MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by hmry | 2026-03-12 08:35:39+00:00
> The entire article boils down to one specific problem: string marshalling overhead

No, I don't think so at all. 80% of the article is about other problems (JS bindings are complicated to generate and a leaky abstraction, additional tools beyond the compiler are required, compiler authors don't want to deal with them, they increase the friction for getting started, they're hard to debug, ...)
by lawtalkinghuman | 2026-03-12 08:35:44+00:00
Yes, that's the general rule.

You then get lots of interesting exceptions and difficulties in applying that rule: who pays when you have multiple potential defendants (but some of them have died or gone out of business or are in a different jurisdiction), or there are fiddly causation issues, or the defendant is an organisation that's vicariously liable for their employee/contractor/authorised religious leader/any number of other relationships, or there's insurance involved, or there's some third party interest, or the purportedly tortious act was mandated by some law or other obligation, or the government decides to set up some kind of alternative process of compensation which may or may not indemnify the tortfeasor, and so on and so on.

When dealing with the not-so-straightforward cases, appellate courts do look at questions like "is this a fair and equitable distribution of the cost?" and legal scholars compare the pros and cons of tort liability to other mechanisms (compensation by the government, industry self-regulation, no-fault/strict liability, mandatory insurance etc).
by flohofwoe | 2026-03-12 08:36:32+00:00
At least the 'web' part makes more sense than the 'assembly' part ;)

WASM was designed as a successor to asm.js, and asm.js was purely a web thing. While non-web-platforms were considered as a potential use case (in the sense of "using WASM outside the web should be possible", it wasn't clear at the time what the successful usages outside browsers would even look like).
by friendzis | 2026-03-12 08:37:14+00:00
This little experiment of yours highlights the issue at hand quite well. In every language there is a thing called "voice": academic, formal, informal, intimate, etc. The rewritten paragraph sounds written in the notorious "LLM voice". It's less direct, more pandering and removes injection points for further discussion.

To continue the experiment I have fed the above paragraph to Gemini with this prompt "Fix grammar and wording issues in the following paragraphs, if needed reword to fit with and be well received in the hacker news community."

This experiment highlights the core issue. Every language has its own voice—academic, formal, informal, or intimate. Your rewritten paragraph leans into the notorious "LLM voice": it’s less direct, feels slightly pandering, and strips away the hooks that usually spark further discussion.
by laughinghan | 2026-03-12 08:37:16+00:00
You seem to be implying that these goals were optional, but I don’t understand how #2 cross-lang interop could ever have been optional. Isn’t running non-JS languages the entire point of WebAssembly?

Given that, do you really think goal #1 non-Web APIs really added much additional delay on top of the delay necessitated by goal #2 anyway?
by Juliate | 2026-03-12 08:37:57+00:00
I disagree. I do not care about the details of a ton of stuff. I do not even understand them.

On the other hand, I do care about people that are knowledgeable of these details, specialized, and trust to handle them for me for a fee.

That’s true of banking, realting, health, security, building, manufacturing of everything I use (or almost). That doesn’t prevent me from vaguely understanding the principles and some bits. And that saved me a ton of time and worry. But for the few times one agent does not work up to his promises.

I am 49, I have dealt enough with try to do all by myself, and I do appreciate and rely onto middlemen way earlier now.
by flohofwoe | 2026-03-12 08:38:16+00:00
> So webassembly is an assembly language for the web.

But is isn't, at most WAT is (the WASM text format). WASM itself is a bytecode format. Nobody calls CPU machine code 'assembly' (nitpicking, I know, but the 'web' part of the name makes a lot more sense than the 'assembly' part).
by AyanamiKaine | 2026-03-12 08:39:05+00:00
Mhh while many argue they can recognise the AI in writing. I dont think Humans actually can judge if something is done by ai or not. Many times I saw people 100% believing that an artist created an AI artwork only for that artist to be bullied because they didnt admit it.

Only for them to showing undeniable prove that they actually did create their art themselves.

For someone to be allowed to judge another. He should be doing a test where he can identify AI comments first with high accuracy.

It would be a pain to see real human comments and ideas to be hidden or removed by a mob.
by frm88 | 2026-03-12 08:39:45+00:00
Politicisation has increased dramatically since the early 2000's in about every field imaginable, from intelligence analysis to technical inventions. The fact that we cannot have an electric car without the owner of the corporation expressing political opinions on twitter is a prime example of how there is politicisation creep in almost everything [0].

One particularly egregious example (to me) of this is the politicisation of science [1] by various factions like governments, advocacy groups etc. because if we lose the integrity of science bad things will happen.

All that to say, the line has blurred so much, I highly doubt you can separate these topics again. HN reflects that as much as any other site.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politicisation

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politicization_of_science
by superultra | 2026-03-12 08:40:41+00:00
I think you’re missing the point and approaching this with a myopically binary perspective.

