Topics /

Software Engineering

The most popular blog posts about software engineering on Hacker News. 874 posts.

2019
94

Running a Bakery on Emacs and PostgreSQL

Just over a year ago now, I finally opened the bakery I’d been dreaming of for years. It’s been a big change in my life, from spending all my time sat in front of a computer, to spending most of it making actual stuff. And stuff that makes people happy, at that. It’s been a huge change, but I can’t think of a single…

102

How to not rewrite it in Rust

Once you get past the growing pains of the Borrow Checker and realise Rust gives you the power to do things which would be unheard of (or just plain dangerous) in other languages, the temptation to Rewrite it in Rust can be quite strong. However at best, the temptation to RiiR is unproductive (unnecessary duplication…

106

Thoughts on Rust bloat

I’m about to accept a PR that will increase druid’s compile time about 3x and its executable size almost 2x. In this case, I think the tradeoff is worth it (without localization, a GUI toolkit is strictly a toy), but the bloat makes me unhappy and I think there is room for improvement in the Rust ecosystem.

108

Game Engine Black Books Update

I have kept myself busy with the Game Engine Black Books and I have plenty of news. Most importantly, they have been revised. The DOOM book is now in version 1.1 while the WOLF3D book is entering v2.1. And there is more.

112

Why Don't People Use Formal Methods?

I saw this question on the Software Engineering Stack Exchange: What are the barriers that prevent widespread adoption of formal methods? The question was closed as opinion-based, and most of the answers were things like “its too expensive!!!” or “website isn’t airplane!!!” These are sorta kinda true but don’t explain…

115

Real-world dynamic programming: seam carving

Dynamic programming has a reputation as a technique you learn in school, then only use to pass interviews at software companies. Indeed, most developers do not regularly work on problems where dynamic programming is needed. Ultimately, dynamic programming is a technique for efficiently solving problems that can be…

120

Our Software Dependency Problem

For decades, discussion of software reuse was far more common than actual software reuse. Today, the situation is reversed: developers reuse software written by others every day, in the form of software dependencies, and the situation goes mostly unexamined.