Topics /

Programming Languages

The most popular blog posts about programming languages on Hacker News. 433 posts.

2017
181

Node v8.8.0

Node.js® is a free, open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that lets developers create servers, web apps, command line tools and scripts.

182

Addendum to “Curl is C”

I posted curl is C a few days ago and it raced on hacker news, reddit and elsewhere and got well over a thousand comments in those forums alone. The blog post has been read more than 130,000 times so far. Addendum a few days later Many commenters of my curl is C post struck … Continue reading Yes C is unsafe, but… →

185

In Defense of C++

I really like C++. It's not the right tool for every job, but it's what I reach for when I need to do any kind of systems programming. Unfortunately, C++ has often been cited as a "bad" language, and I feel like that reputation has worsened over time. Recent languages like Go and Rust have taken over a lot of mind…

187

All about java.util.Date

This post is an attempt to reduce the number of times I need to explain things in Stack Overflow comments. You may well be reading it via a link from Stack Overflow – I intend to refer to thi…

188

Node v8.5.0

Node.js® is a free, open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that lets developers create servers, web apps, command line tools and scripts.

195

The design side of programming language design

The word design is often used when talking about programming languages. In fact, it even made it into the name of one of the most prestigious academic programming conferences. Yet, it is almost impossible to come across a paper about programming languages that uses design methods to study its subject. In this article…

196

A Practical Intro to Macros in Rust

One feature of Rust that I'm rather enamoured with is its macro system. Known as "macro by example" (MBE) or sometimes referred to as macro_rules , it provides you with an impressive amount of power whilst not allowing for the sort of evil tricks you can pull in C/C++.

199

What is Hindley-Milner and why is it cool? (2008)

Anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at the vast menagerie of programming languages should have at least heard the phrase "Hindley-Milner". F#, one of the most promising languages ever to emerge from the forbidding depths of Microsoft Research, makes use of this mysterious algorithm, as do Haskell, OCaml and ML…

203

F# 4.1 and Visual F# Tools for Visual Studio 2017

Announcing F# 4.1 and the Visual F# Tools for Visual Studio 2017 Last year, we announced F# 4.1 via a Peek in F# 4.1. As a recap, we mentioned: Alpha support for .NET Core and .NET Standard Language features for F# 4.1 A big update to the Visual F# tools for Visual Studio 2017 (called […]

208

Pascal at Apple

Lately I’ve been reading old computing papers, articles, journals, magazines, and memos and tweeting about them as I work my way through. The most recent exploration was of an Apple internal memo about the history of Apple’s involvement with Pascal. The memo is cursory, but it does provide an interesting snapshot of…