think of "this code could be better" as a sort of mild distraction. C++ is chock full of this kind of distraction.
by jawon | 2026-02-07 22:42:40+00:00
Also, from a comment in another thread, from roon, who works at OpenAI:

> codex-5.2 is really amazing but using it from my personal and not work account over the weekend taught me some user empathy lol it’s a bit slow

[0] https://nitter.net/tszzl/status/2016338961040548123
by johnvanommen | 2026-02-07 22:43:09+00:00
> Generating an extra $400 per year in value, per employee, isn't that much extra.

I agree, and would add that it’s contributing to inflation in hard assets.

Basically:

* it’s a safe bet that labor will have lower value in 2031 than it has today

* if you have a billion to spend, and you agree, you will be inclined to put your wealth into hard assets, because AI depends on them

In a really abstract way, the world is not responsible for feeding a new class of workers: robots.

And robots consume electricity, water, space, and generate heat.

Which is why those sectors are feeling the affects of supply and demand.
by solidasparagus | 2026-02-07 22:43:35+00:00
I'm not sure.

The cost of replacement-level software drops a lot with agentic coding. And maintenance tasks are similarly much smaller time syncs. When you combine that with the long-standing benefits of inhouse software (customizable to your exact problem, tweakable, often cleaner code because the feature-set can be a lot smaller), I think a lot of previously obvious dependencies become viable to write in house.

It's going to vary a lot by the dependency and scope - obvious owning your own react is a lot different than owning your own leftpad, but to me it feels like there's no way that agentic coding doesn't shift the calculus somewhat. Particularly when agentic coding make a lot of nice-to-have mini-features trivial to add so the developer experience gap between a maintained library and a homegrown solution is smaller than it used to be.
by lostlogin | 2026-02-07 22:44:01+00:00
Based on that link, I don’t think I want the jobs that were created.

It would also pay to keep in mind that the link claims that the preceding layoffs hit the same group. Ie, they were the ones there to be hired after losing their jobs.

It also says that people of colour are underrepresented in the job market (in the companies measured in your link) when compared to their overall makeup of the population.

Correcting that would take some years of imbalance in hiring.
by jdjdndbdhsjsb | 2026-02-07 22:44:24+00:00
Here is my bold prediction: 2026 is the year where companies start the lay offs.

2026 is the year where we all realise that we can be our own company and build the stuff in our dreams rather than the mundane crap we do at work.

Honestly I am optimistic about computing in general. Llms will open things up for novices and experts alike. We can move into I the fields where we can use our brain power... But all we need is enough memory and compute to control our destiny....
by johnvanommen | 2026-02-07 22:45:11+00:00
> the baseline of open models running on cheap third-party inference providers, or even on-prem. This is a bit of a challenge for the big proprietary firms.

It’s not a challenge at all.

To win, all you need is to starve your competitors of RAM.

RAM is the lifeblood of AI, without RAM, AI doesn’t work.
by jiggawatts | 2026-02-07 22:45:37+00:00
They use “test” cars that have bright lights or xenon flashes pointing down. They take thousands of pictures of the track every night and store the images in a database that can match them up precisely so you can see cracks growing over time like a movie.

I also remember reading about an application of fibre optics where a long strand is placed directly under each rail. Pulses of light through the fibre are reflected at the points where axles press down on the rail and compress the fibre. Similar techniques can be used to detect accidents and (completely) broken tracks.
by runjake | 2026-02-07 22:45:39+00:00
> Why not China, for instance?

A couple reasons:

1. China's not particularly known to conduct this sort of activity this far from their mainland.

2. What would be their motive? China is actively trying to fill that "superpower" void being left in Europe by President Trump's irrational behavior.

> Or a random terrorist group?

Plausible.

> Speculation is fun but it's important to actually make statements grounded in reality.

I look at it from the standpoint of motive and history. See "GRU Unit 29155"[1]. Russia has both. Russia is on the brink of war with Europe.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRU_Unit_29155#Activities
by zozbot234 | 2026-02-07 22:45:48+00:00
Is it really a secret, when Anthropic posted a project of building a C compiler totally from scratch for $20k equivalent token spend, as an official article on their own blog? $20k is quite insane for such a self-contained project, if that's genuinely the amount that these tools require that's literally the best possible argument for running something open and leveraging competitive 3rd party inference.
by IhateAI_2 | 2026-02-07 22:45:50+00:00
I feel like YC has a bunch of these optimistic blog posts ready to throw up on the front page anytime something goes viral about how LLMs are bad.

Software isnt going to become more economically valuable its going to be used to replace economic inputs of labor with units of compute.

