frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Styling: Search-Text and Other Highlight-Y Pseudo-Elements

https://css-tricks.com/how-to-style-the-new-search-text-and-other-highlight-pseudo-elements/
1•blenderob•1m ago•0 comments

Crypto firm accidentally sends $40B in Bitcoin to users

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/crypto-firm-accidentally-sends-40-055054321.html
1•CommonGuy•1m ago•0 comments

Magnetic fields can change carbon diffusion in steel

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260125083427.htm
1•fanf2•2m ago•0 comments

Fantasy football that celebrates great games

https://www.silvestar.codes/articles/ultigamemate/
1•blenderob•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Animalese

https://animalese.barcoloudly.com/
1•noreplica•2m ago•0 comments

StrongDM's AI team build serious software without even looking at the code

https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/7/software-factory/
1•simonw•3m ago•0 comments

John Haugeland on the failure of micro-worlds

https://blog.plover.com/tech/gpt/micro-worlds.html
1•blenderob•3m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Velocity - Cheaper Linear Clone

https://velocity.quest
1•kevinelliott•4m ago•1 comments

Corning Invented a New Fiber-Optic Cable for AI and Landed a $6B Meta Deal [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3KLbc5DlRs
1•ksec•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: XAPIs.dev – Twitter API Alternative at 90% Lower Cost

https://xapis.dev
1•nmfccodes•6m ago•0 comments

Near-Instantly Aborting the Worst Pain Imaginable with Psychedelics

https://psychotechnology.substack.com/p/near-instantly-aborting-the-worst
1•eatitraw•12m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Nginx-defender – realtime abuse blocking for Nginx

https://github.com/Anipaleja/nginx-defender
2•anipaleja•12m ago•0 comments

The Super Sharp Blade

https://netzhansa.com/the-super-sharp-blade/
1•robin_reala•13m ago•0 comments

Smart Homes Are Terrible

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/smart-homes-technology/685867/
1•tusslewake•15m ago•0 comments

What I haven't figured out

https://macwright.com/2026/01/29/what-i-havent-figured-out
1•stevekrouse•16m ago•0 comments

KPMG pressed its auditor to pass on AI cost savings

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/02/06/kpmg-pressed-its-auditor-to-pass-on-ai-cost-savings/
1•cainxinth•16m ago•0 comments

Open-source Claude skill that optimizes Hinge profiles. Pretty well.

https://twitter.com/b1rdmania/status/2020155122181869666
2•birdmania•16m ago•1 comments

First Proof

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.05192
3•samasblack•18m ago•1 comments

I squeezed a BERT sentiment analyzer into 1GB RAM on a $5 VPS

https://mohammedeabdelaziz.github.io/articles/trendscope-market-scanner
1•mohammede•19m ago•0 comments

Kagi Translate

https://translate.kagi.com
2•microflash•20m ago•0 comments

Building Interactive C/C++ workflows in Jupyter through Clang-REPL [video]

https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/QX3RPH-building_interactive_cc_workflows_in_jupyter_throug...
1•stabbles•21m ago•0 comments

Tactical tornado is the new default

https://olano.dev/blog/tactical-tornado/
2•facundo_olano•23m ago•0 comments

Full-Circle Test-Driven Firmware Development with OpenClaw

https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/07/full-circle-test-driven-firmware-development-with-openclaw/
1•ptorrone•23m ago•0 comments

Automating Myself Out of My Job – Part 2

https://blog.dsa.club/automation-series/automating-myself-out-of-my-job-part-2/
1•funnyfoobar•23m ago•1 comments

Dependency Resolution Methods

https://nesbitt.io/2026/02/06/dependency-resolution-methods.html
1•zdw•24m ago•0 comments

Crypto firm apologises for sending Bitcoin users $40B by mistake

https://www.msn.com/en-ie/money/other/crypto-firm-apologises-for-sending-bitcoin-users-40-billion...
1•Someone•25m ago•0 comments

Show HN: iPlotCSV: CSV Data, Visualized Beautifully for Free

https://www.iplotcsv.com/demo
2•maxmoq•26m ago•0 comments

There's no such thing as "tech" (Ten years later)

https://www.anildash.com/2026/02/06/no-such-thing-as-tech/
2•headalgorithm•26m ago•0 comments

List of unproven and disproven cancer treatments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unproven_and_disproven_cancer_treatments
1•brightbeige•26m ago•0 comments

Me/CFS: The blind spot in proactive medicine (Open Letter)

https://github.com/debugmeplease/debug-ME
1•debugmeplease•27m ago•1 comments
Open in hackernews

Show HN: A Common Lisp implementation in development, supports ASDF

https://savannah.nongnu.org/p/alisp
96•andreamonaco•9mo ago
Implementation of the standard is still not complete, but breakpoints and stepping work quite well! It also has some support for watchpoints, that no implementation has.

Now it ships with ASDF and is capable of loading systems!

