StellarScience

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React. We're a bit behind the curve on developer AI adoption, and we're okay with that.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

Python is famously built around hash tables. So much so that several versions ago they made an improvement to the hash table implementation, and the entire language became several percent faster.

However, I'm surprised to see no data structures at all with O(log(N)) complexity. Surely there are some use cases for which that's desirable?

Not true. I just bought No Man's Sky on a Steam sale a few months ago and have been having a blast with it - only very occasionally neglecting my adult duties because of it.

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React. We're a bit behind the curve on developer AI adoption, and we're okay with that.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

> I'm trying to separate out which is "don't do this in C/C++" and which is "don't do this in any language".

To achieve high performance, any language would need to implement integer addition with a single machine instruction like 'ADD'. Languages can achieve more intuitive behavior by adding an operand check before the 'ADD', or by using an 'ADC' instruction and checking the carry bit afterwards. But adding branch statements to every add operation would slow computation significantly. Clever languages/compilers might deduce certain invariants and variable ranges that enable it to remove some of these branches to help in certain special cases.

Evidently Rust has an optional "safe add" that adds the branches to check for overflow. So newer languages offer more explicit options. But the core issue is more fundamental than language-specific.

> I really don't see what's supposedly awful about that loop

Exactly! That's precisely the problem with it.

(Hint: think about your code when size = 0.)

> for (size_t i = size - 1; i < size; i--)

Agreed, seeing that example briefly made me consider whether this blog post was a parody. Sure, it works for this exact example, by relying on i wrapping "down" to MAX_INT on the last iteration. But how long will it take the next developer who works on the code base to figure that out? Will they figure it out before or after committing changes that break it? Or worse yet, before or after shipping code?

I liked how the discussion of 'delta = x - y' moved right on to how really you usually want delta = abs(x - y), so let's talk about that instead...

Even beyond Stroustrup, Dijkstra, and Google, this whole panel of C++ luminaries agrees to prefer signed types and explains pretty clearly why:

- 12:12-13:08 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puio5dly9N8#t=12m12s

- 42:40-45:26 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puio5dly9N8#t=42m40s

- 1:02:50-1:03:15 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puio5dly9N8#t=1h2m50s

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React. We're a bit behind the curve on developer AI adoption, and we're okay with that.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

10 months or so ago I believe HN posted "The future of Large Files in Git is Git" : https://tylercipriani.com/blog/2025/08/15/git-lfs/

So is it the future now?

Just FYI, finally in C++ you can add a top-level exception handler and call boost::stacktrace::from_current_exception (https://www.boost.org/releases/1.85.0/), and get a stack trace on exit as helpful as in Python or Java.

CEOs understands that AI offers potential productivity increases. Using that productivity boost to cut staff is an unimaginative approach. Bolder approaches include using that boost to exceed the expectations of current customers, or to increase sales without proportional increase in staff, etc.

> the hyperbole from the tech CEOs about them replacing all white collar workers in 12-18 months

Just keep in mind that you're likely hearing from a limited subset of all tech CEOs.

"CEO Expresses Moderate Confidence that AI Can Enable Modest Productivity Gains" is not an article that gets written, because it would not generate clicks.

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React. We're a bit behind the curve on developer AI adoption, and we're okay with that.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Lots of C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Web projects use Java and Typescript/React.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

98% of the time those lengthy messages are useless, but the other 2% of the time they're critical to tracking down the problem.

A year or two ago Visual Studio added a pop-up that parses such lengthy compiler messages into a clickable tree list. I found it annoying at first, until I discovered I could dock it to the side, ignore it 98% of the time, but still go look at the details when relevant. This is an idea other compilers should copy.

Maybe ships should copy this approach too: issue fewer warnings, but provide a list of warning details for review when necessary.

And similarly:

  slow growth is terrible

Slow growth is awesome! Slow growth gives you time to address the challenges of growth, and think through sensible solutions.

Rapid growth feels like you're constantly plugging holes in the dike or putting out fires.

Like you I've had brief moments of jealously seeing a company that started after mine and grew faster. But when I think rationally, I just wish them well, and realize I'm happy with any pace of growth that's not negative.

Better idea: write code. Don't waste your teams' time with back-to-back hour-long meetings.

  git clone --branch v6.10.1 https://code.qt.io/qt/qt5.git .

No login required.

They do require a login to download precompiled binaries, but what self-respecting Hacker News reader wants those?!

Ok, I'll admit, I've done it. And yes, I received Qt marketing at that email alias for a while, but they've stopped.

And remember, Qt has an LPGL license too, not just Commercial and GPL.

EDIT: Ah, ranger_danger pointed out that https://download.qt.io/archive/qt/6.10/ hosts binaries with no login required as well!

