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kevinherron

1,150 karma · joined April 1, 2009

I am a software developer in the industrial automation world...

kevinherron@gmail.com https://github.com/kevinherron https://github.com/digitalpetri

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kevinherron··on Ask HN: What home printer do you use/recommend?
Brother MFC-L3750CDW

No issues. I'm not sure the brand/model is super important - what's important is that you cough up for a laser printer and get the hell away from inkjet.

kevinherron··on Ask HN: Is Anybody Using Codex?
Codex is great, both the CLI and Codex.app.

I regularly use both Claude Code and Codex; work pays for Claude, my personal sub is for Codex.

Opus 4.7 and GPT 5.5 seem equally competent. They have distinct “feels” when interacting, and perhaps each have strengths and weaknesses, but I don’t really see one as better than the other.

kevinherron··on Ask HN: How do you offload all coding to AI?
Complete opposite in my experience. AI does best in a well established code base where it can use existing patterns as context. When you let it loose on a greenfield project and don't carefully and explicitly keep it in check you get back crap.
kevinherron··on Ask HN: Who here is not working on web apps/server code?
We write mostly Java, some Kotlin, targeting the JVM.

Most commonly our software runs on premises on server-class hardware (or what passes for server-class depending on the industry...), sometimes hosted in the cloud, sometimes on "edge" hardware (think Raspberry Pi class power/spec wise).

One component of the software actually is a web frontend (and a Jetty backend) to go with it, but it's not your typical "web-app" and it's not SaaS. But there's much more to it than that.

kevinherron··on Ask HN: Who here is not working on web apps/server code?
I work on industrial automation software (SCADA/HMI, MES, PLC comms protocols, etc.).
kevinherron··on Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?
Use AGENTS.md for everything, then put a single line in CLAUDE.md:

  @AGENTS.md
kevinherron··on Is any of you using LLMs to create full features in big enterprise apps?
The problem is you still think that the perfect prompt or AGENTS.md or whatever is going to get you a one-shotted (or close) feature in return. There isn't (yet) a model or orchestration framework that is going to take a large feature from start to finish for you.

The reality is that LLMs/agents are just a new way to write code. You still need to understand, more-or-less, how this feature is going to actually work, and how it needs to be implemented, from start to finish.

The difference is that you don't write the code, you tell the LLM to write the code. Once you've figured out the right "chunk size" an LLM can handle it's faster than doing it yourself.

I've found it's actually a little _harder_ in green field projects because the LLM doesn't have guard rails and examples and existing patterns to follow.

kevinherron··on Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop
One model/configuration will never work because developers are awful, picky customers.

You’ll lose 90,000 of your 100,000 with one or more little nitpicks.

Probably 50% right off the bat because you chose a keyboard with or without a numpad.

Another huge chunk because you chose the wrong screen (Retina resolution? Low resolution? Refresh rate?)

Too bad, because I want this. Or at least the version of it I have in my head :)

kevinherron··on The AirPods Pro 3 flight problem
I flew to NYC and back last week and never experienced anything like this with mine shrug

The 3s have been an improvement on the 2s for me, especially in fit and feel in ear.

kevinherron··on Detekt – A static code analyzer for Kotlin
We use it for (non-Spring) backend development. It's lovely and always my first choice over Java.

I like to avoid mixing Java/Kotlin within the same module when I can, but it still works, and parts of our codebase are mixed this way. (by module I mean e.g. the same Maven or Gradle module, i.e. try to avoid a situation where you have a `src/main/java` and `src/main/kotlin` next to each other)

kevinherron··on Firefox is fine. The people running it are not
Try Spotify’s web player.
kevinherron··on Denmark Is Switching to Linux
Ahh, did not see/read the comments on the article.
kevinherron··on Ask HN: Are you hesitant to open source your project because LLMs may steal it?
No.

In fact, if there was a better, more direct way than publishing on GitHub to feed my open source code directly into future training runs, I would probably do that.

kevinherron··on Denmark Is Switching to Linux
> in a move that exchanges Windows and Office 365 for Linux and LibreOffice.

> It'll migrate about half of the Ministry of Digital Affairs away from Windows this summer

kevinherron··on Data manipulation using natural language prompts
Submit for batch processing using the OpenAI batch API?
kevinherron··on Run a C# file directly using dotnet run app.cs
Interesting, I’ve never even heard it called “hashbang” until you just did.

California, 40yo fwiw

kevinherron··on Ask HN: When will Wayland eclipse X?
I’ve been using Wayland since it became the default in Fedora. These days it seems to be working great. I’m especially happy with how well KDE seems to work on Wayland now.
kevinherron··on Ask HN: How is Windows 10 EOL impacting you?
I'm primarily a macOS and Linux user, but I do have a 2nd work laptop and a VM I use for Windows, both of which I upgraded to Windows 11 2-3? years ago.

There's never been an issue. It's a better experience than W10 was. I don't really understand why everybody is upset.

I don't play video games so maybe that's part of it?

kevinherron··on I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype
They should have let an AI check their spelling and grammar, maybe they wouldn’t have used “loose” instead of “lose” multiple times.
kevinherron··on The SeL4 Microkernel: An Introduction [pdf]
I think there's a meaningful difference between "based on" and "inspired by", Helios being the latter.
kevinherron··on Kafka at the low end: how bad can it get?
> for a SCADA system

for Ignition?

kevinherron··on How to disable Copilot in Windows 11?
Sounds like you asked Copilot to write this post for you.
kevinherron··on Ask HN: What do you do on the weekend?
Climb or ski, depending on the season.
kevinherron··on Ask HN: What do you do with your old Intel MacBooks?
I traded it in for some token amount of money when I replaced it with an M2 Max. I assume Apple recycled it because there’s no refurb market for those turds.
kevinherron··on Ask HN: When was the last time you used your tech skills for a real life task?
You're missing entries that start with 'v' by requiring a subsequent 'v'.
kevinherron··on 'We had to educate Oracle about our contract,' CIO says after Big Red audit
We have a contract with Azul that allows us to report bugs with the expectation they are fixed. We can and do use this ability.
kevinherron··on 'We had to educate Oracle about our contract,' CIO says after Big Red audit
Yes, all of this Oracle Java licensing drama only applies if you're using the Oracle JDK.

The vast majority of people can just use a JDK from any of the other vendors and tell Oracle to pound sand.

Even if you do need paid support, you should pay Azul instead of Oracle, just out of principle.

kevinherron··on Ask HN: High performance, low latency IDE suggestions
No Java support yet, and it's a long way away from being a viable alternative to IntelliJ. Fast though, if you're on a Mac.
kevinherron··on Ask HN: Did macOS Sonoma break your iCloud setup?
Sonoma has been trouble free for me, but I'm not doing anything weird with iCloud Drive.
kevinherron··on Jesus nut
Hmm, for anchors, or for that first piece (or two) that would keep you off the deck or from falling on the belay anchor?
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