Let me know if you like it. Support on Patreon or Liberapay is much appreciated

Comments

WalterGR•9mo ago
> a debugger with stepping, a feature that most free CL implementations lack.

I think most free CL implementations have a stepper. Which ones do not?

andreamonaco•9mo ago
I tried stepping in various free implementations, but I couldn't really follow the source forms and execute them one by one. Also, I couldn't find much information online. Maybe your experience is different?
WalterGR•9mo ago
I haven’t used CL recently so I can’t speak from experience. But it looks like:

CMU CL, SBCL, and LispWorks have steppers.

Clozure does not. (Edit: an answer on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37754935/what-are-effici... suggests it does...)

As I understand it, those are the big 4.

Clisp, ABCL, and Allegro also appear to have steppers.

Always cool to see a new implementation, though!

klibertp•9mo ago
In most of those implementations (certainly in SBCL) it's either you break or step; you can't start stepping from a breakpoint. SBCL got some support for that this year, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43791709. It, however, doesn't allow stepping into any functions called after the break.

Also, the compilers are allowed to make the code unsteppable in some cases, depending on optimization declaration: generally, debug needs to be >=2 and > speed/compilation-speed/space. In some circumstances, you land in decompiled/macroexpanded code, which is also quite unhelpful.

Anyway, it's not that source-level stepping isn't there at all, it's just quirky and somewhat inconvenient. A fresh implementation that does comparatively little optimization and is byte-code based can probably support debuggers better. I hope such support won't go away later when the native code compiler is implemented.

WalterGR•9mo ago
Thanks!

If I recall correctly, there are macros to control the level of code optimization? And some implementations can turn it off entirely for interactive use?

Or am I off-base?

klibertp•9mo ago
> If I recall correctly, there are macros to control the level of code optimization?

Yup, you can either `(proclaim (optimize (debug 3) (speed 1)))` somewhere, which will take effect globally, or you can `(declare (optimize ...))` inside a particular function. It sounds great in theory - and it is great, in some respects - but this granularity makes it harder to ensure all interesting code is steppable when you need it.

eadmund•9mo ago
Congratulations! Always good to see another Lisp in the world.

Have you thought about writing up your experience?

andreamonaco•9mo ago
Thanks! Maybe I could do that, if I see that people are interested
andreamonaco•9mo ago
Also, my Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/andreamonaco) has behind-the-scenes posts, some even in the free tier
neonscribe•9mo ago
Do you have a goal in mind for this project?
andreamonaco•9mo ago
Ideally I'd reach ANSI compliance, first with a bytecode compiler and then with a full one
neonscribe•9mo ago
Is there some important shortcoming of all the existing Common Lisp implementations that you would like to correct?
ngcc_hk•9mo ago
Awaiting answers. Seems stepping is one.

Btw, I stick to sbcl as I used vim and so far the script here works for me. Might try this when back to do lisp.

https://susam.net/lisp-in-vim.html

andreamonaco•9mo ago
Yeah, advanced debugging features like watchpoints are very important to me
danilor•9mo ago
Hey I'm curious as why you chose nongnu to host your project instead of github/gitlab! I don't know much about it, hence my curiosity ;)
badmonster•9mo ago
+1
kazinator•9mo ago
I hosted the TXR git on nongnu first, starting at around late 2009 or early 2010 maybe?

I abandoned that when I discovered there's no control. I seem to recall having to wait like over a week for someone to enable non-fast-forward pushes. Overly strict and understaffed. I opted for self hosting.

I kept the project web page there, though.

andreamonaco•9mo ago
I don't like sites with heavy Javascript, especially if it's non-free. (Though recently I started using Github for a different project.)

Savannah is very basic, perhaps too much, but it's okay for my project.

volemo•9mo ago
Tbh, this is the first time I see nongnu.org used for something other than Emacs packages (I know that’s on me), so much so that I even thought this was a solution to substitute Emacs Lisp with Common Lisp. :O
badmonster•9mo ago
Does alisp plan to eventually support full compilation to native code, or will it mainly stay an interpreter with limited compilation?
andreamonaco•9mo ago
Yeah, the goal is first bytecode compilation and then full
valorzard•9mo ago
I would be excited to use but since it’s using GPLv3 I can’t actually use it for a lot of projects I’d want to make ;-; Is it possible to relicense to LGPL or MPL instead?
kstrauser•9mo ago
In general, people who license something as GPLv3 probably consider that a feature, not a bug.

I mentioned here recently that I released a personal project under the GPLv3. The very first issue someone filed in GitHub was to ask me to relicense it as something more business friendly. I don't think I've been so offended by an issue before. If I'm writing something for fun, I could not possibly be less interested in helping else someone monetize my work. They can play by Free Software rules, or they can write their own version for themselves and license it however they want. I don't owe them the freedom to make it un-Free.

