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joseferben

160 karma · joined February 26, 2018

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joseferben··on Node.js adds experimental support for TypeScript
the issue i ran into recently was around react/jsx where i wanted .tsx files server side.

might have to look into it again but there was an issue where some react/jsx/fragment bit had to be ported to esm first.

joseferben··on Node.js adds experimental support for TypeScript
for instance exiting the runner on the first error. and the diffs with node:assert are not as nice either compared to vitest.

i'm building a framework with minimal dependencies at https://www.plainweb.dev so i'm super excited about everything that node builds in (sqlite, typescript).

but there is a difference between supporting the bare minimum and actually making it nice to use day to day.

joseferben··on Node.js adds experimental support for TypeScript
for my use case (web dev) ts is fast enough. but i do miss the ocaml compile times!

it's mainly the lack of ad-hoc polymorphism that makes ocaml feel a bit clunky to me at times. but structural typing sure would be nice.

i used to avoid typescript because of similar soundness issues. but in the context of web dev this weird type system that evolved from adding types to javascript turned out to be so nice to use. it's bonkers because on paper it shouldn't be this nice haha.

joseferben··on Node.js adds experimental support for TypeScript
having written ocaml in production for a few years, i think soundness comes at a cost of dev ergonomics. at least with the type systems of today’s industry languages.

it blows my mind weekly how ergonomic and flexible typescript’s type system is. it allows me to write great apis for my team mates.

is it possible for the type checker to end up in an infinite loop or for a junior developer to abuse “as”? absolutely, but it doesn’t really matter in practice.

i wouldn’t want to run typescript in rockets or submarines tho!

joseferben··on Node.js adds experimental support for TypeScript
i wish it was that easy. i keep trying to default to esm on node projects but the ecosystem is not there yet, at least in the context of server side nodejs stuff.
joseferben··on Node.js adds experimental support for TypeScript
i tried that but had to revert to vitest, the native test runner feels incomplete atm.
joseferben··on Crocotile3D low poly modelling tool
looks like a great way for someone with 2d pixelart skills to get started with 3d!
joseferben··on Show HN: I am building an open-source incident management platform
this looks interesting. any first hands experience applying this for tech incidents?
joseferben··on Micro-agent: make an AI write code until it passes an unit test
i found that the feedback loop between llm and test suite works really well, especially with sonnet 3.5

i wrote a similar tool the other day: https://github.com/joseferben/makeitpass

it can make all kinds of commands pass by checking stdout/stderr and it’s language agnostic (you need npx to run makeitpass)

joseferben··on Show HN: A CLI that uses Claude to fix your code until the tests/builds pass
atm it only supports claude models, but will look into supporting openai and ollama
joseferben··on Simpler web development with Htmx, SQLite and TypeScript
author of plainweb here, thanks for posting!

i posted a Show HN a couple of days ago to get some feedback: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40726710

not much changed so far, mainly working on the docs still.

considering giving bun a shot again to replace node + tsx (esbuild).

joseferben··on Show HN: Simpler web dev with Htmx, SQLite and TypeScript
would you say running bun or deno would be simpler since compilation doesn’t happen in “user land”?
joseferben··on Why we no longer use LangChain for building our AI agents
impressive to decide against something as shiny as langchain as intern
joseferben··on A Rant about Front-end Development
i mostly agree with the rant, except for styling, i think tailwind is great.

nowadays i default to htmx, alpine, sqlite and typescript, recently i’ve been working on a framework/starter using these tools: https://www.plainweb.dev/

joseferben··on Show HN: Simpler web dev with Htmx, SQLite and TypeScript
strictly speaking there is a simple build process on the server since plainweb uses node + tsx (the esbuild wrapper, not the markup) instead of something like bun or deno that supports typescript natively.

plainweb avoids build processes that bundle js that runs in the browser.

joseferben··on AdonisJS
i mostly agree with your take, except that if you primarily want to produce html going with a server-side rendered approach might be simpler.

i'm building https://www.plainweb.dev/, which uses htmx + react style components for templating.

joseferben··on Show HN: Simpler web dev with Htmx, SQLite and TypeScript
awesome, let me know how it goes!
joseferben··on Show HN: Simpler web dev with Htmx, SQLite and TypeScript
JSX components (.tsx) are rendered server-side, it's all just GET/POST with optional HTMX
joseferben··on Show HN: Simpler web dev with Htmx, SQLite and TypeScript
thank you!

yes, it's server-side with htmx at the moment. anything client-side that has a build process is entirely out of scope as i think that's a major source of complexity.

i'm considering embracing alpine.js for when htmx is not enough, just need to make sure the alpine directives are type-safe.

i think it's exciting what astro, hono or fresh are doing with islands of interactivity but plainweb tries to be even more minimalistic.

joseferben··on OpenAI Dissolves High-Profile Safety Team After Chief Scientist Sutskever's Exit
i didn't know the simple.wikipedia.org subdomain, pretty neat!
joseferben··on Leaving Substack
recent google algo changes seem to penalize domains with a low domain rank even more. if you want to be found through search it makes sense to use an established platform.
joseferben··on Is .NET just miles ahead or am I delusional?
imo remix (https://remix.run/) does a great job at that
joseferben··on Philosophy of Biff
biff is a beautifully designed little web framework, i was still doing clojure it'd be my go-to.
joseferben··on Ask HN: Turning off the programming mind during non-work hours
Very interesting thread, thanks for asking the question. Could any spouses of SWEs chime in?
joseferben··on Show HN: Puck – Open-source visual editor for React
Really cool!
joseferben··on Show HN: Hacker News user blogroll
Thanks for putting this together, love the name!
joseferben··on Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?
https://www.joseferben.com/

I blog mainly about web development.

joseferben··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2023)

  Location: Switzerland
  Remote: Yes (hybrid or on-site for a good fit)
  Willing to relocate: For a good fit
  Technologies: React, TypeScript, Remix, Next, Node, Django, Python, Tailwind, 
  SQLite, OCaml, Nix
  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josef-erben-90a002b1/
  Email: josef@erben.systems
  Blog: https://www.joseferben.com/
  Github: https://github.com/joseferben
I am currently bootstrapping a product (https://www.performance90.com) but I am open for employment if it's a great fit. I have 8 years of experience as an engineer and 3 years as an entrepreneur. As an engineer I feel at home in the TypeScript and Django ecosystems.

I have my own LLC and I am also open to contract work.

joseferben··on Things that surprised me while running SQLite in production
Thanks for the link.

> I asked Django Fellow Carlton Gibson what it would take to update that advice for 2022.

Glad to see that SQLite is being presented as a valid option in the current version of the docs.

> Even without WAL mode, bumping the SQLite “timeout” option up to 20s solved most of the errors.

Can you say anything about the tradeoffs when increasing the timeout, maybe in the context of Django?

joseferben··on Things that surprised me while running SQLite in production
If there is a write in a read transaction (with a n+1 read), the transaction becomes a write transaction.
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