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codingclaws

919 karma · joined November 6, 2020

Remote freelance front and back-end web developer since 2003.

https://www.rysapps.com

rytf12@gmail.com

submissionscomments
codingclaws··on I’ve banned query strings
I was just wondering if I should do something like this. I use a couple query string values and I validate them and issue a 40x if the value is invalid. So, I was wondering if I should issue a 40x for an unused query string val.
codingclaws··on Ask HN: What book are you reading?
Dungeon Crawler Carl, book 2
codingclaws··on Ask HN: What would you recommend a vibe coder learn about how all this works?
The cornerstone of coding is the function. Study functions.
codingclaws··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2026)
Refactoring Comment Castles [0]. It uses Express, but I previously wasn't using any of my own middleware functions. Now, I'm starting to write some middleware, and it's a nice way to reuse code.

[0] https://www.commentcastles.org

codingclaws··on Ask HN: How do you reset an AppleID?
apple auth is a clusterfuck
codingclaws··on Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?
Neuromancer - 2nd time I read it. Such a good book.

To Your Scattered Bodies Go - 2nd time I read it. Cool book. It's about a world with a big river where humans are reborn after they die on earth.

Use of Weapons - 2nd time I read it. One of the more popular Iain Banks Culture novels.

Dungeon Crawler Carl #1 - Loved it.

Matter - 2nd time I read it. This is another Banks Culture novel. This book is actually very good. Most of it takes places on a megastructure planet with different levels.

Assassin's Apprentice - I don't get the hype.

Memories of Ice - 3rd Malazan book. I thought the first quarter was lit.

Cursed Cocktails - Cozy fantasy, good book.

I log all my read books here [0].

[0] https://www.commentcastles.org/r/ireadthisbook

codingclaws··on The RSS feed reader landscape
I built an RSS reader in 2005. I never figured out how to 100% reliably detect already downloaded articles.
codingclaws··on Qualcomm to acquire Arduino
RIP Arduino
codingclaws··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2025)
SEEKING WORK | Portugal | Remote

Remote freelance software developer for 22 years. Mostly web apps. Prefer async written communication. Part-time only. No LLM use. Email and portfolio in HN bio.

codingclaws··on Ask HN: When was the last time you visited Stack Overflow?
10 minutes ago [0]. I needed to git diff two files that weren't in a repo.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16683121/git-diff-betwee...

codingclaws··on Where is the exponential growth part of AI?
Technology as a whole is on an exponential growth curve. The further we get along that, the more likely it is that we'll see an artificial intelligence singularity. LLMs/chatgpt may or may not play a direct role.
codingclaws··on The beauty of a text only webpage
Couldn't agree more. I love text only pages/sites that have some style.
codingclaws··on What would you name a new programming language?
Thinking of what to name an app or language is torturous.
codingclaws··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (August 2025)
SEEKING WORK | Portugal

I have 20 years of experience as a remote freelance developer.

Technologies: Anything with documentation. Learning is my top skill.

Email: In my HN bio.

Musical Instrument: A cheap digital piano with broken speakers, so I am using MIDI output + Linux [0].

[0] https://www.commentcastles.org/p/jnA0cdCtStN0R9flkVVLj2

codingclaws··on Fast
Fast and light weight. That's why I love vim/cli over IDEs.

Btw, cool site design.

codingclaws··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)
My Reddit clone called Comment Castles [0].

Earlier today I implemented "bbcodes" for bold, italic, underline, em (grey background color) and strikethrough. They way it works for bold is like this: b[text here]. If you want to apply multiple you can go bui[text here] for example, which would be bold, underline and italic text.

[0] https://github.com/ferg1e/comment-castles

codingclaws··on Ask HN: Is the header CSS broken for you?
Yes, I thought the padding/margin below the header was reduced.
codingclaws··on Research suggests Big Bang may have taken place inside a black hole
Could a computer simulation also contain another universe, with virtual black holes that have universes?
codingclaws··on Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?
I develop a HN/Reddit clone [0] that has high density settings. The home page is fairly high density by default. But if you go into the settings [1], then you can really crank up the home page UI density by setting posts per page to 50 and post spacing to 2. The density is more apparent on desktop since the lines don't wrap.

[0] https://www.commentcastles.org

[1] https://www.commentcastles.org/settings

codingclaws··on Ask HN: What are your unpopular opinions about programming?
What app/problem requires so much JS time zone manipulation? I have an app that's front and back-end JS, and I do all time zone stuff in Postgres.
codingclaws··on Ask HN: What are your unpopular opinions about programming?
JavaScript is excellent.
codingclaws··on Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic
Remember when Covid hit, and no one was going anywhere (in a plane or a car), and the skies were crystal clear everywhere.
codingclaws··on My washing machine refreshed my thinking on software estimation
Doesn't billing my the hour go against all of the contractor compensation advice given here on HN?
codingclaws··on Ask HN: What projects are you working on?
I'm making a text-based dungeon crawler [0] with C++. Also working on my Reddit clone [1] a little bit.

[0] https://github.com/ferg1e/stepping-stone-dungeon

[1] https://github.com/ferg1e/comment-castles

codingclaws··on Looking for the best forum software to start a new forum community in 2025
Yeah, here is what you need to do:

- install Node.js, Redis and PostgreSQL

- start the Redis server

- start PostgreSQL, create a database and run structure.sql: https://github.com/ferg1e/comment-castles/blob/master/sql/st...

- get all the source code for the actual app (ie. the code from the comment castles repo)

- figure out all your environment variables (the ones I list in the README)

- now you can run the node app (you probably want to use pm2 if on Linux)

- then connect that running node app to the public internet (I use something random for the HTTP_PORT environment variable, like 3333, and then I Nginx reverse proxy that to port 80 on my domain name (I will try to get this Nginx code and post it here later))

- and then I run the let's encrypt certbot for https

codingclaws··on Looking for the best forum software to start a new forum community in 2025
Comment castles:

https://github.com/ferg1e/comment-castles

(I'm the developer)

codingclaws··on Ask HN: Are any other languages as big as C++?
Building blocks / concepts
codingclaws··on Ask HN: Why are you a generalist programmer?
Yes, I would get bored of using the same stack for many years straight.
codingclaws··on Apple Dev account problem taking 2 months to resolve?
Apple authentication is atrocious, I've had my fair share of issues.
codingclaws··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (November 2024)
SEEKING WORK | Europe

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL

https://www.rysapps.com

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