Hacker News Reader

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Coding is a solved problem. What is left for experienced engineers?

Honestly, I don't know.

But my belief is that experienced engineers would be needed for their judgement and ability to steer and verify the LLM output. This would be more valuable than the implementation specifics which LLMs are better at (in well bounded problems).

Paradoxically, I don't think one develops these skills without deliberate practice (putting in the reps). So I don't think the time you spent learning is totally wasted.

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Is it worth learning Vim in 2026?

I would say I'm maybe marginally more productive with Vim. But as you said, with advent of tools like Claude Code, where one hardly types, I don't think it really matters.

FWIW, I think it's one of the last areas of the software world that gives me true joy. I would suggest to give a try for simple that reason.

flamboyant_rideon Career Advice in 2025

> decision-makers can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent

Feels definitely true. I wish ICs had much more agency. Wish there was something actionable even as a small step (which I don't think is there on the article).

Having been laid off due to unclear reasons, can't help but think the same could happen in my next prospective job (if I get one in this market that is) and there's nothing I could do about it.

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2025)

  Location: India. UTC +05:30
  Remote: Yes (only).
  Willing to relocate: Not in general. But open to consider based on interest.
  Technologies: 
    1. Professional: Elixir, Go, Java, C#, Scala, Postgres, graph database, Kubernetes, Docker and a little bit of Helm, Terraform.
    2. Personal: Lua, Fennel, Rust, Racket, SML.
  Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NQOUQ2T20oi0tn8m-P1OwflwgdpttY5N/view?usp=sharing
  Email: (available on the linked resume)

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2025)

  Location: India. UTC +05:30
  Remote: Yes (only).
  Willing to relocate: Not in general. But open to consider based on interest.
  Technologies: 
    1. Professional: Elixir, Go, Java, C#, Scala, Postgres, graph database, Kubernetes, Docker and a little bit of Helm, Terraform.
    2. Personal: Lua, Fennel, Rust, Racket, SML.
  Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NQOUQ2T20oi0tn8m-P1OwflwgdpttY5N/view?usp=sharing
  Email: (available on the linked resume)

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Has anyone tried alternative company models (like a co-op) for SaaS?

Hey, I'm looking to learn more about joining a tech coop. Would like to get in touch to understand better (email is on my profile).

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2025)

  Location: India. GMT +05:30
  Remote: Yes (only).
  Willing to relocate: Not in general. But open to consider based on interest.
  Technologies: 
    1. Professional: Elixir, Go, Java, C#, Scala, Postgres, graph database, Kubernetes, Docker and a little bit of Helm, Terraform.
    2. Personal: Lua, Fennel, Rust, Racket, SML.
  Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NQOUQ2T20oi0tn8m-P1OwflwgdpttY5N/view?usp=sharing
  Email: (available on the linked resume)

flamboyant_rideon Use multiple Git SSH identities on a single computer

I've my git config specified like this -> https://github.com/ajayvigneshk/dotfiles/blob/macosx/.config.... This requires the public keys to be available on the `~/.ssh` dir. Works fine with keepassxc's ssh agent for me

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What do you self host

Syncthing

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What do you use GPG for?

Secure notes with vimwiki. I version control my notes, but prefer encrypting my notes that are particularly personal.

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What are some products that you use that give you joy?

Sennheiser over the ear headphones. Kindle is close, but I feel it could be better.

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Which systems programming language(s) is/are beginner friendly?

Never done any professional systems programming. C is what comes to mind. But don't let the simplicity fool you. It's pretty easy to shoot yourself in the foot with C.

Recently I've been coming across ML family of languages. I see compiler books in OCaml. Atleast in the academic discussions I see the need to get away from C in terms of building reliable computer systems. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch to call it a systems programming language but maybe something to consider.

flamboyant_rideon A Lisp interpreter written in Lisp (2017)

I recently completed Programming languages - Part B, by Dan Grossman on coursera (https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages-part-b). The homework in Racket was a very similar problem. Needless to say it was mindbending and to get the final interpreter work with all those expressions(nested) / lambdas was so satisfying!

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What to do post FI(hypothetically)?

I wouldn't call myself waiting until FI. I do spend a disciplined amount of time on a daily basis with things that I've mentioned I love doing. But as I become more experienced, the responsiblities of job demand a lot of attention + time, that it's hard to mentally switch off / say no to extra work. Basically this leads to long times before I complete a book / course.

