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The rise of async AI programming
The workflow that's changing how software gets built.
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Software Engineering
The most popular blog posts about software engineering on Hacker News. 1,747 posts.
1442
Why it took 4 years to get a lock files specification
(This is the blog post version of my keynote from EuroPython 2025 in Prague, Czechia.) We now have a lock file format specification. That might not sound like a big deal, but for me it took 4 years of active work to get us that specification. Part education, part therapy,
1443
Don't Build Multi-Agents
Frameworks for LLM Agents have been surprisingly disappointing. I want to offer some principles for building agents based on our own trial & error, and…
1444
Dependent types and how to get rid of them
are-dependent-types-actually-erased - Chad Nauseam Home
1445
How outdated information hides in LLM token generation probabilities
Random tech notes
1446
Weird CPU architectures, the MOV only CPU (2020)
I like CPU architectures, especially weird, interesting and unusual ones. For example, the Intel iAPX 432 is still something I would love to play around with. Recently, I realized that a working CPU can be made with just a simple Move instruction. For this to work, everything needs to be memory mapped. The ALU…
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Writing Toy Software Is a Joy
Why you should write more toy programs
1449
Emacs Tree-sitter custom highlighting
A few years ago I blogged about custom tree-sitter-based syntax highlighting in emacs . I started out with highlighting certain keywords in...
1450
Introduction to Software Development Tooling (2024)
Learn the command line, version control, build systems, and correctness in NEU’s CS 4973: ISDT.
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Parser Combinators Beat Regexes
Someone online was solving Advent of Code problems, and had a question about last years’ day 3 . They had a working solution using regular expressions (regexes) on String values, but they wanted to use ByteString values instead for performance reasons. They were surprised, however, that there seems to be a lack of…
1453
AI coding and the peanut butter and jelly problem
Why clear communication—not clever prompts—is your real AI superpower
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Take Two: Eshell
This is a contribution to the Emacs Carnival 2025-06: Take Two collection of posts on Christian Tietze’s blog. My first take with Eshell many years back did not leave a good impression. My...
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Anti-Personnel Computing (2023)
Neologisms for the current computing era.
1456
Baby Steps into Genetic Programming
While my final ranking in the Google AI Contest was disappointing ( 280th ), it was a very educational experience and was totally offset by Gábor Melis' dominating win using Common Lisp as well.
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The double standard of webhook security and API security
Explore the surprisingly different security standards we apply to webhooks versus traditional API requests.
1458
Python's splitlines does more than just newlines
I always assumed that Python's str.splitlines() split strings by " universal newlines ", i.e., \n , \r , and \r\n .
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Optimizing Tool Selection for LLM Workflows with Differentiable Programming
How local, learnable routers can reduce token overhead, lower costs, and bring structure back to agentic workflows.
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Enhancing your MIDI devices with Perl
This post also appeared on perl.com.
1461
Leeks and Leaks
On the completely impossible situation of blocking the Tor .onion TLD to avoid leaks, but at the same time not block it to make users able to do what they want. dot-onion leaks The onion TLD is a Tor specific domain that does not mean much to the world outside of Tor. If you try … Continue reading Leeks and leaks →
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Dissecting "Tiny Clouds" shadertoy (2017)
There is an amazing shadertoy called “Tiny Clouds” by stubbe (twitter: @Stubbesaurus) which flies you through nearly photorealistic clouds in only 10 lines of code / 280 characters (2 o…
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Cottagecore Programmers
Every programmer I know has at some point longingly expressed how “[they] want to work with [their] hands”. Some say they wish they were a carpenter, some want to be in the fields on a farm, some want to raise chickens, or milk cows. It is however inevitable that I either hear someone say it or agree with it at some…
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The principles of database design, or, the Truth is out there
Every software project needs to represent the reality of the business he is embedded in. The way we can represent reality as limited rational beings is through propositions, i.e, declarative statements that affirm or deny something about reality. When a collection of such propositions is stored in a computer system…
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$20K Bounty Offered for Optimizing Rust Code in Rav1d AV1 Decoder
In March of 2023 we announced that we were starting work on a safer high performance AV1 decoder called rav1d, written in Rust. We partnered with Immunant to do the engineering work. By September of 2024 rav1d was basically complete and we learned a lot during the process. Today rav1d works well—it passes all the same…
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Asyncio: A library with too many sharp corners
An explanation of some major issues with asyncio.
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You should write "without bugs"
Why and how you should write "without bugs"
1468
Migrating to React Native's new architecture
Shopify successfully migrated two of its largest apps, Shopify Mobile and Shopify Point of Sale (POS) to React Native's New Architecture while maintaining weekly releases and serving millions of merchants. This migration involved a complex codebase with hundreds of screens and native modules, extensive custom…
1469
How To Build A Smartwatch: Software
PebbleOS, mobile app, SDK improvements and more!
1470
Tabular Programming: A New Paradigm for Expressive Computing
I've been exploring the m8 Dirtywave tracker for a few months now, and it's been a fascinating experience. If you're not familiar with it, the m8 is a portable music sequencer built on the Teensy platform that combines a minimal 8-button interface with a powerful tabular workflow. What makes it special isn't just its…