Best of 2021

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2021. 381 posts.

Tools & Productivity
369

Jsc: My New Best Friend

A friend of mine recently pointed me at a well hidden command line tool. In the JavaScript framework used by Safari and other parts of Apple’s products, there is a tool called jsc. It’s a command line interface for JavaScript that uses the same code as the rest of the system. You can find the […]

372

Basic Scripting with Awk and Gnuplot

Posted to HN. Comments and discussion highly encouraged. Introduction This will be a short example-based guide to (a) awk (b) gnuplot and (c) using them in a script. I needed to graph some data based on the output of a command run a couple times. So what better way to solve that five minute task than to spend an hour…

377

An early look at VLC 4.0

Early review of VLC 4.0 Nightly build, focusing on the new and redesigned interface, including tons of problems like bad ergonomics, low font contrast, decreased workflow efficiency, reduced responsiveness, no quick access to local filesystems, video playback in a separate window, and more

379

Riding the Writing Wave

“Writing is its own reward.” – Henry Miller Writing doesn’t just communicate ideas; it generates new ones. Writing forces you to think. It’s nature’s way of telling you how sloppy your thinking is. The ultimate test of how well you understand something is how clearly you can explain it in writing — clear writers are