Its entirely intended to take humans out of the equation or devalue human labor and it always has. Dont be a fool.
by johnnyanmac | 2026-02-07 22:45:57+00:00
You can make people care easily. But people these days aren't incentivized to care. They announce layoffs and get a stock boost many times. You leave a company as a career suite and get paid millions. You speak corporate BS in meetings and get promoted.you bribe a government and you get tax breaks. I can go on for paragraphs about influencers, grifters, government, etc. It's entrenched everywhere.

We in tech like talking about meritocracy, but that's all collapsed, and even the illusion of it has collapsed now.
by tptacek | 2026-02-07 22:46:13+00:00
It is wild that it took until 2026 for this to happen.

In the late 1990s, when my friends wanted mushrooms or 5MEO-DMT, they'd order from "Poisonous Non-Consumables" catalogs. Today, people are literally doing that (same words, even!), but for the next iteration of GLP1 drugs not yet on the wider market. Compounding pharmacies are selling "research chemicals", like in Bitcoin Mining Profit Calculator: Gaiden.
by mohsen1 | 2026-02-07 22:46:33+00:00
I am thinking about this a lot right now. Pretty existential stuff.

I think builders are gonna be fine. The type of programmer were people would put up with just because they could really go in their cave for a few days and come out with a bug fix that nobody else on the team could figure out is going to have a hard time.

Interestingly AI coding is really good at that sort of thing and less good at fully grasping user requirements or big picture systems. Basically things that we had to sit in meetings a lot for.
by thwarted | 2026-02-07 22:46:41+00:00
Joanne probably had to field some "sorry, this can't be expensed" situations, and/or those were reduced because people knew another human was doing the work and they'd get called out, trying to game/abuse the system was less or just naturally discouraged. That was high trust, by both the employee and by Joanne.

With the employees needing to use Concur directly, there's a tendency, since there's a diversity in how each employee will handle the specifics, to try to "save money" by denying reimbursements for any random violation, making sure all i's were dotted and t's crossed. The automated system itself encourages this because it's so low effort to deny and send the expense form back, potentially wearing down the employe that they just give up. Joanne could avoid all that at scale because there was little/no diversity in how expenses were handled. If an i needed to be dotted, she could handle it, and she knew all the i's that needed to be dotted across all expense reports.

I currently have someone to handle my expense reports who sits in front of Concur for me! And that person routinely asks me for specific detail without me having to mess with Concur at all, things like "who was at this dinner you gave me a receipt for" or "I can't find the receipt for this company card charge".
by throw310822 | 2026-02-07 22:47:00+00:00
Seriously, thinking at the price structure of this (6x the price for 2.5x the speed, if that's correct) it seems to target something like real time applications with very small context. Maybe vocal assistants? I guess that if you're doing development it makes more sense to parallelize over more agents rather than paying that much for a modest increase in speed.
by alabhyajindal | 2026-02-07 22:47:21+00:00
Amazing - congrats on this work. Do I understand it correctly that the goal of the platform is help organise online protests? If so, I would love to understand how this approach is different from using something like change.org. I have read through the linked README and it looks sophisticated and technical - I'm just wondering if this is the best way to protest online.
by mirawelner | 2026-02-07 22:47:22+00:00
That’s funny bc I linked my post to a server I’m on and I also was told to use an agent.

My worry about an agent is I’m trying to translate the math with full fidelity and an agent might take liberties with the math rather than full accuracy. I’m already having issues with 0 to 1 indexing screwing up some of the algorithm.

But I will try an agent - can’t hurt to try
by hakunin | 2026-02-07 22:48:09+00:00
I don't think I'm being pedantic or narrow. Cosmic rays, power spikes, and falling cows can change the course of deterministic software. I'm saying that your "compiler" either has intentionally designed randomness (or "creativity") in it, or it doesn't. Not sure why we're acting like these are more or less deterministic. They are either deterministic or not inside normal operation of a computer.
by gnufx | 2026-02-07 22:48:59+00:00
In the context of the article "collider" means intersecting particle beams, like in RHIC and LHC, which obviously involves rather low probability interactions, as opposed to accelerators which slam a beam into a dense target (like the SLAC accelerator). In a synchrotron light source you want the beam to circulate and specifically not collide with anything; they were developed from particle physics accelerators, of course.
by loeg | 2026-02-07 22:49:29+00:00
I think this is compounding pharmacies selling legit semaglutide (or tirzepatide?), but doing the packaging (dilution in water) themselves. No? I don't think Hims is selling RCs. They're violating Novo's (or Lilly's) patents.