The fact that this is hosted on a FSF-managed service indicates the author likely sees it similarly.

fc417fc802•9mo ago
I generally agree but it's worth noting that languages are a bit different. Obviously there are GPL'd compilers but those often make an explicit carveout for things like the runtime and standard library. Meanwhile in the Lisp world my impression is that most (but certainly not all) implementations are permissively licensed in part due to concerns that shipping an image file is essentially shipping the entire language implementation verbatim.
kstrauser•9mo ago
That totally makes sense and I do appreciate why that would be a problem for some users.

And yet, this is a single-user labor of love by one person hosting it on FSF’s servers. I don't know them, and this is pure conjecture, but I suspect they probably couldn't care less if that made it challenging for commercial users. There are plenty of other Lisps for them to choose from.

pjmlp•9mo ago
They can always reward the author, which mostly certainly will make a specific business friendly license for them.
kstrauser•9mo ago
Thanks for pointing that option out! Yes, I am a simple man: you can buy any software I've ever publicly released for the right price. I don't know what those prices are in advance because I've never thought of it, but if you want to give me $10M for some tool I wrote so that I can provide generational wealth to my family, drop me a line.

Of course, no one has expressed interest in doing that yet, so this is purely hypothetical.

valorzard•9mo ago
Yeah that makes sense, if it’s it’s just for fun
-__---____-ZXyw•9mo ago
Hard to believe this comment could be serious, but nonetheless, for the impartial observers, there is a healthy ecosystem of Common Lisp implementations, from "permissive" open source all the way to (expensive) commercial, proprietary ones.

https://common-lisp.net/implementations

I think a full-featured GPLv3 implementation would be very cool, personally.

whartung•9mo ago
At what point does a CL implementation need to be before it can start hoovering up the available library code from other implementations (license permitting).

How many LOOP macros does the community need, particularly when bootstrapping an implementation, as an example.

Similarly with, arguably 70-80% of the runtime. The CL spec is dominated by the large library which, ideally, should be mostly portable CL, at least I would think.

klibertp•9mo ago
You're not the first one to think so: https://github.com/robert-strandh/SICL

I'm unsure how complete it is, but it seems to cover much of the standard.

v9v•9mo ago
Here's a recently-written summary of the different libraries in SICL (including each library's purpose and status) http://metamodular.com/SICL-related-libraries/sicl-related-l...
g2963•9mo ago
a hypothetical portable layer exists, but it starts diverging once deployed, because of cleanups, refactoring, or implementation specific hacks.

LOOP is a great example, because all loop is just MIT LOOP version 829, originally cleaned up by burke. but nobody can resist deploying their personal architectural touch, so while the basic framework of loop remains identical across impelementations, there's superficial refactoring done by pretty much everyone. if you take SBCL and franz lisp as state of the art in free software and commercial respectivaly, they have equally solid improvements on original loop, that actually produce incompatible behavior in underspecified corners of spec. respective developer communities are very defensive about their incompatible behavior being the correct behavior of course. beach's SICL from sibling comment is the xkcd joke about standards "20 standards? we need a new standard the unifies them all! -- now we have 21 standards"

LOOP in this case is a very simple example, but for example CLOS was originally implemented on top of PCL, Portable CommonLoops, an interlisp system, that was massaged into being compliant CLOS over years. for example sbcl uses a ship of theseus PCL, but franz lisp did from scratch rewrite. the hypothetical portability of that layer is significantly trickier than LOOP since clos is is deeply tied to the type system, and the boundary between some hypothetical base system common lisp and its clos layer becomes complicated during system bootstrapping. but that's not all! of course clos has to be deeply tied to the compiler, the type system, all kinds of things, to provide optimizations. discovering the appropriate slicing boundary is difficult to say the least.

CleverLikeAnOx•9mo ago
What is ASDF?
alexjplant•9mo ago
No idea why you're being downvoted for asking a simple question about an acronym. From Wikipedia [1]:

> ASDF (Another System Definition Facility) is a package format and a build tool for Common Lisp libraries. It is analogous to tools such as Make and Ant.

Contemporary developers using more mainstream languages are likely more familiar with asdf [2], the "Multiple Runtime Version Manager".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_System_Definition_Faci...

[2] https://asdf-vm.com/

mikedelago•9mo ago
ASDF - another system definition facility - is the de facto standard build system for common lisp.

https://asdf.common-lisp.dev/

In common lisp, you don't need a build system at all; you can `(load "file.lisp")` everything and it should generally just work. But of course, build systems are useful tools, so nonetheless ASDF exists and it's nice enough to the degree that nobody has built a better and more widespread common lisp build system.

Some good trivial examples are in the lisp cookbook:

https://lispcookbook.github.io/cl-cookbook/systems.html

nexo-v1•9mo ago
Out of curiosity, what influenced your decision to prioritize stepping and watchpoints early? Was it driven more by debugging your own compiler code, or anticipating end-user needs
andreamonaco•9mo ago
I'd say the latter, since I felt the need for debugging tools similar to other languages like C. Watchpoints for example are entirely non-existent in current implementations, as far as I know