Hacker News Reader

earenndilon Automate the Boring Stuff with Python (2015)

This is the second edition, which is new, so it shouldn't be (2015).

earenndilon Switching from Chrome to Firefox

No (don't use mac), but I generally found windows to be much slower than linux, on the same hardware. (Interestingly, freebsd was also much slower than linux--but that's a tale for another time.)

I wonder if it has to do with the scheduler? Desktop linux users sometimes install patchsets to their kernels like zen[1] or ck[2], which effectively enable soft-realtime in order to improve desktop responsiveness and latency, but reduce net throughput. iOS also generally feels more responsive than android, given comparable hardware, for similar reasons: more optimal scheduling algorithm.

1: https://liquorix.net/

2: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Linux-ck

earenndilon Switching from Chrome to Firefox

Or just ungoogled chromium.

Brave is bizarre and terrible. The idea of trying to replace ad-tech as it currently exists is great, and I welcome any experimentation thereunto. That said, brave does it wrong, and I don't think it's a good idea to support that; even without using their ad-tech feature, it still gives them mind- and market-share, and propagates their ad system elsewhere.

earenndilon The Linux codebase has over 3k TODO comments, many from over a decade ago

Slight tweak:

    #if DEBUG
    #define TODO(msg) #warning msg
    #else
    #define TODO(msg) #error msg
    #endif

earenndilon Debian votes for Proposal B, “Systemd but we support exploring alternatives”

> Dropping Option 6 because of Majority. (0.8084112149532710280373831775700934579439) 0.808 (173/214) < 1

Not particularly relevant, but is there any reason to include that many digits, especially when the source-of-truth fraction is right there?

earenndilon iKe: a browser-based sandbox for K

One came out a little over a week ago https://bitbucket.org/ngn/k/src/master/

earenndilon Kutt – a modern, open-source URL shortener

There's a limit to the length of an SMS, built into the protocol. 160 characters iirc.

earenndilon Go + Services = One Goliath Project

    def a(n):
        return lambda: print(n)

earenndilon Why Lisp macros are cool, a Perl perspective (2005)

You don't need those 4 paragraphs.

I have this alias in my .zshrc:

    clc() { sbcl --no-userinit --load $1 --eval "(sb-ext:save-lisp-and-die \"$(sansext $1)\" :toplevel 'main :executable t)" }

Sansext is a custom function that strips the file extension from a filename, but you don't need that; you can read output filename from $2, or whatever else.

earenndilon Why Lisp macros are cool, a Perl perspective (2005)

Except that it's actually very trivial to make such an exe.

earenndilon JetBrains: $270M revenue, 405K paying users, $0 raised

Not in visual mode.

earenndilon Writing a Simple Garbage Collector in C

Fair enough. You would probably switch to mmap, though, which works across threads.

earenndilon If You Can't Buy the Keyboard You Want, Build It Instead

Ehh

I have a kinesis advantage. There are some things I don't like about it, but I doubt it would be practical for me to make my own keyboard with a bowl shape like kinesis or maltron keyboards. And even if I could figure it out, they've probably done research into exactly what kind of curvature works well for the average hand, so whatever I made would be marginally less ergonomic.

earenndilon JetBrains: $270M revenue, 405K paying users, $0 raised

> In Vim I'd press `j` to get to the first entry, then `A,<esc>` to append the `,` after the first one, then `j.` to move down and repeat the action. I then press `j.` a bunch more times (which is really easy to do rapidly with your index and ring finger on Qwerty) and in 2 seconds I'm done. Vim's `.` to repeat the last action is really powerful and can save you a ton of time for small ad-hoc edit repetitions that don't warrant doing a full macro with `q`.

Eh. I'd probably do 'qqA,<esc>j0q', and then '8@q'.

That's also probably not the best example, since that's also trivial if you have an editor supporting multiple cursors.

earenndilon Writing a Simple Garbage Collector in C

> None of this is thread-safe. It needs a global mutex lock.

Or have a separate allocation chain for each thread.

It would increase fragmentation, but not by a lot, and probably increase performance by more than enough to make up for it.

earenndilon Proprioception: The Silent “Sixth” Sense

> The "taste" of a steak is a mix of smell and taste

And pressure--i.e. texture.

earenndilon Challenging projects every programmer should try

Why not write a terminal app? Everything except for the game emulator can be usefully done inside the terminal, which is pretty easy to get up-and-running with (and provides its own unique set of design constraints).

earenndilon Cyc

How does this compare to wolfram alpha?

earenndilon Intel’s Manufacturing Roadmap from 2019 to 2029

Tbf, IPC went up by enough that that effectively happened.

earenndilon Vim 8.2

I don't see how vim can be hindering progress when it, along with emacs, is more powerful than the editors that 99% of other people are using.

earenndilon Vim 8.2

Run by one person doesn't mean developed by one person.

earenndilon A Thread about Internet Archive's “Silent Killer”

They've been granted a DMCA exemption.

earenndilon Speeding Up the Rust Compiler

> rustc might never be as fast as the Go compiler because the language has so many additional features

Not necessarily true. The d compiler runs incredibly fast, for compiling the type of code you'd write in go; and it only slows down if you use a lot of complicated features like templates or CTFE.

earenndilon ABCL – Common Lisp on the JVM

SBCL is a de facto standard, and relying on it is fine.

Clasp is nice, but SBCL is fast enough that it's mostly extraneous unless you really need to talk to c++ code.

earenndilon Larry and Sergey: A Valediction

Interestingly, this also means that, even in public school, affluent children are likely to get a better education than less affluent children.

earenndilon Larry and Sergey: A Valediction

There are the kids who are already rich--or, rather, whose parents are already rich.

More to the point, kids with affluent backgrounds are far more likely to develop means of their own

earenndilon Larry and Sergey: A Valediction

Why should anyone be obligated to donate to--any school they went to?

earenndilon Larry and Sergey: A Valediction

The internet archive also has a usenet archive, FWIW.

earenndilon Lisp Programming in Vim with Slimv or Vlime

> [Emacs] can understand that a certain part of a file is written in one language and another in another language; and then give you appropriate syntax highlighting, indentation etc. in these specific parts. Vim can't do that.

Sure it can! Here[1]'s an example of someone using it for html embedded in heredocs.

> [Emacs'] scripting language is a lot nicer to work with.

This is not a fundamental limitation. E.G. neovim uses lua. (I'm not counting python and lua embedded in vim, because afaik they're a total pain to work with.)

I actually recently started transitioning from vim to emacs recently, but I don't think any of your arguments in favour of it are particularly strong. I do, however, agree that vim and emacs are at the cutting-edge of text editing, possibly along with some more niche editors like vis, sam, and kakoune.

1: https://forum.dlang.org/post/bvznmyneecpwgrxmgnby@forum.dlan...

earenndilon Learning to code vs. learning to automate

Autokey.