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The Myers diff algorithm: part 1
If you enjoy this article, I have published a book explaining the internals of Git through implementation: Building Git .
Topics /
Software Engineering
The most popular blog posts about software engineering on Hacker News. 14,540 posts.
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Evolution of the ELF object file format
Updated in 2025-09. The ELF object file format is adopted by many UNIX-like operating systems. While I've previously delved into the control structures of ELF and its predecessors, tracing the historical evolution of ELF and its relationship with the System V ABI can be interesting in itself. The format consists of…
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Abstract algebra for developers and people who hate math
Hi. I think math is really cool, but, most people (sadly) don't think so. This includes many programmers who in fact enjoy many of the sam...
8795
Validating UTF-8 bytes using only 0.45 cycles per byte (AVX edition)
When receiving bytes from the network, we often assume that they are unicode strings, encoded using something called UTF-8. Sadly, not all streams of bytes are valid UTF-8. So we need to check the strings. It is probably a good idea to optimize this problem as much as possible. In earlier work, we showed that ……
8796
Rust on the RP2350 (2024)
Today sees the announcement of the latest additions to Raspberry Pi's microcontroller line-up - the RP2350 family. I've had prototype units for a while, and you can run Rust code on it today. To my knowledge this is the first ever microcontroller launch with Rust support out-of-the-box.
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Marelle: logic programming for devops
In the past, walking the uneasy borderline of academia, I used to managed compute servers for my research group. New hardware was a rare godsend, configuring it by hand was natural. At 99designs, I’ve been privy to the opposite approach: machines should be disposable. This requires the entire setup of a new machine to…
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How async/await works internally in Swift
You probably know how to use async/await. But have you ever wondered how it works under the hood?
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Spreadsheet-like programming in Haskell
mvc-updates 1.0 announcement post
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Ten lines of code that changed my world
Front-end antics and typographic mischievousness
8802
The mystery of the fifteen-millisecond breakpoint instruction
Experienced professional software engineer based in York, UK
8803
A Cover Letter in Brainfuck
Warning: another technical post.I wrote this cover letter many years ago, when I wanted to get accepted to the Matzov unit of the Israeli Defense Force (in Israeli, every male is conscripted…
8804
Donald Knuth never told Steve Jobs that he was full of shit
You have probably all heard the following story about Jobs meeting Knuth for the first time in 1983. Steve had managed to get Don Knuth, the legendary Stanford professor of computer science, to give a lunchtime lecture to the Mac team. Knuth is the author of at least a dozen books, including the massive and somewhat...
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AR with SceneKit and Metal
Recently I found myself needing to process and visualize both point clouds and meshes in an iOS application utilizing ARKit, with the point cloud being gathered using the 2020 iPad “LiDAR” sensor. To enable maximum performance and content creation convenience I thought it would be nice to have both custom shaders and…
8806
I got the J language working on OpenBSD
Yes, I am aware that I am interrupting our self-hosting PL/0 compiler series but I think it will be worth it. Earlier today, I got the J language system running on OpenBSD . I find it important to write these up, because it helps me preserve my own knowledge of what I did and hopefully it will help others porting…
8807
Git Tips And Workflows
Personal homepage and blog of Nicola Paolucci aka @durdn
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Tools for visualizing a codebase
Need to write a README, but running blank on words? If that bothers you frequently, consider generating diagrams.
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Hyperscan: A Fast Multi-Pattern Regex Matcher for Modern CPUs
I’m pleased to report that Hyperscan, the regular expression matcher that ate my life from 2008 through 2018, finally has a paper (pdf) – it’s being presented this week at NSDI &#…
8811
Building Bubbletea Programs
In the words of its authors Bubble Tea is a “powerful little TUI framework” for Go. It may be little but I found it had a steep learning curve before I could get truly comfortable with its power. I spent many a late night wrangling with broken layouts and unresponsive keys before learning the hard way where I had gone…
8812
How HyperCard got its color back
Uli’s blog on programming, game development, pop culture and other boring things.
8813
LLM tech comes to Wolfram Language
Wolfram's Version 13.3 includes a subsystem around LLMs plus new functionality in integrals, special functions, finite fields, computational geometry, live highlighting in visualizations, AR & VR deployment. See examples for those and dozens of other enhancements.
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Regular Expression Crossword Puzzle
A crossword puzzle designed for geeks, every single clue is a regular expression.
8815
Building a Regex Engine in Fewer Than 40 Lines of Code
A blog about programming and modern web development, particularly Node.js and React
8816
How the SNES Graphics System Works
Last week's article discussed how the Super Nintendo's Video system feeds the TV's CRT. Today I'll summarize what I understand of the hardware generating these graphics.
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Hash Functions all the way down
Update! I tested more hash functions in a follow-up post. See More Hash Function Tests .
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Programming Portals
Small, scoped areas within a graphical interface that allow users to read and write simple programmes
8820
Patching my guitar amp's firmware
I’m having a lot of fun with reverse engineering lately, so when I was looking over the service manual for my guitar amp, a Yamaha THR10c, and saw references to a UART header in the schematic, I got excited. I wondered if anything cool was hiding in there. Next to it was a JTAG header. I knew next to nothing about…