Best of 2020

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2020. 1,508 posts.

Software Engineering
2

Deno 1.0

Dynamic languages are useful tools. Scripting allows users to rapidly and succinctly tie together complex systems and express ideas without worrying about details like memory management or build systems.

8

CRDTs are the future

I saw Martin Kleppmann’s talk a few weeks ago about his approach to realtime editing with CRDTs, and I felt a deep sense of despair. Maybe all the work I’ve been doing for the past decade won’t be part of the future after all, because Martin’s

11

Can't you just right click?

In 2012, Apple added Gatekeeper to Mac OS X (now macOS). When you try to run Mac software downloaded from the internet, Gatekeeper checks whether the software was signed with a valid Developer ID certificate. If not, then Gatekeeper refuses to run the software. Over the years, Gatekeeper has become more strict…