Just because you consider AI an interface in line with, perhaps, a paintbrush, typewriter, or spell checker, doesn’t mean it automatically is. It may even be true for you, and not for others. That’s the myopic part.

The binary part is that simply because you see it as an interface, it doesn’t have effects that are different than the interface of a brush. You wouldn’t get very far arguing with a judge that 80mph over the speed limit is exactly the same as 5mph over the speed limit.

Or, where would you draw the line. Is hiring someone to write your hacker news comments still your comment? Or what about spam bots? Are they not also an “interface?” Is banning spam bots outrightly also “ableist” by you?

But also, we have plenty of both media philosophical musing and evidence based data that shows that while mediums may not BE the message, they absolutely do affect the message.

In this case HN is simply saying that the process of humans generating words that we type onto a screen is the valuable part of communicating that we want to maintain. And that using AI is a bridge too far in losing the effort and output from that process.
by hardwaresofton | 2026-03-12 08:43:12+00:00
> Get your blatant component model propaganda outta here ;)

It's perfectly good content, sir!

> (to elaborate: WASM works just fine without the component model, it's not "the future of WebAssembly", just an option built on top of it, and of questionable value tbh)

WebAssembly absolutely works fine without the component model, and I'd argue it's much better with the component model.

Here's my simple pitch.

world before component model:

> be me
> build a webassembly core module
> give it to someone
> they ask what imports it needs
> they ask how to run it
> they ask how to provide high level types to it

world after component model:

> be me
> write an IDL (WIT[0]) interface which specifies what the component should do
> write the webassembly component

WebAssembly gives us an incredible tool -- a new compilation target that is secure, performant and extensible. We could crudely liken this to RISCV. In $CURRENT_YEAR it doesn't make sense to stop at the RISCV layer and then let everyone create their own standards and chaos in 50 directions on what the 1/2/3 step higher abstractions should be.

Emscripten carried the torch (and still does great work of course) in building this layer that people could build on top of, but it didn't go far enough. Tools like wasm_bindgen in Rust work great but lack cross-platform usage.

The Component Model is absolutely the future of WebAssembly. Maybe not the future of WebAssembly core, but if you want to be productive and do increasingly interesting things with WebAssembly, the Component Model is the standards-backed, community-driven, cross-platform, ambitious way to do things with WebAssembly.

To be incredibly blunt, the failure of other attempts to centralize community, effort, and bring people along to build a shared thing that is just low cost enough that everyone can build on top is impressive. Nothing against other efforts, but I just can't find any similar efforts that others have standardized on in any meaningful way.

We're talking about a (partially already here) world where every popular programming language just outputs to WebAssembly natively and computers on every popular architecture/platform have an easy time running those binaries and libraries? If that's not the future, paint me a different one/show me movement in that direction -- genuinely would love to see what I'm missing!

And in all of this, the Component Model is optional -- if you don't like it, don't use it. If WebAssembly core works for you, you are absolutely free to build! wasm32-unknown-unknown is right there, waiting for you to target it (in Rust at least).
by asimovDev | 2026-03-12 08:44:14+00:00
as someone who wasn't around for PowerPC mac times (I was alive but I didn't have internet and only knew apple for iPod and Apple II), did non artist people use FireWire for anything other than synchronizing their first generation iPods? Was it common to have a firewire external drive and were there any other devices that aren't cameras, film scanners or audio interfaces that utilized firewire?
by BirdieNZ | 2026-03-12 08:44:59+00:00
I don't want to just copy and paste my previous comment, but this isn't how companies at this size think about declaring profits. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47347993

Hence the comment you replied to saying "they print cash". You'll find a lot of big companies work this way: high free cashflow, because they earn a lot more than they spend, but then the spare cash is either reinvested or paid out via share buybacks. Declaring a profit isn't advantageous compared to the other options available.
by roenxi | 2026-03-12 08:45:28+00:00
> But what if they stop believing?

That is what I'm asking you. Are you saying that you just want to use a different word capture the idea that only one person can have the apple? Because instead of saying Mr A can't afford the apple you're saying that Mr A can't have the apple because of a divine right ... that looks a lot like it has the same implications as affordability.

The social construct you're pointing at is the labelling of the situation rather than the underlying physics of the situation, is where I'm going with this. If scarcity is a factor, then affordability exists as a reality. You can relabel it as a social construct, but you can't escape the real world.

> Do you mean like if you attempted to take oil that isn't considered to be yours that an army will roll in and destroy you?

I mean that more than the social limits, the real limits are the bigger part of why I can't do what I want with oil.
by Latty | 2026-03-12 08:45:32+00:00
> That's a separate argument.