It is wild to me that compounding pharmacies continued to sell these in violation of patents even after the expiration of the FDA supply shortfall status last year -- but I suppose there's so much money in it they don't want to give it up.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-c...
by bee_rider | 2026-02-07 22:49:42+00:00
That nobody wants to actually do it is already a problem, but some basically true thing is that somebody has to pay those $90k junior engineers for a couple years to turn them into senior engineers.

The seem to be plenty of people willing to pay the AI do that junior engineer level work, so wouldn’t it make sense to defect and just wait until it has gained enough experience to do the senior engineer work?
by 7777332215 | 2026-02-07 22:50:10+00:00
They have to be. And the others writing this stuff likely do not deal with real systems with thousands of customers, a team who needs to get paid, and a reputation to uphold. Fatal errors that cause permanent damage to a business are unacceptable.

Designing reliable, stable, and correct systems is already a high level task. When you actually need to write the code for it, it's not a lot and you should write it with precision. When creating novel or differently complex systems, you should (or need to) be doing it yourself anyway.
by kristopolous | 2026-02-07 22:50:18+00:00
They're addressing the same need and yield the same behavior patterns and thus will have the same organizational outcomes

I talked about it in a currently unfinished blog post, here's the section

"In the 2000s and 2010s, this was the core conflict of frameworks. Does the framework have enough alignment with the task that it would cumulatively simplify things.

However, this is not how we behave. Instead habituation promotes einstellung where we end up relying on the tool of the AI to do the trivial. This is closely related to Automation bias and OOTL."

It's not complete but here it is anyways

https://blog.day50.dev/intro/vibedrift/

Things like the einstellung effect are important in vibe coding, software design and framework use. It's a truism about meta tool use and the relationships and behavior systems that accompany them along with the epistemological edifices they prop up. Quoting Wikipedia:

"After solving many problems which had the same solution, subjects applied the same solution to later problems even though a simpler solution existed"

I should get back and finish it probably by this week.
by dkga | 2026-02-07 22:50:36+00:00
Hi, HN! Co-author here (I don't know if own papers are also Show HN, happy to adjust if so). We explored LLM strategic choices in a simple but intriguing game theoretical setting, the ultimatum game.

In this game, a Proposer proposes to distribute a share of the amount at stake with the Responder. If the Responder accepts, both get their proposed amounts; if the proposal is rejected then no one gets anything. This game shines a light on how these models could behave when their payoffs depend on the opponent's choices too.

We document three main findings.

First, LLM behavior is heterogeneous but predictable when conditioning on stake size and player types.

Second, some models approximate the rational benchmark and others mimic human social preferences, but we also observe a distinct "altruistic" mode emerging - in this case, LLMs propose hyper-fair distributions (greater than 50%).

Third, when we calculate the expected payoff, LLMs actually leave a lot of money on the table. They forgo a large share of total payoff, and an even larger share when the Responder is human.
by Telemakhos | 2026-02-07 22:50:40+00:00
I'd suggest that radical left-wing elements indigenous to Italy, such as those behind the Turin protests that left 100 police officers wounded a few days ago, are a perfectly plausible candidate; not every attack comes from without. There was another protest against the Olympics in Milan itself last night by left-wing elements who believe the games are economically and socially unsustainable [0]

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/07/europe/italy-protests-rail-da...
by mmooss | 2026-02-07 22:50:55+00:00
Very much yes: Knowledge is valuable itself. We're discovering the secrets of the universe.

The owners of capital have created an amazing, self-serving ideology in the US (and elsehwere): If something doesn't help them make money, it's worthless. People seem to think that's part of the US - in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Even more amazing is that I hear scholars in non-profitable fields parrot those ideas. I think capitalism - and especially free markets - work well in many ways, but it's a means to an end, not a religion. Capitalism serves us, not vice-versa.
Show HN: Medinilla – an OCPP compliant .NET back end (partially done)
by rhcm | 2026-02-07 22:51:04+00:00
Hi all,
I've started working on an open source OCPP implementation in .NET. It is not yet fully operational; however, the core of the protocol has been partially completed.

Right now, I've tested transactions using EVerest, along with basic actions such as boot notifications, heartbeats, etc.

