Best of 2025

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2025. 1,260 posts.

Software Engineering
1171

`std::flip`

std::flip is a little-known utility from the C++ standard library header <functional>: it is a higher-order function that accepts a Callable and returns an equivalent Callable with the order of its parameters reversed (or “flipped”).

1178

Parsing Advances

I find myself writing yet another toy parser, as one does during a Christmas break. It roughly follows Resilient LL Parsing Tutorial. Not because I need resilience, but mostly because I find producing a syntax tree and a collection of diagnostics a more natural fit for the problem than bailing out on the first error.

1180

Advent of Code on the Z-Machine

Fantasy consoles like the Pico-8 are a great idea. A fantasy console provides a standardised and portable environment in which developers can explore ideas within creative constraints. The Z-machine , developed by Infocom in 1979, is the earliest fantasy console I know, although this is probably the first time it’s…

1187

Towards a test suite for TOTP codes

Because I'm a massive nerd, I actually try to read specification documents. As I've ranted ad nauseam before, the current TOTP spec is irresponsibly obsolete. The three major implementations of the spec - Google, Apple, and Yubico - all subtly disagree on how it should be implemented. Every other MFA app has their own…

1194

Simulated Economy Tutorial

Concept Motivation Imagine an open world RPG where your actions affect the price of goods, the markets reacting to anything the player may do (burn down wheat fields, cost of food increases; kill the merchants, prices differentiate between cities; sell the many swords you’ve collected on your adventures, tank the…