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Extensibility: The "100% Lisp" Fallacy

Published: 2026-01-02 | Origin: Hacker News

The author reflects on the promotion of Emacs-like editors that are written and scripted in Lisp languages, particularly examining claims about their extensibility. They acknowledge that while being entirely written in a Lisp (such as Common Lisp) may seem advantageous for customization, it overlooks more complex aspects of editor functionality. The article cites concerns about whether editors like Lem truly enable the same level of extensibility as Emacs, which supports a wide range of advanced features like custom font ligatures and encoding systems. The author points

Why users cannot create Issues directly

Published: 2026-01-02 | Origin: Hacker News

The content emphasizes the importance of user feedback and outlines the process for submitting issues in the Ghostty project. Users must initiate a Discussion instead of directly creating Issues, as Ghostty uses Discussions for feedback and feature requests. This method aims to streamline the issue-tracking process, allowing maintainers to focus on well-defined, actionable problems. The text highlights that most reported issues are often misunderstandings or configuration errors, while many feature requests lack sufficient detail. Valid discussions that identify reproducible issues will be converted into

Article: Why Big Tech Turns Everything Into a Knife Fight

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

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A website to destroy all websites

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: Hacker News

The Internet, once a realm of self-discovery, creativity, and genuine community, has transformed into a space where users primarily engage in mindless scrolling and consume superficial content. Initially celebrated for its potential to foster learning and connection, the online experience now often feels overwhelming and frustrating, filled with algorithm-driven distractions and low-quality content. Instead of cultivating diverse communities and meaningful exchanges, much of the Internet is dominated by repetitive and shallow media, leading to a lament for the richer, more fulfilling online interactions of

Gene — a homoiconic, general-purpose language built around a generic “Gene” data type

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

The content emphasizes the importance of user feedback and provides information about the Gene programming language, which features a Lisp-like syntax and a unique data structure that unifies three components unlike JSON or S-expressions. It mentions that the repository contains a bytecode virtual machine (VM) implemented in Nim and offers a namespace for calling local GGUF models. Users can opt for an optional runtime or use a mock backend. Usage instructions include command dispatch through a specific format and references to help and example files. Additionally,

Change is the root of all (evil) bugs

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

The author reflects on a decade of experience in software development, highlighting a crucial insight: change is the root of all bugs. Initially, the author believed bugs primarily arose from logical errors or misunderstandings in code. However, through extensive debugging and system failures, it became clear that many issues stem from changes—whether involving dependencies, distributed systems, or configurations. For instance, relying on the latest library versions can lead to unexpected incompatibilities, while assumptions about stability in distributed systems often lead to surprises. Configuration

The 8 Fallacies of Distributed Computing: All You Need To Know + Why It’s Still Relevant In 2026

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

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Residues: Time, Change & Uncertainty in Software Architecture • Barry O'Reilly

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

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Cameras and Lenses (2020)

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: Hacker News

The article discusses the evolution of image capture from cave drawings to modern digital photography, emphasizing the significance of pictures in human experience. It explains the workings of digital cameras, starting from the basics of light detection. Unlike traditional film photography, which used light-sensitive silver halide crystals, digital cameras employ image sensors consisting of grids of photodetectors that convert photons into electric signals. The piece illustrates how varying the time for photon collection impacts the brightness of the image pixels and sets the stage for a deeper exploration

Explaining Memory Barriers and Java’s Happens Before Guarantees

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

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Using Git as a Backend for other Tools

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

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Sorting with Fibonacci Numbers and a Knuth Reward Check

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

The discussed sorting algorithm has a worst-case runtime of \(O(n^{4/3})\) and utilizes the Fibonacci sequence to sort elements. This algorithm is a variant of Shellsort, which organizes the elements of an array through a process called \(k\)-sorting, where subsequences are sorted independently at defined intervals (gaps). For example, in \(3\)-sorting, elements are grouped based on every third element, leading to a \(k\)-ordered array, meaning that elements

Software taketh away faster than hardware giveth: Why C++ programmers keep growing fast despite competition, safety, and AI

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: /r/programming

In 2025, C++ and Rust emerged as the fastest-growing major programming languages, driven by the ongoing demand for efficient software that consistently outpaces hardware capacity. This trend stems from the historical pattern where software demands grow faster than hardware enhancements can keep up, as evidenced by significant tech milestones like the launch of iOS and ChatGPT. The primary constraints on computing growth in 2025 are power supply and chip availability, with power being the most critical factor. Major tech executives have highlighted that

Flow5 Released to Open Source

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: Hacker News

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Pixar's True Story

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: Hacker News

Former Pixar CFO Lawrence Levy highlighted the company's enduring trustworthiness in an era of technological cynicism during a talk at CHM Live on November 20, 2025. Despite its success with 29 films over 30 years, Pixar faced significant challenges in the early days, including financial difficulties and a tough relationship with founder Steve Jobs. In spring 1995, just prior to Pixar's initial public offering (IPO), Levy recognized the dire situation: Pixar was struggling without profits, Jobs was in a

Show HN: BusterMQ, Thread-per-core NATS server in Zig with io_uring

Published: 2026-01-01 | Origin: Hacker News

The content discusses a benchmark test aimed at maximizing the bandwidth capabilities of the next generation of hardware. It includes a fan-out benchmark involving 10 publishers and 100 subscribers (10 for each topic) across 10 topics, with a total of 50 million messages and a 128-byte payload. The test was conducted using an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor with 16 cores on localhost, with more benchmarks planned for the future. Additionally, it mentions that users can utilize their existing clients

2025: The Year in LLMs

Published: 2025-12-31 | Origin: Hacker News

On December 31, 2025, a summary of developments in the LLM (Large Language Model) landscape over the past year was presented as part of an annual series. The year was marked by significant advancements, notably initiated by OpenAI's introduction of the reasoning technique, also referred to as inference-scaling or Reinforcement Learning from Verifiable Rewards (RLVR), beginning in September 2024 with models like o1 and o1-mini. This approach emphasizes training LLMs to achieve

On definitions of memory safety

Published: 2025-12-31 | Origin: /r/programming

The author discusses the concept of memory safety, criticizing attempts to define it as elusive and ineffective. Rather than providing a concrete definition, they aim to highlight flaws in existing definitions. The main argument posits that memory safety is an implementation property. Many definitions fail, such as one that equates memory safety with the absence of memory-access errors, which the author deems nonsensical (e.g., Java programs can dereference null pointers). Another definition proposed by Luca Cardelli mentions that a program

The Second Great Error Model Convergence

Published: 2025-12-31 | Origin: /r/programming

The author discusses the evolution of error management in modern programming languages, highlighting a shift toward a more structured approach as described in Joe Duffy's "The Error Model." Many languages, including C++, JavaScript, Python, Java, and C#, now utilize similar error handling constructs like throw, catch, and finally. Functional languages such as Haskell and Scala also incorporate exceptions, despite mixed feelings within their communities. In contrast, newer languages like Go, Rust, Swift, and Zig adopt a different error

Writing Windows 95 software in 2025

Published: 2025-12-31 | Origin: /r/programming

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