No, you can do things that benefit you electorally, but are also just the right thing to do. Changing the voting system from FPTP would obviously benefit parties other than the major ones, but that doesn't mean it'd be wrong for those parties to do it if they got into power. So the question is if it's good policy, and so I argue it is, if someone can be living by themselves, working in the army or as a full-time apprentice, married, and having a child, they should be able to vote.

> When a court challenge loomed, Labour quickly u-turned on the latest round of cancellations. Funny how something can seem sensible one day, and can then be u-turned at the slightest whiff of legal scrutiny.

Yes, it's absolutely bad that the government isn't making sure these things are legal before doing them, just as with the Palestine Action proscription. It's also hardly a sign of it being gerrymandering, why would they bother when it's going to give them basically zero advantage, given it would only achieve getting a council that will have no time to actually do anything? The obvious conclusion is they thought it was a waste of money and effort to hold them, but if you have to fight a legal battle over it, it won't actually save any money or effort as that has a large cost, even if it is legal.

> Can you name a single Conservative hereditary peer that will be given a lifetime peerage in Starmer's reform plan?

BBC reporting as of two days ago: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxg76rgdp7o

> The BBC understands ministers have offered the Conservatives the chance to retain 15 hereditary members of the House of Lords as life peers.

So it's not specific names as it hasn't been finalised, but 15 of them. I accept I misremembered when I said "all", but the point stands: not gerrymandering.
by pydry | 2026-03-12 08:45:51+00:00
More to the point the definition of responsibility is ambiguous and rarely shared.

The SRP is a bit like the original agile principles: the intent in writing them down was good and they definitely alluded to something real and valuable but the actual wording is vague enough to allow almost anything - including the exact opposite of the original intent.

SRP doesnt need to be tossed away, just redefined more tightly.
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by hjbarraza | 2026-03-12 08:45:56+00:00
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by samdjstephens | 2026-03-12 08:46:15+00:00
I suspect it has something to do with a) the average quality of code in open source repos and b) the way the reward signal is applied in RL post-training - does the model face consequences of a brittle implementation for a task?

I wonder if these RL runs can extend over multiple sequential evaluations, where poor design in an early task hampers performance later on, as measured by amount of tokens required to add new functionality without breaking existing functionality.
by tasuki | 2026-03-12 08:46:16+00:00
> A couple of years ago an estate - that included a 9 bedroom country house, plus an entire village with a population of 100 people, and a church - was sold by noblety near where I grew up. The price was in the low tens of millions, not that much.

Entire village? How's that work? What can the new owner do with the village? I imagine the inhabitants aren't enslaved?
by hardwaresofton | 2026-03-12 08:46:51+00:00
Very reductive :) there are flavors and hints of all these previous technologies /paradigms in WebAssembly + Component Model today, because only fools would attempt to build something without considering relevant prior art.

Won't bother trying going through differences/how-this-is-not-that but I'll say this: This time, it's slightly better, just like every time before.

I'd even go so far as to say this iteration is much better than what came before, and the speed of adoption by multiple language toolchains, platforms, operating systems, browsers proves that.
by wiggmap | 2026-03-12 08:47:47+00:00
hello community ,I built WiggMap, a website to compare living conditions across 150+ countries.

It’s designed for people thinking about relocation, remote work, long-term travel, or simply comparing countries in a more practical and visual way.

The site includes country pages, comparison tools, and editorial articles around topics like visas, quality of life, and cost of living. My goal was to create something more directly usable than scattered articles or generic rankings.

As one example of the editorial side, here is an article about digital nomad visas in 2026:
https://wiggmap.com/chronicles/chronicle-digital-nomad-visas...

I’m still improving the project, so I’d love honest feedback on the usefulness of the concept, the UX, and what data or features would make it more valuable.

Happy to answer any questions about the build, structure, or direction of the project.
by koshergweilo | 2026-03-12 08:47:51+00:00
> The problem with democracy is that it can easily become a revolving door wherein capital holders can choose which candidates are allowed to approach the door.

I've reached similar conclusions about the problems with democracy but always struggle with any potential solutions. Looking at the the world, I don't see any viable alternative forms of government, just slight variations that still suffer from the same core problems but to a lesser degree
by 4gotunameagain | 2026-03-12 08:48:23+00:00
I am thinking the theories are true because of the must larger negative repercussions of that action.

They are strengthening the regime (US intelligence services were aware of that before the attack and had informed the president), they are destabilizing all their oil producers, they are risking great economic cost..

It only makes sense if indeed they either extorted him, or if he is indeed demented / deranged.
by jasode | 2026-03-12 08:50:52+00:00
>, we simply have to make a cultural change where non-technical people do more for themselves. I don't even think it's about technical difficulty (most of the time). I think people just want someone else to take care of their shit.

The above includes us highly technical people on HN. We really can't expect (or lecture) the normal mainstream population to make a cultural change to adopt decentralized tech when most of us don't do it ourselves.