But broadly about the "stuff I wish I could do", I think it would require a lot of personal exploration / life experience / reading and much more to know what I want to do and how I can do(if I could). This is defintely not possible with a full time job(same reasons as above) IMO.

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What to do post FI(hypothetically)?

By self-sufficient do you mean learning life skills to become that?

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What to do post FI(hypothetically)?

I am not wanting to be a contrarian just for the heck of it. Some of the goals are hard to live by while having a fulltime job that demands attention-span fully and is only asking for more.

Could you explain your point a bit more though?

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What to do post FI(hypothetically)?

Thanks for that response, not weird at all. In fact the more I read, I understand what values feel right to me and am able to find groups / communities with the same values somewhere. This has in fact been one of my thoughts as well, perhaps with more time I should be open to explore living in a small community with shared values as mine.

> I don't regret thinking small.

Makes sense to me.

flamboyant_rideon What are top lessons you learned the hard way between age 20 to 30?

* Do not tie your identity / self-respect to your job (or) interviews

* Learn to cut through bull-shit stuff at work. These are mostly to increase employee retention(targeting juniors) (or) free marketing/branding with our time.

* Moderation, in everything! Living life as a pleasure chasing ride is tiring. Self-restraint to experience happiness in day-to-day stuff is sustainable.

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: How to convince your manager to let you continue to WFH.

This. It's very hard to work and succeed, particularly as a senior dev when you're the only one(or few) in a remote setting. Find a company that has embraced remote working style

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: How do you deal with being a failure?

I realized during failures, that the pain I was experiencing was due to me placing my self-worth on external events / entities. It's a very subtle thing that slips very subconsciously. Look around you, almost everyone gets a high from a bit of external positive occurrences / feedback.

What helped me get centred is realizing that I am a better judge of my self-worth and letting the failures and successes be the measure of my self-worth is tiresome. Balance is key.

Understanding that real life success most often requires some degree of luck / network also helps.

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: What tech job would let me get away with the least real work possible?

I did read most of the comments, but don't seem to get a solid suggestion. Would be nice if OP / someone could aggregate the suggestions

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: How do old (30plus) software engineers remain excited about the field?

For me personally, the field as of computing is very exciting. But the CS jobs are very unsatisfying after you've been around for a while. Used to think academia might be different, but I've read enough cries to understand it might not be all rosy there as well.

I've come to the realization that when you take up a salaried job, you're exchanging your time for money. If it satisfies you're lucky. Otherwise, do the essential minimum at your job and then outside your work hours

a) Find alternate ways to seek fulfilment to lead a balanced life(a sport, something creative etc.)

b) If you're motivated enough find alternate career avenues / start your own venture

If you've enough savings you could quit too, without having to put up with job. But that's a privilege very few can afford

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: Which book/essay changed your life?

Essays:

"In Praise of Idleness" - Bertrand Russell

"Planet Without Laughter" - Raymond Smullyan (there are multiple perspectives and thoughts, I was more interested in suspension of disbelief, about something known to be false but is useful)

Misc:

Some musings on socialism, capitalism, anarchy. Essays and books by Kropotkin, Engels, Marx and even Einstein are obvious recommendations

flamboyant_rideon Ask HN: How do you manage SSH keys?

I use ssh key agent of keepassxc. This way only the public keys reside in the ~/.ssh and all the private keys can be made usable by unlocking my keepassxc db(and unusable on locking the same). Keepassxc stores the passphrases, additional notes if any for the keys.

With a properly configured gitconfig, .ssh/config I use different keys per domain(for different github accounts), different keys for different domains(ssh) and the like.

flamboyant_rideon Talking, Typing, Thinking: Software Is Not a Desk Job

On the other hand I’ve worked on projects where talking is a prop to disguise that no-one knows what to do. Where a dozen people sit in a room and talk for an hour without saying anything and we all walk out dumber than when we walked in.

This rings very true to me. And the more annoying extension is that the "managerial types" justify their time spent on work with these meaningless bs talks, while devs are guilt tripped every time they've to explain time spent on thinking / analysis.

flamboyant_rideon Anecdotes from Donald Knuth and Robert Tarjan

Don't do math and drive kids!

flamboyant_rideon A list of discontinued Mozilla products and services

Ubiquity is one of the best extensions I've used. I hope it makes a good comeback (atleast with this resurgence on chrome).