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SQLite is embedded for local applications with one writer mostly.

In 2026 that advice feels antiquated. SQLite now is absolutely useful now for concurrent, mutli-writer applications.

https://www.sqlite.org/src/doc/wal2/doc/wal2.md

Don't worry it'll be flagged soon.

LAC-Techon Wellington second-hand bookstore's mysterious orders

I went to school 3 minutes walk from that bookshop. I know what those draughty sashcord windowed shitbox houses are like.

LAC-Techon Wellington second-hand bookstore's mysterious orders

That wealthy is all tied up in draughty houses. It's not real.

LAC-Techon Wellington second-hand bookstore's mysterious orders

What percentage of New Zealanders do you think live somehwere that isn't cold and draughty?

LAC-Techon Wellington second-hand bookstore's mysterious orders

For those wondering why she's wearing wool and gloves indoors - New Zealanders typically can't afford electric heating, and wear woolen clothing in doors to to make up for this, when they can't burn firewood or coal.

LAC-Techon AI Coding and Its Discontents

My teams process has 5x our output

What is your output? I mean in terms of units, not asking for numbers.

LAC-Techon AI Coding and Its Discontents

This has been my experience too. The initial euphoria of "wow it did that thing quickly", then I'm stick with code that's subtly broken and I don't understand.

Getting very close to treating AI tools as "read only" at this point.

LAC-Techon Illinois just passed a law that puts Linux on the hook for age verification

What does this have to do with us?

Illinois can put up a great firewall like China and search citizens devices for contraband operating systems. The onus is not on tech to enforce it, it's on them.

LAC-Techon The phone book that led us to Assad's spy chief in hiding

Two things are worth mentioning

1) I am less affected than others if people don't like what I say. I'll say things I think even if I know it won't be well received.

2) If you say things outside peoples overton window, they will immediately conclude that you believe the opposite to them. So the misinterpretations do not surprise me. Of course I must love Assad, probably rUzZiA too, and the nazis etc etc.

Argumentum ad Populum based on the opinion of HN commenters talking about geopolitics genuinely does not sway me.

LAC-Techon The phone book that led us to Assad's spy chief in hiding

I didn't take a contrary position. I admitted my ignorance, and took a neutral position.

Propaganda is propaganda. I've even seen propaganda I agree with.

LAC-Techon The phone book that led us to Assad's spy chief in hiding

I don't know. I would have to compare the regimes side by side. But I am so incredibly skeptical about western interference in the middle east (and I say this as a proud westerner). Gadaffi was overthrown and the end result was too civil wars and open air slave markets. Syria is a different country of course, but my meta point is just because a new government is supported by the west does not mean it's better, as a general rule.

LAC-Techon The phone book that led us to Assad's spy chief in hiding

Partisan in the sense of - there is a clear bias for the new regime, and against the old one. Not the literal sense. Note the weasel words from the first few paragraphs:

- "dictator"

- "henchmen"

- "conducted from the shadows"

- "regime"

- "brutal crushing"

- "pro-democracy uprising"

- "rebels"

One paragraph is almost entirely weasel words:

"But his most egregious action in the city, many argue, was his alleged involvement in the so-called Eid Massacre, known by some as the Children's Massacre, which the US noted when sanctioning him."

LAC-Techon The phone book that led us to Assad's spy chief in hiding

I know as much about it as every geopolitics expert who's responded to me - in that I have seen news stories. What of it? Do you take every news story you read at face value? I don't. Hence - no opinion; unlike all the experts on modern Syrian history we have here who have no doubt great amounts of knowledge on the civil war, finer points of ideologies, accurate death counts from third party sources, et.

Also, do you know how to read? I said it was propaganda and laughably biased. Weasel words. Can you not see them? Never accused them of fabricating anything.

LAC-Techon The phone book that led us to Assad's spy chief in hiding

Is anyone just overwhelmed by the propaganda and partisanship as you read this? I have no great opinion on this Syrian regime or the previous - like basically everyone on HN when it comes to geopolitical topics, I do not know much about it - but the bias in the article is almost comically ham-fisted.

LAC-Techon “Code was never the hard part” is an insult to all programmers

The software development profession is in the midst of upheaval. Nobody knows how the AI revolution will play out in the end, but it is clear many aspects of work and life will be transformed—including programming.

I'm still not seeing it.

I'm seeing a lot of loud people, a lot of LOC produced, and a lot of people angrily pointing to their sideprojects... but no massive impact outside our bubble. Remember it's 2026, we are 5 years into this hype, the models are better than ever, and all the software we used around us is basically in the state it would have been in had we projected 2021 tech 5 years into the future ("in 2026, there will be... another backend JS runtime!")

I'm afraid all the personal anecdotes of technologists have not translated to real world results... other than negative ones like GitHub now having 0 9s of reliability.

Of course I suppose I'm "coping", as if I wouldn't be over the moon if AI had made me 10x productive... but maybe, just maybe, a lot of people really like talking to chatbots?

LAC-Techon Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

I think we are noticing it. Are you not?

I am not. Congratulations on your side project.

LAC-Techon Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

I make no societal judgments; just that the nastiness of the reactions I get suggests something more than technical choice is going on.

I had one prominent "influencer" publicly challenge me to a coding competition over it. It was very weird.

LAC-Techon Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

I can believe people get value out of them. I think I do.

But "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED THE OLD WAY IS DEAD 10X MORE PRODUCTIVE" - no. If that were true, we'd notice it in the software all around us.

LAC-Techon Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

I think this goes along way to explain people's very defensive reactions when you are skeptical about Agentic Development.

LAC-Techon Born Against, or why hobby programming communities are against LLM usage

LLMs let you generate code quickly. This seems to have very little relevance to the end result.

LAC-Techon Eight Myths on Software Engineering and GenAI

All very sensible points which I think all senior programmers who have used AI would largely to agree with.

For those more junior - keep in mind that a lot of the maximalist rhetoric are from people either selling models, or the cottage industry of people selling you courses or tools to help you use the models. Try and keep in mind software is not a mature industry, it's an immature one, and it's prone to hype and fads.

LAC-Techon Mistral's Shieldstral: 3B open-weights model for multimodal moderation

Oh so THAT'S why the web app is so slow

LAC-Techon Atom is better than RSS, in ways that matter

What a bitchy reply

LAC-Techon Atom is better than RSS, in ways that matter

huh, I call the atom feed on my site an atom feed. I wonder if that confuses people...

LAC-Techon NetBSD 11.0

I think I could probably live on them. I am actually seeking a more restricted computer system these days... I really don't need DRM or slop apps or games.

LAC-Techon Reject Agility, Embrace Specification

That's the wonderful thing about the Agile Manifesto - it says so little you can use it to justify anything.

Specs? The agile manifesto never said to stop writing specs!

Standups? Checmkate waterfallists, the agile manifesto never mentioned that!

Real software engineers have written written real papers on these things. We can forego the manifesto, which is just a few platitudes from consultants on a website.

LAC-Techon It's not empowering to hand off the details

The places where I've seen unequivocal wins with AI are repetitive tech debt tasks that apply the same transformation across a large amount of code or refactor under a pre-existing test suite with good coverage.

I agree with this, but I'd add the caveat you have to do your own digging and researching (as the article says) to identify these tasks well. If you ask it for ideas, it gets painful.

YMMV (and I am very open to getting better at this).

LAC-Techon Git rebase -i is not that scary

Looks like an incredibly dull way to waste hours of my finite life for microscopic benefit.

LAC-Techon Git rebase -i is not that scary

I could say the same for reading Tony Hoare.