Ignoring the git commit message strawman (those can include "what/why the change", not "what/why the code") and the Uncle Bob strawman, the final code block looks fine. But notice:

  // translate will replace all instances; only need to run it once

This is a "why".

  // Replace all symbols

This is a "what". It's better conveyed by improving the function name rather than by a comment:

  String replaceAllSymbols() {

Ultimately this article buttresses conventional wisdom about comments.

Stellar Science | Hybrid (USA) Albuquerque NM, Washington DC (Tysons VA), Dayton OH | Full time, interns/co-ops | U.S. citizenship required | https://www.stellarscience.com

Company: We're a small scientific software development company that develops custom scientific and engineering analysis applications in domains including: space situational awareness (monitoring the locations, health and status of on-orbit satellites), image simulation, high power microwave systems, modeling and simulation, laser systems modeling, AI/ML including physics-informed neural networks (PINN), human body thermoregulation, computer vision and image processing, high performance computing (HPC), computer aided design (CAD), and more. All exciting applications and no CRUD. We emphasize high quality code and lightweight processes that free software engineers to be productive.

Experience: Except for interns, we currently require a Bachelors degree in physics, engineering, math, computer science, or a related field. Masters or PhD is a plus. (Roughly 25% of our staff have PhDs.)

Technologies: Mostly C++23, Qt 6.9, CMake, git, OpenGL, CUDA, Boost, Jenkins. Windows and Linux, msvc/gcc/clang/clangcl. AI/ML and analysis projects use Python and C++. Some projects use Java or Typescript/React.

Apply online: at https://www.stellarscience.com/careers/.

> Companies that have disdain for their own customers ... do not endure in the limit.

This is a very common sort of wishful thinking that lets people bypass hard decisions. You create a company that loves its customers and employees and vice versa because you want to run a company that way. There are plenty of examples showing it's possible to run a sustainable business that way, and also plenty of counter-examples. There's no guarantee that it leads to business success or maximizes profits, it's just a choice you make.

Years ago our company consolidated on Firefox because we could rely on it to not send our information to remote servers. At that time other browsers made it hard to disable telemetry. Firefox was then the only browser that could forward Kerberos tickets to remote servers, for highly secure two-factor authentication and single-sign on.

I'm personnally sad that now we have to consider banning Firefox for company use, because it's hard to verify that we've disabled every AI "feature" that might funnel our data to remote servers.

C++ with Boost has let you grab a stacktrace anywhere in the application for years. But in April 2024 Boost 1.85 added a big new feature: stacktrace from arbitrary exception ( https://www.boost.org/releases/1.85.0/ ), which shows the call stack at the time of the throw. We added it to our codebase, and suddenly errors where exceptions were thrown became orders of magnitude easier to debug.

C++23 added std::tracktrace, but until it includes stacktrace from arbitrary exception, we're sticking with Boost.

The US federal government issues its employees smart cards (Common Access Cards) that contain digital certs. Government employees can use these to send and receive S/MIME encrypted emails. That's a couple million users!

Our small company has been encrypting all emails by default with S/MIME for 15-20 years. A company can generate its own certs for free from a company root cert, use a provider like Sectigo for $20/year, or get US Government ECA certs for about $100/year.

You can read encrypted emails on company-managed mobile devices that have Knox chips to secure access to the certificate. We're careful to back up all our old keys so we can always read old emails.

Some drawbacks are:

- Email "search" features only see the subjects, not the contents, of encrypted emails.

- You can't read encrypted emails via web email.

- Few others have S/MIME certs. Most major government contractors seem confused when we ask about encrypting emails with them...

Johnny may not encrypt, but every business really can.

The AI spreadsheet example in the linked article is interesting, but that occurs within a more specialized and constrained environment than general GUI design. I think of good UI design as involving a lot of human factors understanding combined with 2D spatial reasoning and layout, which I don't think AI is good at. (Today's article about Claude failing to reproduce an HTML layout to match a screen capture is one example of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46183294 )

But my pessimism may be unfounded or based on ignorance. At some point AI will probably get better at these things as well, either with better LLMs or by augmenting LLMs with outboard spatial reasoning modules that they can interact with.

> It's unfortunate that so many people end up parroting fanciful ideas without fully appreciating the different contexts around software development.

Of course that's true of both sides of this discussion too.

I really value DRY, but of course I have seen cases where a little duplication is preferable. Lately I've seen a steady stream of these "duplication is ok" posts, and I worry that newer programmers will use it to justify copy-paste-modifying 20-30-line blocks of code without even trying to create an appropriate abstraction.

The reality of software is, as you suggest, that there are many good rules of thumb, but also lots of exceptions, and judgment is required in applying them.