The project itself is far from being done, and since I've mostly worked on this during short periods of burst productivity, I ended up putting aside very important aspects, like UNIT TESTING :(

Nevertheless, I'd love to have some feedback from you all. You can open up issues, or even contribute in any way you like :)
by xeromal | 2026-02-07 22:51:55+00:00
Yup, I've already run like 6 of my personal projects including 1 for my wife that I had lost interest in. For a few dollars, these are now actually running and being used by my family. These tools are a great enabler for people like me. lol

I used to complain when my friends and family gave me ideas for something they wanted or needed help with because I was just too tired to do it after a day's work. Now I can sit next to them and we can pair program an entire idea in an evening.
by AstroBen | 2026-02-07 22:52:00+00:00
It doesn't matter

Let's say super popular blogger x is paid a million dollars to shill for AI and they convince you it's revolutionary. What then? Well of course you try it! You pay OpenAI $20 for a month

What happens after that, the actual experience of using the product, is the only important thing. If it sucks and provides no value to anyone, OpenAI fails. Sleezy marketing and salesmen can only get you in the door. They can't make a shit product amazing

A $10,000 get rich quick course can be made successful on hopes, dreams and sales tactics. A monthly subscription tool to help people with their work crashes and burns if it doesn't provide value

It doesn't matter how many people shill for it
by jjkaczor | 2026-02-07 22:52:14+00:00
Why is it a personal benefit? If I am onsite for 5-10 days, I am likely going to have 1-2 bars/day - especially if I am working a high-stress engagement where actually leaving the client site would have taken away my ability to execute to the required level of service.

At some point, policing what each employee eats and how they spend their maximum "per day/per diem" total allowance becomes a cost-drain.

I have been in orgs where some people were frugal and bought essentially groceries, so they could eat in their hotel room - some of that was dietary or health choices and restrictions. Eating restaurant food every single day for 3-meals/day is not a healthy choice (especially years ago when portion sizes were typically far too vast in some countries/regions). Then, in the same group - we had staff who would determine an average size meal - and then ensure that the tips they left would max-out to their daily maximum allowance, to "spread-the-wealth" so-to-speak.

Neither was fraudulent - we were allowed a daily max budget (it was not a per diem), we still had to submit receipts - heck, in our region if you wanted to spend your budget entirely on alcohol, there were (at the time) no red flags.
by hnlmorg | 2026-02-07 22:52:18+00:00
I’ve worked in the AI space and I understand how LLMs work as a principle. But we don’t know the magic contained within a model after it’s been trained. We understand how to design a model, and how models work at a theoretical level. But we cannot know how well it will be at inference until we test it. So much of AI research is just trial and error with different dials repeated tweaked until we get something desirable. So no, we don’t understand these models in the same way we might understand how an hashing algorithm works. Or a compression routine. Or an encryption cypher. Or any other hand-programmed algorithm.

I also run Linux. But that doesn’t change how the two major platforms behave and that, as software developers, we have to support those platforms.

Open source hardware is great but it’s not on the same league of price and performance as proprietary hardware.

Agentic AI doesn’t make me feel hopeless either. I’m just describing what I’d personally define as a “golden age of computing”.
by Nextgrid | 2026-02-07 22:52:19+00:00
LLMs could be a good option to navigating this sludge. Fight fire with fire.

Another option is work smarter (not harder, because nothing I do is anywhere near “hard work”) to get into a position where you can tell them to get fucked. Don’t want to pay my hotel bill? Oh well, good luck finding someone else to rework your auth system. Call me back when the outsourced monkeys you hire end up putting you in the news for a security breach. But at least you saved a few hundred bucks on hotel fees, great job!

This is something management and executive positions do on a continuous basis - using their position and “prestige” to commend respect and bend the rules. But as an engineer with context of a critical system you often have more leverage, it’s just a matter of using it strategically (as engineers we initially start out playing the good game, but the thing is that everyone else is trying to fuck you - the challenge is learning to fuck back).

I keep a beginner’s Python book in reserve for those conflictual meetings where some idiot beancounter or manager has a problem with me. When I’m ready to walk (and at this point I have a very short fuse for obvious bad faith), I offer it to them as a tool to help them finish my job; not a single soul has yet to take me up on that offer.
by toprerules | 2026-02-07 22:52:31+00:00
After working with the latest models I think these "it's just another tool" or "another layer of abstraction" or "I'm just building at a different level" kind of arguments are wishful thinking. You're not going to be a designer writing blueprints for a series of workers to execute on, you're barely going to be a product manager translating business requirements into a technical specification before AI closes that gap as well. I'm very convinced non-technical people will be able to use these tools, because what I'm seeing is that all of the skills that my training and years of experience have helped me hone are now implemented by these tools to the level that I know most businesses would be satisfied by.

The irony is that I haven't seen AI have nearly as large of an impact anywhere else. We truly have automated ourselves out of work, people are just catching up with that fact and the people that just wanted to make money from software can now finally stop pretending that "passion" for "the craft" was every really part of their motivating calculus.