E.g. Most of us don't want to self-host our public git repo. Instead, we just use centralized Github. We have the technical knowledge to self-host git but we have valid reasons for not wanting to do it and willingly outsource it to Github.

And consider we're not on decentralized USENET nodes discussing this. Instead, we're on centralized HN. It's more convenient. Same reason technical folks shut down their self-hosted PHP forum software and migrate to centralised Discord.

The reason can't be reduced to just "people being lazy". It's about tradeoffs. This is why it's incorrect to think that futuristic scenarios of a hypothetical easy-to-use "internet appliance" (possibly provided by ISP) to self-host email/git/USENET/videos/etc and a worldwide rollout out IPv6 to avoid NAT will remove barriers to decentralization.

The popular essay "Protocols Not Platforms" about the benefits of decentralization often gets reposted here but that doesn't help because "free protocols" don't really solve the underlying reasons centralization keeps happening: money, time, and motivation to follow the decentralized ethos.

"But you become a prisoner of centralized services!" -- True, but self-hosted tech stack for some folks can also be a prison too. It's just a different type. To get "freedom" from the self-hosted hassles, they rely on centralized services!
by jonathanstrange | 2026-03-12 08:51:11+00:00
We made very good experiences with a realtor when we bought our apartment. Where I live, there is a lot of bureaucracy at play and the process is not easy to understand even when you have experts to ask. There have also been very sophisticated frauds on both sides - sellers and buyers - that a realtor from a well-known franchise blocks.

Generally, I see no problem with competent middle men. They offer a service like any other service. If you want the service, you buy it, and if you don't want it you don't.
by prox | 2026-03-12 08:51:26+00:00
This is a usual pattern, a tech savvy hacker creates this great tool, but if you don’t put in the interface work to make it easy, frictionless, it might as well not exist for the general public to consume. Grandma will never use this. Or not even a slightly technical person will. (And it’s fine if that isn’t your audience ofc)

My call to any devs reading this: get an interface designer, put in the usability effort before adding new features.
by TheDong | 2026-03-12 08:51:34+00:00
On code-formatters, I don't think it's so clear-cut, but rather an "it depends".

For code that is meant to be an expression of programmers, meant to be art, then yes code formatters are counter-productive.

For code that is meant to be functional, one of the business goals is uniformity such that the programmers working on the code can be replaced like cogs, such that there is no individuality or voice. In that regard, yes, code-formatters are good and voice is bad.

Similarly, an artist painting art should be free. An "artist" painting the "BUS" lines on a road should not take liberties, they should make it have the exact proportions and color of all the other "BUS" markings.

You can easily see this in the choices of languages. Haskell and lisp were made to express thought and beauty, and so they allow abstractions and give formatting freedom by default.

Go was made to try and make Googlers as cog-like and replaceable as possible, to minimize programmer voice and crush creativity and soul wherever possible, so formatting is deeply embedded in the language tooling and you're discouraged from building any truly beautiful abstractions.
by pm3003 | 2026-03-12 08:51:56+00:00
The Economist was recently citing hydrogen as "deep tech" [1] (meaning long R&D cycles, sometimes unproven techniology no short term profitability, heavy investment, industry-wide transformative power).

Most of your sources have plans focused on hydrogen production, but I'd be interested to see specific targets or plans regarding specific uses like fertilizers. There are some in the Hydrogen Roadmap Europe, but it seems focused on transportation [2].

[1] - https://www.economist.com/business/2026/03/01/at-last-reason...
[2] - https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/media/publications/hydr...
by flohofwoe | 2026-03-12 08:52:22+00:00
> but I don’t understand how #2 cross-lang interop could ever have been optional

This problem hasn't been solved outside the web either (at least not to the satisfaction of Rust fanboys who expect that they can tunnel their high level stdlib types directly to other languages - while conveniently ignoring that other languages have completely different semantics and very little overlap with the Rust stdlib).

At the core, the component model is basically an attempt to tunnel high level types to other languages, but with a strictly Rust-centric view of the world (the selection of 'primitive types' is essentially a random collection of Rust stdlib types).
by jurip | 2026-03-12 08:52:27+00:00
It might be helpful to have a modifier on all the models. It's a bit awkward (not that the naming geniuses at Apple have ever cared about how awkward it's to talk about their products, witness "Apple Watch Edition" and Max Macs) to talk about iPads, because one of them lacks a modifier. "Which iPad" "The iPad iPad", etc.
by jcmartinezdev | 2026-03-12 08:52:42+00:00
yeah, I wrote it myself, but since I'm not a native English speaker, I do use AI to "fix" and "polish". I think AI made me a worst writer in a way lol.

it's my bad, I should have been more careful at keeping the content how I wrote it, without much of the fine tuning GPT did.