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vitalikpie

62 karma · joined December 7, 2025

Building htts://handson.money/
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vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Yeah this is exactly what I do under the hood. All the data is stored as Ints, charts use double for speed, views use decimal to display stuff properly in the user locale.

P.S. Doubles are absolute evil for calculations:

    @Test
    func test() {
        var a = Decimal(100.4449315513924) * 100 // It's me being dumb, not noticing that
        let b = NSDecimalNumber(decimal: a).intValue
        #expect(b == 10044) // Expectation failed: (b → -8402) == 1044
    }
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Thanks. After all I'm a human too. I'm prone to AI psychosis.
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Thanks :)
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
I was contemplating between hledger and GnuCash for a while and then choose GnuCash because it has pretty good UX for transactions entry.

The missing piece for me was a mobile app. So trying closing this gap with HandsOnMoney.

But I'll be honest - I'm putting off the statement import as much as I can until my financial anxiety kicks in.

vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
In hindsight do you think it was an right decision or too "pure"?
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Thanks for idea. I think I'll do another more techy article on this.
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Agree on this. Current situation is kinda broken:

- people do not trust Plaid and Finicity - data is captive inside of bank portals - each damn CSV has it's own format

vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
God damn it! I did not bother to check the treasury. Thank you for catching mistake - I will correct it.

I knew there will be something to hunt minor units.

vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Yeah. Likely so. While at the same time, they may have some other reason - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9S6qD_Wylw
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Did not know that. Will update the article. Thank you!
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
I'm using a free version, so if an LLM suggestions slipped in - it only a couple of them.
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Thanks for the info! But did you guys thought about fractional commodities those days? Or was it clear that it is going away?
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
I think it's because thought-process is done in Russian, translated into English and the checked for grammar mistakes with Grammarly.
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Thanks! I believe blogs and indie products should have personality - otherwise it so easy to overlook them.
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard forGnuCash database design
Thanks!
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard forGnuCash database design
Do you do budget in GnuCash or somewhere else?
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Yeah, I'm just a developer mostly chatting with LLMs. I hope I'll develop a distinct style some day.
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Yeah, I thought about it when I first saw the coin cut into pieces - https://www.pirateglossary.com/glossary/pieces-of-eight

But then why didn't they cut it into 10 pieces - https://etc.usf.edu/clipart/40600/40610/pie_01-10a_40610.htm ?

vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
hm, I don't have any other ways to prove it. The thing is - I thought this is something LLM can't write about.

Just imagine a prompt: "Hey Claude, go ahead and come up with idea why GnuCash stores numbers as fractions and come up with an article for HN". I actually tried it and god damn thing came up with something very similar :D

vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard forGnuCash database design
Yeah, sorry. It's kind of intentional. Did not want to give it a boring name like "Storing fractions vs decimals".
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
yep, I'm Ukrainian
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
haha, true.

Thing is - I'm not a English speaker. But I chat a lot with Claude/ChatGPT - i feel like I'm picking the style from them unintentionally.

vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Agree. I wish banks have their APIs open. It's 2026 and we have OIDC.

But I used to actually pull the CSV once a week and feed it to GnuCash. It's pretty good at auto-categorization.

Also I simplified my finances to only a couple of checking accounts and only one credit account (for car rentals).

vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Lived through something like this after USSR collapsed and before Hryvnya was introduced. Boy I remember the bread cost - 10,000,000 :D
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Curious what made you think it's AI slop?
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
Yeah this one is my attempt to write without LLMs rewriting my thoughts. P.S. Came to the decision after going through https://thebullshitmachines.com/
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
huh, sorry I'm really bad at writing - this is one of my first attempts
vitalikpie··on Spanish traders set the standard for GnuCash database design
It is :) No AI slop. I'm intentionally trying to write without LLM (my previous blog posts clearly disclose it).
vitalikpie··on We rewrote JSONata with AI in a day, saved $500k/year
Well I'm seriously jealous about these posts. I rewrote this and that. One 10x engineer + Claude did everything in an hour.

It feels like I'm getting gaslighted.

I use AI at work with C#/Python - it fine. It can write some glue code and sometimes even pretty well. But I have to hand-hold it a lot.

My own project in Swift. Boy, AI can't handle Apple quirks - multiple iterations, code does not compile or missing crucial pieces (there are navigation links but not navigation stack).

I'm trying to be not picky. I want AI to do my job. But it's so far away.

Am I alone and everyone rewriting Linux in Rust over a weekend?

vitalikpie··on Ask HN: Build trust for closed source product
That's a great point!

For me it's a combination of two.

Personal validation - "can I build something people love?"

And financial - "can I build a successful company around it?"

So this way there is no event after which the project becomes less relevant for me. It's a process, and I expect it to be along process.

That's the reason I can't commit to open-sourcing my product at some point in time.

However at the same time there are pretty successful companies that have a trust of being "secure and privacy first": - Apple - Telegram

While at the same time there are pretty good counter examples: - PostHog - Signal

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